At Dunelm, our People & Communications function is a high‑impact, commercially focused strategic engine, turning organisational goals into people and communication plans that unlock performance, engagement and long‑term success, with colleagues and customers at the heart.
We work collaboratively to shape the conditions for Dunelm to thrive — attracting and developing exceptional talent, strengthening leadership capability, building future skills and fostering a culture where every colleague can do their best work.
Our work is varied and meaningful: partnering with business teams on effective structures, driving high performance through our talent, performance and reward approaches, and anticipating future workforce needs. We combine business data and insight with external best practice to create fair, modern people policies and practices, champion wellbeing and inclusion, and align colleagues around our shared values.
Role Overview
The ER Partner provides expert employee relations partnering to allocated business areas (Central Support functions), helping leaders manage people matters fairly, consistently and in line with employment law and company policy.
Acting as a trusted advisor, the role supports leaders and People Partners with complex employee relations matters, builds management capability and accountability, creating confidence and reducing dependency on People Support and helping create positive colleague outcomes.
Working within the employee relations framework established by the ER Specialist, the ER Partner identifies and manages people risks, supports organisational change activity and uses insight to improve business performance and colleague experience.
The role is accountable for the effective delivery of employee relations support within its business areas, escalating high-risk, legally complex or precedent-setting matters where appropriate.
Partnering
- Act as the primary employee relations partner for allocated business areas, providing timely, pragmatic and commercially focused advice to leaders and People Partners.
- Partner closely with People Partners to identify and manage people risks, provide specialist ER expertise and ensure commercially balanced people decisions.
- Support managers in the effective handling of employee relations matters, including conduct, capability, grievance, absence and performance cases.
- Ensure people decisions are fair, consistent, legally compliant and aligned to company policy.
Leadership Capability
- Coach and develop leaders to build confidence and capability in managing people matters effectively and independently.
- Support the design and delivery of employee relations training, guidance and resources to improve management capability and consistency.
- Develop and maintain ER guidance, toolkits, manager resources and supporting materials to enable consistent and effective people management.
Risk Management
- Identify and manage employee relations risks within allocated business areas, providing advice and challenge to support effective decision-making.
- Escalate matters that are high-risk, legally complex, precedent-setting or have significant colleague, financial or reputational impact.
- Manage employee relations matters within agreed authority levels, escalating significant legal, reputational, financial or precedent-setting risks to the ER Specialist.
- Provide specialist support and oversight on employment tribunal and litigation matters, ensuring risks, deadlines and case preparation activities are effectively managed and escalated where appropriate.
Organisational Change
- Support organisational change activity including restructures, consultation exercises, contractual change and TUPE activity.
- Lead lower-risk change programmes and partner with the ER Specialist on more complex or sensitive activity.
Insight and Continuous Improvement
- Use employee relations and people data to identify trends, risks and opportunities, recommending actions that improve colleague and business outcomes.
- Maintain oversight of ER case governance, ensuring case documentation, records and actions are accurately maintained and compliant with policy and legal requirements.
- Drive and contribute to the continuous improvement of employee relations policy and processes, tools, data quality and ways of working.
- Strong employee relations expertise, with the ability to guide and oversee complex cases and ensure robust, compliant outcomes.
- In-depth knowledge of employment law and confidence applying this in a commercial, pragmatic way
- Ability to identify, assess and mitigate people related risk.
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the confidence to challenge and hold leaders to account.
- Coaching capability, with the ability to build manager confidence, accountability and effectiveness in handling people matters.
- Analytical thinking, with the ability to use data and insight to identify risks and drive action that improves performance
- Strong attention to detail and governance, ensuring accuracy and compliance.
- Strong prioritisation, planning and organisational skills, with the ability to manage competing demands and adapt to changing business priorities.
- Ability to adapt communication, influencing style and approach to suit different stakeholder groups, business contexts and operational environments.
Desirable Skills
- Experience managing complex employee relations issues.
- Experience supporting organisational change
- Ability to challenge and shape thinking at a senior level, bringing confidence to push.
- Experience in building scalable, simple solutions in complex or fast-paced environments
- Curiosity and drive to continuously improve people practices, rather than maintain existing approaches.
