Head of HR Innovation & Strategic Workforce Planning 75,585 - 84,840 p.a. + benefits

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency enhance and improve the health of millions of people every day through the effective regulation of medicines and medical devices, underpinned by science and research.

The People Function for MHRA leads all people related activity for MHRA and covers the end-to-end HR value chain. The function prides itself on providing a highly professional, strategic human resources service to the Agency. The function has a key role in shaping and delivering the MHRA strategic vision whilst ensuring the workforce has the HR support it needs.

As the Agency continues to evolve the people function will need to continue to innovate to ensure we have the flexible processes, robust structures and engaged workforce we need. This is an exciting time as we start this journey and an ability to influence the future direction of the Agency.

The role will report to the People Operations Director and requires an HR professional leader with the ability be adapt their approach as the Agency evolves. The role will be primarily responsible for creating and implementing a Strategic Workforce planning approach across the Agency and leading on innovation activity for People Function.

There is a strong focus on ensuring the engagement of our dedicated people and the applicant will need to ensure this forms a core part of their approach. The Innovation activity and Strategic Workforce Planning will need to be defined and implemented whilst maintaining HR support for the Agency. The role requires development of strong networks and ability to communicate with stakeholders at all levels. Experience in briefing is essential as there will be a regular requirement to provide briefing papers and communication materials.

• Leadership and Management: The candidate will provide visible and engaging leadership across the People Function and deputise for the People Operations Director as appropriate. The candidate will lead a team within the People Operations Directors portfolio setting the direction and ensuring outputs are effectively delivered. The candidate will have line management responsibilities and ensure performance management, development and wellbeing of staff is a golden thread through all activities. The candidate will use their strategic capabilities to ensure that the team are considering the bigger picture and provide constructive challenge and feedback to them.
• Strategic Workforce Planning: The candidate will work closely with colleagues across MHRA to build our Strategic Workforce capability and overall Strategic Workforce Plan. Initially developing a plan on what will be delivered over a 3-year period including creating guidance and upskilling colleagues. The candidate will move quickly to work with business areas and enable colleagues to produce strategic and local workforce plans. The candidate will need to identify benefits to these plans across MHRA activity and work to ensure this benefit is realised. The candidate will be accountable for building and maintaining workforce planning models to forecast future staffing needs and support medium- to long-term resourcing plans. The candidate will also lead on the production of monthly workforce reports for HR Business Partners, providing insights and narrative on current position, future forecasts and the identification of workforce trends/risks to inform planning and decision-making. The candidate will also need to drive the creation of a community of effective Workforce Planning Leads, working with stakeholders to ensure workforce data is accurate, and meets requirements.
• People Function Innovation: Working closely with colleagues across People Function and MHRA the candidate will lead on the development and implementation of Innovation activity across the People function. The candidate will act as a champion and advocate on creating a culture of continuous improvement within the People Function. The candidate will develop robust implementation plans against strong evidence base and apply Program and Project Methodology. The candidate will own the implementation plan which will need to be flexible whilst ensuring HR limits disruption to its ongoing activities. The candidate will be responsible for coordinating the communication of the innovation activity ensuring the process remains transparent throughout. Delivery of innovation activity will include matrix management of other team(s) and will need to be done incrementally so we can deliver short, medium and long term activity.
• People Strategy : The candidate will be the People Function lead for the development of the MHRA people strategy which will be aligned with the MHRA strategy. The strategy will need to be co-created so it reflects the needs of MHRA and our workforce. Activity should be evidenced and have robust criteria for success.
• Governance, Risk and Assurance: The candidate will ensure that the team is effectively managed and is compliant with MHRA and government policies, processes and regulations including all PPM requirements. You will also lead on any corporate risks on behalf of the director that are relevant to your role.
• Stakeholder Management The candidate will develop and maintain strong stakeholder relationships across the People function and MHRA ensuring all elements of activity have a people focus at its core. Relationships across MHRA will be critical in progressing large parts of the portfolio and ensuring future innovation/strategic workforce planning activities are a success.
• Behaviour and Culture - The candidate will be a visible sponsor for function wide behaviours and culture including supporting the Inclusion Champion in effectively carrying out the role. The candidate will co-ordinate appropriate activity to support this and ensure it is a core pillar of the teams you manage.
• HR Expert The candidate will have extensive experience across a range of human resources disciplines with strong leadership and management experience. The candidate will need to become a trusted and respected advisor with the confidence and experience to make risk-based decisions on a range of human resources issues. The candidate will also need to deliver credible and assured expert advice and guidance as required to Directors and Senior Leaders, including guidance/interpretation of MHRA policies to ensure consistency and fairness, and to support business planning activities.

The job description is not intended to be exhaustive, and it is likely that responsibilities and outcomes may be altered from time to time in the light of changing circumstances and after consultation with the postholder.