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HR Policy & Process Lead 12m FTC

🔍 Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

New

📁: Business Services

📅   : 25000058 Requisition #

📅   : Feb 26, 2025 Post Date

CMS are looking for an experienced and enthusiastic HR Policy and Process Lead to join our growing ER & Policy team. This role is offered on a hybrid working basis

About us

CMS is a Future Facing firm with more than 80 offices in over 45 countries and 5,800+ lawyers worldwide. We combine deep local market understanding with a global perspective. We are passionate about building strong relationships with our clients, our people, and the communities we work in.

We take a bold, dynamic, and agile approach to ensure our clients are able to face the future with confidence. We are driven by emerging technologies such as generative AI and readily embrace the possibilities it opens up for developing new and better ways of working. Our aim is to inspire, impact and support our clients and our people, helping them to maximize their potential and thrive.

About the role

This is a key role responsible for overseeing our HR policy framework in the UK and internationally, ensuring policies are current, legally compliant, and well-communicated and operate effectively day to day. This role supports cultural change and enhances interactions with HR policies and processes, significantly improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our HR function, and the employee experience.
This will be a varied and interesting role within a very supportive team. With significant developments expected in employment law in the UK, and offices across the UK, Middle East, Asia and Central Eastern Europe, there is an opportunity to get involved in a broad range of work and develop our colleague proposition.
This role can be based in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol, or Sheffield and will be a combination of home and office based, with some travel between offices in line with business demand

In this role, you can expect to get involved in a variety of work including:

• Maintaining governance of the UK and international HR policy framework, coordinating policy reviews, and maintaining the HR policy tracker.

• Identify and address gaps in policies and working with the wider HR function to develop and update new policies and associated collateral as needed.

• Conducting research to ensure policies are market leading, compliant and up to date, and ensuring consistency in tone and content across the function.

• Maintain governance and oversight of the knowledge base on Workday, including updates to content such as policies and related articles.

• Develop and contribute to policy communications, supporting cultural change in how employees and managers interact with policies.

• Act as the subject matter expert (SME) for processes, working closely with the HR programme and operations teams to align policies, processes, and technology.

• Focus on optimising the use of technology to support access to, and the understanding and application of HR Policy.

• Ensure that processes supporting policies are accurately captured at the design/requirements stage and collaborate with other HR Teams the implementation partner to embed policies within processes, increasing visibility at the point of transaction and maintaining a focus on a positive the employee experience.

• Own and manage a local project plan that feeds into broader programme and COE plans, and lead or support on HR ER related projects, as appropriate.

• Project manage the effective identification, design, integration and launch of new and existing policy changes.

About you

We will invest in your ongoing training and development to support your professional goals and help you to thrive in your role from day one. Our opportunities are open to all suitably qualified applicants, so to be considered for this role, you must meet the following skills and experience:

• Proven experience in employment policy development and process management.

• Strong understanding of HR systems, particularly Workday.

• Excellent communication, collaboration and stakeholder management skills.

• Ability to prioritise across multiple activities, influence, and work across HR teams.

• Experience in leading and driving people-related or change projects.

• Proactive, organised, able to meet tight deadlines with attention to detail and remain calm.

What’s in it for you?

We want to reward you today and help you plan for tomorrow. We appreciate that everyone is different, therefore we have designed a benefits system that offers choice and flexibility based on individual needs and lifestyles. To name a few, these include:

• Competitive basic salary (reviewed annually)
• Flexible, hybrid working policy
• Generous bonus scheme
• Up to 25 days holiday (rising to 28 days with service)
• Holiday exchange scheme
• Private medical insurance
• Enhanced parental leave
• Reasonable adjustments and accommodation for disabled talent in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.

If you would like to read more information regarding our range of benefits, please visit our Rewards & Benefits page on our website.

Equal opportunities

At CMS, we place diversity and inclusion at the centre of our culture and the heart of our organisation. As a firm we recognise, celebrate, and embrace the diverse talent our society has to offer because we know that to solve big problems, we need the best and brightest minds available to us. In support of this goal, we commit to actively breaking down barriers which stand in the way of those from diverse backgrounds and play our part in levelling the playing field.

As a Future Facing Firm, we strongly believe that a career in law should be open to people from all walks of life, because not only does diversity of thought and experience make our firm a stronger and more sustainable business, but it also makes it a more rewarding place to work.

When recruiting, we prioritise attracting talented people and we actively promote a flexible working environment which enables all our team members to thrive. If you see a role you are interested in, but don’t feel you meet 100% of the criteria we encourage you to still consider making an application. We also welcome applications from those who may be looking to return to the workforce after a career break.

We are proud to say our leadership in creating an inclusive working culture has been celebrated and recognised externally, including being listed for a number of years in the Times Top 50 Employers for Women and the Social Mobility Index.

We are a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer, and we actively encourage applications from people with disabilities, whether visible or invisible. We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity throughout our recruitment process and in every element of the employee life cycle. If you require assistance, or if you would like to discuss any accessibility requirements or adjustments as part of the recruitment process, please contact Becky Lowe at TalentAcquisition@cms-cmno.com who will be happy to support you.