Job Description

Job Title: Junior People Partner (12 month fixed term contract)

Location: Durrington (Hybrid Working)

Salary: up to £40k.

Are you a passionate HR professional looking to make a real impact in a dynamic, fast-paced environment? Join us as a People Partner and play a key role in driving transformational change across the business. This is your chance to collaborate with senior leadership teams and make a lasting difference by shaping our people strategy and culture.

Job Overview

In this pivotal role, you'll be the essential bridge between the business and HR, working alongside senior management teams to drive positive change. You'll bring your expertise and coaching to the table, ensuring that people decisions are aligned with business goals, and you'll lead on key business transformation initiatives. The opportunity to influence at the highest level and partner with various centres of excellence makes this an exciting and high-impact position!

Responsibilities will include:

* Collaborate with managers across the business to implement the People Plan, ensuring alignment with overall business strategy.

* Lead and support organisational design and restructuring programmes, providing strategic input to drive change.

* Support strategic change initiatives, communicate effectively with stakeholders, and manage key relationships including Employee Voice reps and Unison.

* Champion employee engagement by supporting line managers with proactive initiatives to inspire and motivate teams.

* Provide guidance and support on complex employee relations cases.

* Partner with Talent and Development teams to cultivate a performance-driven culture, through succession planning, talent reviews, and development initiatives.

* Work with the Reward team to advise on job evaluations, benchmarking, and to support the business' reward strategy.

* Constantly evaluate and implement innovative ideas to improve ways of working, ensuring the HR function evolves to meet the needs of the business.

About You

You will have a strong background in employee relations and bring exceptional organisational skills, with a keen eye for detail and the ability to manage multiple priorities at once. You’ll communicate with calm confidence and engage others effectively, integrating diverse considerations into projects with ease. You’ll build strong relationships at all levels, including with senior leaders, earning trust and influencing decisions along the way. With empathy and resilience, you’ll remain grounded under pressure and tackle challenges head-on. Your excellent communication, planning, and interpersonal skills will be driven by a focus on authenticity and trust in everything you do.

Package

This role will be full time Monday to Friday 37 hours a week, this is a fixed term contract.

Southern Water operate a hybrid approach to working between our Durrington office and home.

We are offering a salary of up to £40,000 per annum depending on skills and experience as well as other benefits including:

• Company and performance-related bonus

• Generous pension up to 11% company contribution

• 25 days annual leave

• Life assurance equal to 4x salary

• Salary sacrifice electric car scheme (after 6 months service)

• Health Cash Plan

• Full funded eye tests

• Two paid volunteering days a year

• Occupational health service

• Discounts with over 800 popular retailers

• Digital GP service

• Study support may be available for job-related qualifications

• Competitive maternity leave and flexible return to work options

• Cycle to work schem

Does this opportunity excite you but you’re not 100% sure if you meet all the requirements for the role? Or are you concerned that ‘normal’ office hours aren’t possible given your personal circumstances? Whilst we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we’ll try to find a practical solution. So why not engage with us and find out more about this role?

Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, because delivering water for life is our core purpose. To achieve this, we need 24/7 support in place to resolve incidents quickly and efficiently. All our employees understand the importance of out-of-hours incident support – because when problems appear, fixing them is our top priority. That’s why our people join together and support when and however needed to make sure our customers get the service they deserve. Joining the Southern Water family means you’ll become part of our incident support team. During your interview, your manager will speak to you about any incident support rotas that apply to your position.

Privacy Statement:

Please note: If you are an existing Southern Water employee, you will need to confirm within your application that your Manager is aware of your application.

All applicants must be eligible to live and work in the UK. You will need to provide evidence of eligibility (e.g. a passport or long birth certificate and proof of NI) and current proof of address (dated within the last 3 months), will be required as part of the recruitment process. If you do not meet these criteria, your application will not be considered