Department: People Support / HR Shared Services
Reports to: Head of HR Services
Location: Hybrid, with regular presence in Birmingham and sometimes London, with occasional travel to India as and when required
The People Support Operations Manager is responsible for the operational effectiveness, quality and performance of the People Support HR Shared Services function. The role ensures consistent, high-quality delivery of core people services, manages operational risk, drives service improvement, and supports the simplification, standardisation and digital enablement of HR processes to improve colleague and manager experience.
- Lead the day-to-day delivery of People Support, ensuring work is managed and prioritised effectively and standards are consistently achieved.
- Oversee workflows, escalations, risk, quality and operational performance across HRSS activity, ensuring a best-in-class service to the business.
- Ensure processes are delivered in line with employment legislation, internal policy, standard operating procedures and service level expectations.
- Lead, motivate and develop colleagues within a high-volume, fast-paced service environment.
- Build team capability through coaching, feedback, training and development.
- Foster an inclusive, collaborative and continuously improving team culture, with a strong focus on colleague engagement and wellbeing.
- Identify and deliver opportunities to simplify, standardise and improve HRSS processes, reducing complexity and improving user experience.
- Drive the use of technology and automation, including agentic AI where appropriate, to improve efficiency and service experience.
- Support wider transformation initiatives across People Support and the broader HR function.
- Work closely with HR leaders, centres of excellence, operational leaders and delivery partners to ensure services meet business needs and risks are managed effectively.
- Act as a trusted operational lead for complex issues, escalations and cross-functional service challenges.
- Maintain effective feedback loops with stakeholders to continuously refine services, improve colleague experience and strengthen operational delivery.
- Demonstrates strong commercial awareness in managing third-party service providers, ensuring contracts deliver value for money through effective oversight of SLAs, performance, cost, and risk, while maintaining a collaborative relationship that drives service quality and continuous improvement.
- Use MI, service data and operational trends to monitor performance, identify issues, support decision-making and prioritise improvement activity.
- Support audit, compliance and governance activity, ensuring documentation, controls and process adherence are robust and up to date.
- Ensure appropriate operational resilience, risk management and continuity planning are in place across People Support.
- Strong experience in HR operations or a comparable people services environment.
- Good understanding of UK employment legislation, HR policy application and operational risk in a complex organisation.
- Experience of leading teams and delivering services in a fast-paced, high-volume environment.
- Experience of process improvement, digital enablement or automation within people operations.
- Experience of working with multiple stakeholders, including senior leaders and delivery partners.
- Strong operational leadership and decision-making capability.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
- Strong analytical thinking and ability to use data to diagnose problems and drive action.
- Ability to manage competing priorities, work at pace and maintain quality under pressure.
- Commercial, pragmatic and customer-focused approach to service delivery.
- Commitment to continuous improvement, collaboration, inclusion and high professional standards.
- Consistent achievement of service levels, quality standards and operational KPIs.
- Improved colleague and manager experience across HRSS.
- Reduced process friction, greater standardisation and increased use of digital solutions.
- Strong team capability, engagement and accountability.
- Effective management of operational risk, compliance and service continuity.
