Head of People, UK & Ireland

Location: This role is offered on a hybrid basis, which involves a combination of working from our Corby office a minimum of 3 days per week, and also remotely.  The workforce this role supports are based across various sites including warehouse and office sites in Corby, Hull, Dublin and our RS Local branches across the market, so occasional travel to other sites will be required. 

We are seeking an experienced strategic Head of People, UK & Ireland. This is a key, senior role in the UK&I business leadership team with revenue just below £700m. You will be responsible for partnering with business leaders to drive the people strategy, aligning it with the broader EMEA goals. You will lead key people initiatives for a headcount of approximately 650 FTE, including organisational design, talent management, and change projects, while ensuring a high-performance, inclusive culture. In addition, you will work closely with cross-functional teams to support and deliver people-related programmes that drive business growth and operational excellence across the region. 

What you will be doing: 

• Lead the development and execution of people strategies aligned with the UKI business and EMEA goals, contributing to growth, profitability, and operational excellence, drawing from your strong commercial acumen and understanding of business drivers. 
• Partner with senior leadership teams to drive business objectives and offer strategic HR support through coaching, consulting and challenge, leveraging your experience in influencing and coaching senior leaders. 
• Use people data proactively to provide insights that drive business decisions and foster a high-performance, inclusive culture, applying your strong analytical skills to identify trends and develop actionable recommendations. 
• Lead and manage people-related change projects, including organisational design, restructures, and M&A activity within the UKI business, using your expertise in managing large-scale and complex change, while addressing resistance effectively. 
• Define and implement the talent strategy for UKI, ensuring alignment with the business strategy and fostering diverse and inclusive hiring practices, and working closely with global teams to ensure best practices are applied. 
• Collaborate with the EMEA HR leadership team to drive people initiatives, ensuring consistency in service delivery across regions and driving continuous improvement in people tools and processes, while working in a global, complex matrix environment. 

About you: 

• Proven and substantial experience in a senior HR business partnering role, with a track record of influencing business strategy and delivering people-focused solutions across global business areas, demonstrating your ability to think commercially and drive commercial success. 
• Expertise in workforce planning, talent management, and organisational design, with the ability to manage change in a fast-paced, multi-cultural environment, including leading restructures and large-scale transformation projects. 
• Strong coaching and advisory skills, able to build trusted relationships and influence senior leaders to drive performance and development in line with business goals. 
• Experience in using people data to develop insights and support a data-driven approach to business strategy and decision-making. 
• Demonstrated success in fostering a diverse, high-performing culture through the execution of aligned People strategies, including talent management and employee engagement initiatives.  
• A highly collaborative, results-driven individual with the ability to work in a matrixed global environment, using networking and negotiation skills to align cross-functional teams toward common goals. 

The extras you’ll get: 

At RS, as well as the usual employee benefits, you’d expect from a FTSE listed company, including an annual performance bonus, private healthcare, and generous holiday, in the UK, we’ve just introduced several new Family Friendly Policies including:  
  

Help for people to take control of ongoing Health conditions such as diabetes or asthma with £500 a year available for monitoring & consultation.  

Support for Neurodiverse colleagues and families with neurodiverse members with needs assessment, diagnosis and post-diagnostic support for autism spectrum, ADHD and Tourette’s syndrome.  

Support for Women at different life stages from streamlined fertility support to diagnosis and monitoring of both endometriosis and menopause.  

Helping our LGBTQ+ community through enhanced coverage for trans colleagues, including voice coaching, facial surgery and gender confirmation surgery.  

We are RS Group: 

RS is a global solutions partner for industrial customers and suppliers. Our business has operations in three geographical regions – the Americas, EMEA and APAC, supported by global organisations for supply chain, corporate functions, marketing, and product & supplier management. 

Our market today is large, fragmented, local in nature and digitally immature. Only a few international distributors serve it, with many regional and local providers, who largely trade offline. We stock over 2,500 supplier brands, 500k products and 61% of our sales are digital. 

We are committed to Making Amazing Happen for a better world and our Vision is to become first choice for customer, suppliers, our people, and communities. 

RS is committed to creating an inclusive environment where people thrive. We recognise that a diverse and representative workforce is critical to our success, and our aim is to create a business where people can be their true selves. Our employees expect this as a matter of course and it is fundamental to how we attract, develop, and retain the best talent. 

In line with our D&I policy, we recruit and develop employees who are the best suited to the requirements of the job role, regardless of gender, ethnic origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. 

Are you ready to explore the possibilities? 

#LI-HYBRID 

#LI-LB1