Lead People Partner

Location

Based in our London office, with regular travel to other Ridge offices as required.

About the role

Reporting to the Head of People, the Lead People Partner plays a critical role in shaping and delivering Ridge People Strategy, ensuring our people agenda directly supports business performance, growth and long-term sustainability.

This role combines people partnering responsibility for the London region with leadership of the people partnering function. You will act as a strategic partner and trusted advisor to senior leaders in London, shaping people priorities that enable performance, support growth and create a compelling employee experience aligned to people strategy and values.

Alongside your regional partnering role, you will lead the people partnering function across the business, providing direction, coaching and oversight to a team of People Partners, People Advisors and People Coordinators. You will ensure consistency, quality and impact across people partnering and advisory activity, while allowing flexibility to meet regional needs.

This is a senior, high-impact generalist role, requiring strong commercial judgement, the ability to operate confidently in ambiguity, and the credibility to influence at the most senior levels of the organisation. You will balance strategic leadership with hands-on delivery, setting the tone for how people partnering is experienced across Ridge.

What you need to do to be effective in this role as Lead People Partner

Strategic People Partnering (London region)

• Act as the People Partner for the region, building strong, trusted relationships with senior leaders and acting as a sounding board, coach and advisor, while building confident, accountable leadership capability.
• Own the people outcomes for the region, shaping priorities that enable performance, support growth and strengthen the employee experience.
• Set the strategic direction for core people practices across the region, including workforce planning, performance, reward, progression, talent management and engagement, ensuring consistent, high-quality delivery. 
• Lead and support change and transformation activity within the region, setting direction, managing impact and supporting leaders to navigate complexity and ambiguity.
• Own the people outcomes of acquisitions and TUPE transfers within the region, ensuring risks are anticipated, leaders are aligned and integration delivers a positive, sustainable experience for individuals.

Leadership of the People Advisory team

• Set direction, standards and ways of working across People Partners and the wider People Advisory team to ensure consistent, high-quality and commercially focused delivery.
• Drive a high-performing function, developing capability through coaching, feedback and role modelling, and creating an environment where the team can do their best work at pace, sustainably and with impact.
• Oversee delivery of key people programmes, cyclical processes and strategic initiatives, ensuring key projects and priorities aligned to the People Strategy are effectively scoped, owned and delivered through the team.
• Take ownership of people data, insight and feedback as the primary basis for decision-making, using it to anticipate trends, manage risk and continuously improve people practice and experience.
• Work closely with the ER & Integration Lead, ensuring employee relations activity is well governed, with clear ownership, appropriate escalation and a strong focus on early intervention, consistency and risk management.
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex or high-risk cases where required, ensuring fair, proportionate and timely outcomes and enabling the ER & Integration Lead and People Partners in building confidence and capability across the team.
• Work collaboratively with the wider People leadership team to shape, prioritise and deliver the People Strategy across the business.

The skills and experience you need to have for this role

Relationships and judgement are central to this role. We’re looking for someone who can operate comfortably at senior level, lead through others, and translate people insight into meaningful commercial impact. Experience within the built environment, professional services or a similarly complex, project-based sector would be advantageous.

You will ideally be CIPD qualified (Level 7 or equivalent), with the following skills and experience essential:

• Significant experience operating as a senior People / HR Business Partner in a complex, fast-paced, multi-stakeholder environment.
• Proven experience leading and developing People or HR teams, with the ability to set direction and build capability through others.
• Strong analytical and digital capability, with experience owning and embedding data-led decision-making, using people insight to influence strategy, manage risk and drive improvement.
• Strong track record of supporting organisational change and transformation, including restructures, M&A and TUPE.
• Excellent commercial judgement, with the ability to balance strategic thinking, risk management and pragmatic delivery.
• Sound employee relations and employment law knowledge, with experience handling complex and sensitive issues appropriately.
• High credibility with senior leaders, with the confidence to influence, challenge and coach constructively.
• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguity, taking ownership, setting direction and maintaining momentum in evolving situations.
• Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills, with the ability to influence across multiple levels and stakeholder groups.
• A collaborative, inclusive leadership style, with a strong sense of accountability and ownership.
• Resilience, judgement and common sense, with the ability to prioritise what matters most and simplify where possible.