HR Business Partner

Are you ready to embark on a rewarding career with East Midlands Railway (EMR) and be part of a team that values diversity and inclusivity? We are proud to be One Team at East Midlands Railway (EMR). We are passionate about keeping people safe, delighting our customers, doing the right thing and putting customers at the heart of our sustainable railway for the East Midlands. With over 2,600 employees, our people are the reason we are so successful and our HR team make a crucial contribution to this. Nine times accredited as a Top Employer and Gold accredited for Inclusive Employers Standards, we value our people and are dedicated to making sure that everybody feels empowered to bring their authentic self to work. 

At EMR we want to proactively embrace diversity across our workforce and recognise that we are under-represented in terms of ethnic minority groups. We’re therefore taking positive steps to promote a positive and inclusive culture; we welcome applications from those that identify with these groups to better represent our communities.

We are looking to recruit an experienced HR professional into our friendly and high performing HR team. You will support specific areas of the business on all people related matters based on complex terms and conditions, in a unionised environment. This includes resolving complex Employment Relations (ER) cases ensuring that all people issues are pro-actively addressed and resolved. In addition to ER you will partner the area with the delivery and evaluation of our people strategy.  We are looking for HR Advisers or BPs with ER case management experience who are ready for the next move. 

This role is required to travel across the East Midlands Railway network, and we work in a hybrid way with “more time together than apart”. You will have a first-class duty travel pass on our trains for this, which will allow you to work while on the move. 

As HR Business Partner you will:

• Drive a high-performance culture by challenging and coaching managers to apply engagement, performance and development principles and tools

• Provide HR support for all projects within your area to drive timely execution within budget and HR strategy

• Provide coaching and training to line managers to develop their capability in managing people issues to enable optimum performance from their teams

• Ensure that employee relations cases are managed in a timely, professional and legal manner in accordance with employment legislation and business policy

• Attend union meetings as required, and support the business as we apply our collective bargaining framework, including through policy development and training

• Drive the employee engagement scores for your customer base by providing support to the management teams with their action planning and providing appropriate HR interventions where required

• Work with your customer base to drive the accurate completion of performance appraisals with SMART business goals and development plans within the annual performance cycle

• Assist your customers in the completion of robust succession plans and talent maps

• Provide support in the design, development and regulation of specific restructuring initiatives ensuring that any new terms and conditions are flexible and productive and meet business needs

To be successful in this role you should:

Be CIPD level 5 or above qualified or equivalent relevant work experience in the HR profession.  Possess excellent communication skills, with the ability to coach, influence and negotiate at all levels whilst building long-term relationships and maintain partnerships and collaboration.Have a comprehensive working knowledge of employment legislation and experience of applying this in a pragmatic way to meet organisational need. Well-developed understanding of HR policies and the ability to update or change these (and accompanying guidance) as necessary.Demonstrate high levels of resilience, a “can do” attitude and enthusiasm for proactively addressing people issues.Have previous experience of working within Human Resources in a unionised environment as well as experience in resolving the full range of employee relations matters in a pragmatic and compliant manner.Be a team player and able to work collaboratively with and through others

As well as a competitive salary, we’ll also offer you:

A great pension schemeHybrid workingFree First Class duty travel on the EMR networkFree Standard Class leisure travel on the EMR network and Train Operating Companies under Transport UK & LNER (inc partner and dependants)Friends and Family discounted tickets on the EMR network75% discount on national leisure travel (inc partner and dependants)Flexible working hours 32 days holiday per year rising to 34 after 2 years…and many more!

 

Closing Date: 22 Jan 2026

Department: Managerial/Administration

Salary: £45,000 to £52,000 dependent on experience