HR Manager – Head Office, Harrogate
Are you an experienced HR professional who can bring a team together, strengthen employee relations practice and build a responsive, values-led recruitment service?
Avalon Group is an award-winning, not-for-profit adult social care provider working across the North of England. Since 1994, we have supported adults to live independently, safely and with purpose in their local communities.
We provide Supported Living, Community Support and Shared Lives services to adults with a wide range of needs, including learning disabilities, autism, physical and sensory disabilities, mental health conditions and acquired brain injuries.
Our vision is that the people we support will achieve their best life experience. Everything we do is guided by our values:
- We are kind and respectful to everyone
- We are honest and trustworthy
- We are always learning and developing
- We are inclusive and ensure everyone has a voice
- We work in partnership with our communities
The opportunity
This is a pivotal, hands-on leadership role at an important stage in the development of our HR function.
As our HR Manager, you will bring the HR and recruitment team together around clear priorities, consistent ways of working and excellent service standards. You will ensure candidates move efficiently from application and offer through pre-employment checks and into employment, with accurate documentation, clear communication and effective handovers throughout.
Your immediate priorities will be to:
- Build a cohesive, confident and accountable HR team
- Strengthen the quality and consistency of employee relations case management
- Develop a responsive and effective recruitment and onboarding service
- Improve the accuracy and speed of pre-employment checks and starter processes
- Ensure new employees are prepared, informed and welcomed from day one
- Clarify responsibilities, workflows and escalation routes
- Build manager confidence and capability
- Improve HR processes, systems, data and management information
Key responsibilities
HR team leadership
- Provide visible and supportive day-to-day leadership to the HR and recruitment team
- Set clear priorities, responsibilities and service expectations
- Introduce effective team meetings, case reviews, recruitment reviews and workload planning
- Coach and develop team members, building confidence, capability and ownership
- Monitor workloads, capacity, service performance and emerging risks
- Create an accessible, consistent and respected HR service
Employee relations
- Lead and quality-assure complex or high-risk employee relations cases
- Advise on disciplinary, grievance, capability, absence, probation, organisational change and redundancy matters
- Ensure investigations, hearings, consultations, decisions and correspondence are fair, thorough and well documented
- Provide pragmatic, evidence-based advice that balances legal risk, operational needs and employee experience
- Identify trends and root causes from casework and translate these into preventative action
- Coach managers to take appropriate ownership of people matters
Recruitment and resourcing
- Lead an inclusive, values-led and responsive end-to-end recruitment and onboarding service
- Work with operational leaders to understand vacancies, workforce risks and future demand
- Improve the experience of candidates and hiring managers from vacancy approval through to successful onboarding
- Strengthen attraction strategies and candidate pipelines for priority and hard-to-fill roles
- Ensure identity, right-to-work, reference, DBS, employment-history and other required checks are completed accurately and promptly
- Remove avoidable delays while ensuring no new employee starts before all required approvals and checks are complete
- Ensure contracts, starter documentation, payroll details and HR-system information are accurate and completed within agreed timescales
- Create clear and effective handovers between HR, recruiting managers, payroll, learning and operational teams
- Ensure managers are prepared for each new starter and that induction, mandatory training, equipment and local arrangements are in place
- Create a consistent and welcoming onboarding experience that introduces new colleagues to Avalon’s purpose, values, expectations and ways of working
- Monitor upcoming start dates and onboarding progress, escalating delays and compliance risks at an early stage
- Use recruitment and onboarding data to monitor time to hire, time to start, candidate conversion and withdrawal, compliance, onboarding completion and early retention
Governance and improvement
- Maintain practical, legally compliant and user-friendly HR policies and procedures
- Support compliance with employment law, data protection, safer recruitment requirements and relevant CQC workforce expectations
- Improve HR systems, workflows, controls and data quality
- Provide clear people reporting and insight, highlighting trends, risks and required action
- Contribute to engagement, retention, workforce planning and organisational change
- Champion equality, diversity, inclusion, wellbeing and employee voice
What we’re looking for
You will have:
- Substantial generalist HR experience, including complex employee relations casework
- Experience leading, coordinating or developing an HR, people or recruitment team
- Strong working knowledge of UK employment law and contemporary HR practice
- Experience improving recruitment, onboarding, workforce resourcing or candidate experience
- A strong understanding of the importance of accurate, compliant and timely onboarding
- The confidence to coach, influence and constructively challenge managers
- Strong organisational skills and the ability to balance urgent operational needs with longer-term improvement
- The ability to use HR data to identify trends, prioritise work and measure progress
- CIPD Level 5 or above, or equivalent professional knowledge and experience
Experience within adult social care, health, supported housing, the charity sector or another regulated, multi-site environment would be an advantage. Knowledge of safer recruitment, DBS requirements and CQC workforce expectations would also be beneficial.
Your approach
We are looking for someone who is:
- A unifying and visible leader
- Calm, credible and resilient
- Kind, approachable and inclusive
- Comfortable providing constructive challenge
- Commercially aware and risk-conscious
- Highly organised and responsive
- Committed to learning and continuous improvement
- Able to keep the human impact of decisions firmly in view
Working arrangements
Because a central purpose of this role is to bring the team together and establish effective ways of working, you will be largely based at our Harrogate office during the initial phase.
Your visible presence will support relationship-building, day-to-day leadership, knowledge-sharing and service improvement. Once the team is established, functioning effectively and business needs allow, home-working flexibility will be available by agreement.
Some travel to Avalon services and other locations may be required.
We offer an attractive package for the right candidate, which includes up to 30 days paid holiday entitlement, health cash plan, defined contribution pension scheme, on-site parking, agile working options and access to our employee discounts scheme with 24/7 employee assistance helpline.
How to apply
If you are excited by the opportunity to bring people, practice and purpose together, we would love to hear from you.
Avalon Group is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and welcomes applications from people with different backgrounds, identities, experiences and perspectives. Reasonable adjustments are available throughout the recruitment process.
Due to the terms of our sponsorship licence, we are currently not able to accept applications from those requiring sponsorship. Please only apply if you are already a resident in the UK with no sponsorship requirements.
Appointment will be subject to an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Certificate.
Closing Date for application: 22 September 2026. We reserve the right to close the vacancy early if we receive sufficient suitable applications, so early applications are encouraged.
Please note: We are managing this recruitment directly. We will not accept applications, candidate introductions or speculative approaches from recruitment agencies. Any unsolicited CVs submitted by an agency will be treated as a free gift, and Avalon Group will have no obligation to pay an introduction, placement or other fee.
For more information please contact Lisette Robinson, Director of Finance and Corporate Services on 01423 652680.
Click HERE for the Role Profile.
