Customer Advisor

Who are we?
Thames Water is the UK's largest water and wastewater company. We make a daily difference to our 15 million customers by supplying 2.6 billion litres of water through 32,000 km's of pipes, to keep taps flowing and toilets flushing. We are an essential service and have operated throughout the Covid19 pandemic.

At Thames Water, every one of our actions, big and small, matters every day. Water is essential to daily life, and that means our business is always open.

What you will be doing
As the HR Team Leader (Onboarding & Organisational Management) you will be responsible for leading a team that provide a remote front-line service to employees, including business managers and HR leads, on all onboarding and organisational structure matters. This role requires someone to have significant Right to Work experience and experience of leading an operational HR team. The role holder must be confident, customer focused and have strong knowledge of People processes, compliance, policies, and systems.

You will be involved in the following areas:
HR Policy, Process and System Queries

• Leading the team to provide a professional front-line onboarding advisory service that supports employees and managers with People policy, process, and system queries, aiming to resolve as many at first point of contact as possible
• Ensuring that the team has documented and up to date knowledge of processes, and are able to articulate policies and procedures to a wide-ranging customer base
• Responding to queries received through a variety of channels, such as the phone line and the case management system, driving successful resolution on behalf of the customer
• Ensuring that team processes and procedures are fully up to date and are followed by all team members, achieving accuracy and compliance
• Responsible for the generation of accurate and professional employee documentation and communication
• Participating in the People Services escalation process, effectively communicating with relevant stakeholders and resolving issues in a timely manner

Case management

• Responsible for the administration of all onboarding and organisational structure processes
• Developing and working within a case management system, using reporting and dashboards to provide insight and improve performance
• Leading, coaching and training the team to ensure the timely management and successful conclusion of cases in line with legal requirements, whilst achieving high levels of customer satisfaction
• Ensuring case management records are clear, concise and in line with GDPR

Team Performance

• Maintaining up to date HR knowledge across the team via internal and external sources, to identify best practice/employment law relevant to Thames Water
• Monitoring quality and performance of the team, identifying and addressing development areas via SMART objectives, 1-1s and coaching conversations. Encouraging the Co-ordinators take responsibility for themselves and their workload, whilst also providing support
• Ensuring achievement of team SLAs and escalation of matters to the HR & Learning Admin Manager where issues arise
• Working in collaboration as part of the People Services team to deliver the function's objectives and provide recommendations for HR policy and process improvements
• Maintaining positive relationships with the wider business functions including HR Business Partners, Resourcing, Occupational Health, and Data Protection teams

Additional duties:

• Deputising for and assisting the People Services Manager with activities as required
• Undertaking ad-hoc reporting and providing project support as required

To be successful you will have the following skills and experience:

• Experience of managing an operational People advisory and administration team, and of driving high performance and engagement
• Customer focussed, with a detailed knowledge of HR policies and procedures, including 'Right to Work' and IR35
• Experience of SAP HCM and ServiceNow preferrable
• Highly organised and responsive, with an ability to deal with a high volume of queries each day whilst prioritising work to meet tight deadlines
• Confident and tenacious, taking ownership of issues to resolution in a timely manner
• Experience of managing challenging stakeholders
• Resilient and able to be flexible to change in demands, whilst remaining approachable
• Trustworthy, with ability to maintain confidentiality
• Excellent communication skills, able to adapt and build rapport/provide advice to all levels
• Able to be a positive ambassador for the People Team, representing your role and function positively and professionally at all times
• An active listener who is naturally inquisitive and able coach people to reach a solution
• Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues across the business, leading and/or providing a SME service on ad hoc projects
• CIPD qualification desirable

What's in it for you?
Our competitive salary & package includes an excellent contributory pension, 26 days holiday per year increasing to 30 with the length of service and a wider benefits scheme.

We're proud of the positive ways of working we have adopted during the pandemic. We want to create a more flexible and dynamic environment so all our colleagues can thrive. For our office-based roles we are moving to a hybrid approach where we will provide options around working from our offices, our operational sites and home dependent on role/team/individual. This will be discussed during the assessment process.

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding and diverse place to work. If you join our team, you'll enjoy fast-tracked career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and unparalleled benefits. We're also proud to be an equal opportunity employer, Stonewall Diversity Champion and Disability Confident Leader and we are a Times Top 50 Employer for Women.

You can find out more in our working for us section of our website.