People & Culture Business Partner

Sumer is a fast-growing professional services firm that is dedicated to championing small and medium businesses and helping communities prosper, right across the UK and Ireland. We’re at a unique point in our journey: the excitement of a scale-up combined with the stability of a growing professional services group. This is a chance to join us and help shape the future, and make a real impact.

The People & Culture Business Partner is a strategic partner to senior leaders, helping shape and deliver the business strategy through a people and organisational lens.

Combining strong commercial understanding with deep People & Culture expertise, the role translates business priorities and the Group People & Culture strategy into practical plans that strengthen organisational capability, leadership, performance, culture and sustainable growth.

The P&C Business Partner works across assigned Hub(s) while maintaining a strong Group and "One Sumer" perspective. Working closely with People Partners, People Support and Centres of Expertise, the role ensures operational people insight informs strategic decision-making and that Group People & Culture priorities are embedded effectively within the business.

Strategic and Commercial People Partnering

• Develop a strong understanding of the business strategy, commercial model, performance drivers and future priorities of supported Hub(s).
• Partner with senior leaders to consider business opportunities, challenges and decisions through a people and organisational lens.
• Translate business strategy and Group People & Culture strategy into practical Hub-level people plans that strengthen performance and support sustainable growth.
• Act as a trusted adviser and constructive challenger to senior leadership teams, using commercial understanding, people expertise and organisational insight to influence decisions.
• Anticipate the people implications of business decisions and ensure workforce, capability, culture and organisational considerations are incorporated early in strategic planning.

Organisation, Workforce and Capability

• Lead strategic workforce planning, ensuring the organisation has the capacity, capability and talent required to deliver current and future business priorities.
• Partner with leaders on organisational design and operating model development, ensuring structures, roles and accountabilities support business performance.
• Lead succession and talent discussions, identifying critical roles, capability gaps and future leadership requirements.
• Work with Talent Acquisition and relevant Centres of Expertise to develop appropriate workforce and talent solutions.
• Embed a strong learning culture, ensuring leaders and colleagues are encouraged and enabled to continually build the confidence, competence and capability required for future success.

Leadership, Culture and Engagement

• Coach and develop senior leaders, strengthening leadership capability, accountability and organisational effectiveness.
• Champion Sumer's culture, values and "One Sumer" mentality, helping leaders translate these into everyday leadership behaviours and business decisions.
• Use engagement insight and organisational feedback to identify opportunities to strengthen culture, colleague experience and performance.
• Encourage collaboration across Hub and Group boundaries, challenging siloed thinking and promoting decisions that support the wider organisation.

Organisational Change and Transformation

• Sponsor and lead the people elements of complex organisational change, transformation, acquisition and integration activity.
• Partner with leaders to build compelling people and change plans that support effective communication, engagement and adoption.
• Anticipate organisational impacts and ensure workforce, leadership, capability and cultural implications are considered throughout change programmes.
• Support leaders to maintain engagement, performance and organisational effectiveness through periods of change.

People Risk, Governance and Employee Relations

• Provide strategic guidance and oversight on complex, high-risk or business-critical employee relations and organisational matters.
• Ensure significant people decisions balance commercial requirements, colleague impact, employment legislation, Group policy, values and organisational risk.
• Identify emerging people and organisational risks and ensure appropriate mitigation is incorporated into business planning.
• Work with People Partners to ensure operational employee relations insight informs broader strategic priorities and interventions.

People Insight and Performance

• Use workforce data, commercial information and organisational insight to identify trends, risks and opportunities.
• Translate people data into meaningful business insight that informs workforce, organisational and leadership decisions.
• Monitor key people indicators including workforce capacity, capability, retention, absence, engagement, talent and employee relations trends.
• Evaluate the impact of People & Culture interventions and use insight to continually improve outcomes.

Collaboration and One Sumer Delivery

• Work closely with People Partners and People Support to ensure strategic and operational People & Culture activity is connected and mutually reinforcing.
• Partner with Centres of Expertise across Talent, Learning & Development, Reward, Engagement, DEI and Wellbeing to shape and implement Group-wide priorities.
• Contribute actively to the wider People & Culture community, sharing insight and helping develop Group-wide strategy, policy and practice.
• Build strong relationships across Sumer, promoting collaboration, consistency and shared accountability for the colleague experience.

• Experience operating as a strategic HR or People Business Partner within a complex, multi-site, professional services or fast-paced organisation.
• Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to understand business strategy, commercial drivers and performance and translate these into people and organisational priorities.
• Broad and deep People & Culture expertise across organisational development, workforce planning, talent, succession, leadership, performance, employee relations, reward, engagement and organisational change.
• Demonstrable experience partnering with and influencing senior leaders, including providing constructive challenge and shaping strategic decisions.
• Strong organisational development and change capability, with experience supporting transformation, integration or significant organisational change.
• Experience building leadership and organisational capability and creating a culture of continuous learning and development.
• Strong analytical capability, with the ability to combine people and business data to generate insight and influence decisions.
• Excellent coaching, influencing and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong judgement and the ability to balance commercial objectives, colleague experience, culture and organisational risk.
• Able to move confidently between strategic thinking and practical delivery while maintaining a Group-wide perspective.
• CIPD qualification or equivalent professional experience desirable.

Success in the Role Will Look Like

• Business strategy is translated into clear, commercially relevant people and organisational priorities.
• Senior leaders view People & Culture as a credible strategic partner and actively seek its insight when shaping business decisions.
• Workforce plans provide the capability, capacity and talent required to deliver sustainable business growth.
• Leadership capability strengthens and leaders demonstrate greater confidence, competence and accountability for people outcomes.
• A strong learning culture supports continuous development and future organisational capability.
• Talent and succession pipelines strengthen, with critical capability and leadership risks actively managed.
• Organisational change is delivered effectively with strong leadership ownership, colleague engagement and adoption.
• People risks are anticipated and managed proactively rather than reactively.
• People data and commercial insight are routinely used to improve business and colleague outcomes.
• Sumer's values and "One Sumer" culture are visible in leadership behaviours, people decisions and ways of working.
• People Support, People Partners, Business Partners and Centres of Expertise operate as one integrated People & Culture function.

At Sumer, we know everyone’s journey is different. That’s why we’re committed to fairness, removing barriers and giving people the support they need to do their best work. If you need any support during the hiring process, just let us know.

Our values represent what matters most to us and guide how we work every day:

• We Shine Together
• We Do the Right Thing
• We Make It Count

We know diverse teams make us stronger. That’s why we’re creating an inclusive workplace where everyone belongs and differences are valued and celebrated.