People Director /Strategic People Partner

Job Type:

Fixed Term

Build a brilliant future with Hiscox

This role has a dual reporting line into Kate Markham the, London Market CEO and Nicola Grant, the Chief People Officer and is a certified role under SMCR.

You will need to be in London c.3 days a week and this role is for a 12 month fixed term maternity cover period.

The role

The People Director is the strategic people partner for London Market reporting directly into the London Market CEO with a dotted line to the Chief People Officer. The day to day focus of the role is close partnership with Kate Markham, CEO of London Market to help drive the overall business agenda, whilst being responsible for leading the people components of this.

They will be recognised for their commerciality and future focus, as well as their ability to contribute to a forward thinking People leadership team which will drive the overall People strategy for Hiscox. They will be proactive and have strong business acumen, actively contributing to the BU leadership team and hence the broad business agenda, beyond their People expertise.

There is an ambitious change agenda across the company. Front and centre of this is ensuring Hiscox has the right talent, leadership, future skills and business model to be market leading. In London Market, our ambition is to sustainably double our business, whilst being recognised as a true market leader, both in terms of our ability to underwrite and provide solutions to the complex and emerging risks which come to London, as well as a leader in digital and data.

They will work closely with CoEs (Reward and Performance, Careers and Experience, People Operations) to deliver activity in line with the Group priorities. They will sit on the People Leadership team as well as the BU Leadership team and will be expected to contribute to the Group Hiscox People Strategy.

Key responsibilities/deliverables

• Lead the development of an effective people strategy that is aligned to the business priorities and linked to the Global People Strategy
• Partner with the London Market CEO on all people matters, providing short and / or longer-term interventions as necessary
• Develop trusted partnerships with the BU’s leadership team, provide challenge, guidance, coaching and advice; enhancing the leadership team effectiveness
• Deliver strategic workforce planning and skills development, specifically around accountable leadership as well as change, transformation, data and digital skills
• Partner with the BU Leadership team to positively impact employee engagement and retention, encouraging two way communication and a culture of speaking up
• Actively promote a culture of DEI to create an environment where everyone can perform at their best
• Work as part of a global People leadership team, contributing to and delivering against the wider agenda, whilst also representing the BU
• Work collaboratively with CoEs. Be the custodian of talent management, succession planning, strategic reward and recognition. Utilise workforce data and analytics to deliver insights and challenge the status quo
• Ensure the People function is an integral part of the BU and highly respected by all its stakeholders
• Provide inspirational leadership to the People team, ensuring that the team is equipped with the necessary functional and commercial skills to deliver on the BU strategy
• Be a visible and active member of the People leadership team, leading or supporting global initiatives to ensure consistency on policies and procedures
• Stay abreast of the wider Lloyd’s agenda and ensure the syndicate is set up to exceed cultural and behavioural expectations
• Contribute to and attend HSL and HIG Board meetings, as required

Ideal experience

Global/matrix – experience of partnering with global client groups and or working in a matrix environment and leading teams in these complex environments

Remuneration – credible managing remuneration conversations with the business and able to manage remuneration with support from the Centre of Excellent reward colleagues

Talent management – proven capability and experience in strategic talent management, change management, OD and DEI

Performance management – proven capability in driving a high-performance culture. Hands on experience of managing difficult employee relation and performance-based issues. 

Ability to operate within the People operating model context – will play a key leadership role in ongoing transformation of the People function, evolving the function towards a more advisory/ partnership-led model.

Leadership competencies

Commercial

Curious

• Future-focused, inquisitive and open-minded; seeks out evolving and innovative ways to add value to the organisation
• External orientation: understands the external landscape and brings market insights

Skilled influencer / Senior management credibility

• Worked as part of a leadership team and possesses the presence required to influence to gain the necessary commitment and support from diverse stakeholders – can evidence being able to influence with cultural and organisation dexterity
• Facilitates discussions to enable people to collaborate with each other independently; promotes collaboration across multiple parties
• Experience to assess the business context and takes a point of view; not a ‘follow the leader’ mindset
• Builds and delivers professionalism through combining commercial and People expertise to bring value to the organisation, stakeholders and peers

Driven to deliver

• Focuses the teams work on the biggest value initiatives with an orientation towards outcomes over inputs
• Proactively seeks to improve processes and implement best in class solutions, enhancing productivity and quality in a thoughtful way
• Commercial mindset with proven business acumen and ability to influence the bottom line

Building people capability

• Builds, inspires and develops strong teams both within the People function and more broadly across the BU with a natural orientation to talent development
• Uses structured, systematic and transparent approaches to assessing and developing individuals and how they fit together in the team
• Systematically develops whole team; develops individuals in order to build calculated team-wide bench strength and balanced capability
• Identifies successor to key roles based on rigorous understanding of the capabilities, experience, motivation and career development needs

Diversity and flexible working at Hiscox

At Hiscox we care about our people. We hire the best people for the job and we’re committed to diversity and creating a truly inclusive culture, which we believe drives success. We also understand that working life doesn’t always have to be ‘nine to five’ and we support flexible working wherever we can. No promises, but please chat to our resourcing team about the flexibility we could offer for this role.

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Work with amazing people and be part of a unique culture

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