Senior People and Culture Lead – Surrey (remote with regular regional / national travel)

Overview

Senior People and Culture Lead – Surrey (remote with regular regional / national travel)

Job Introduction

Please note: We’re sharing this opportunity across a number of job boards and in different locations to reach as many potential applicants as possible. However, this is one single position – so wherever you see it, it’s the same great role.

At HCRG Care Group, we believe our people are at the heart of delivering excellent care and driving sustainable change. We’re proud to deliver vital health and care services across the country, and we’re looking for two exceptional Senior People & Culture Leads to join us at a pivotal time.

This is a unique opportunity to step into a role that combines the scope of a senior HR business partner with the influence to shape culture and capability across diverse services. You will work closely with our Regional Directors – building trusted partnerships, embedding recent transformation programmes, and helping managers develop the skills and confidence they need to deliver consistently high-performing services.

No two days will look the same. One week you might be in Surrey, supporting leaders in our prison healthcare services; the next in Essex, helping managers make the link between absence management, agency use, and service performance. You’ll also play a key role in shaping the people strategy for our sexual health services, including the integration of SH24.

Although the role is remote-based, it will require regular travel and visibility across the regions. You’ll be the kind of person who thrives on variety, who enjoys being out in services, and who knows that real cultural change happens when leaders are supported, present, and accountable.

This is not about policy writing or transactional HR. It’s about influence, coaching, and impact. You’ll create people plans tailored to each region, use data and insights to shape decision-making, and most importantly, ensure that change sticks long after the project team has moved on.

If you are a seasoned HR professional with the credibility to influence senior leaders, the resilience to navigate complex environments, and the drive to make a tangible difference, then this is your opportunity to join us and leave a lasting mark on colleagues, services, and communities.

Main Responsibility

• Act as a strategic partner to Regional Directors, building trusted relationships and ensuring people strategies directly support operational and service delivery goals.
• Develop and deliver tailored people plans for each region, aligned with organisational strategy, KPIs, and local priorities.
• Embed organisational change – ensuring that recent transformation programmes are sustained, capability is built, and managers feel confident in leading new ways of working.
• Coach and support managers to strengthen leadership capability, particularly in areas such as absence management, performance management, and employee engagement.
• Create clear links between people data and business outcomes, helping leaders understand how areas such as absence, agency usage, and retention impact both cost and service quality.
• Champion a positive and inclusive culture, using colleague voice, surveys, and engagement tools to identify issues and co-create solutions with managers and teams.
• Provide visible presence across services, regularly travelling to sites and attending leadership and team meetings to offer hands-on support and guidance.
• Use data and insights to inform decision-making, identify people risks, and recommend pragmatic solutions that balance commercial and colleague needs.
• Work collaboratively with centres of excellence within the wider People team, ensuring policies, practices, and initiatives are consistently applied and adapted for local needs.
• Promote equality, diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing across all people practices, creating environments where colleagues feel supported, engaged, and able to thrive.
• Contribute to organisational performance by tracking ROI on people initiatives, ensuring people practices add value to both colleagues and service delivery.

The Ideal Candidate

We’re looking for someone who can bring both credibility and pragmatism – a trusted partner who can balance strategic thinking with a hands-on approach to building capability and embedding change.

You will be:

• An experienced Senior HR Business Partner / OD leader with a proven track record of partnering senior stakeholders to deliver people strategies that drive performance and culture.
• CIPD Level 7 qualified (or equivalent experience), with strong knowledge of employment legislation, organisational development, and workforce planning.
• Skilled in embedding change – not just delivering transformation projects, but ensuring changes are sustained through capability building, coaching, and cultural alignment.
• Highly confident in building manager and leadership capability, particularly around absence management, performance, engagement, and succession planning.
• Adept at using people data and insights to influence decision-making, spot risks, and link people practices to service KPIs (e.g. absence rates, agency spend, staff survey outcomes).
• A strong communicator and influencer, able to build trust quickly with Regional Directors and senior managers with very different leadership styles.
• Comfortable with regular national travel and maintaining a visible presence across services – you’ll know that sometimes the most meaningful impact happens in team meetings, on-site with leaders, and in the moments where you can challenge and support face-to-face.
• Commercially astute, with the ability to balance organisational goals, colleague wellbeing, and service user needs.
• A values-driven leader who champions inclusion, wellbeing, and engagement, creating the conditions where people can thrive.
• Resilient and adaptable, thriving in a complex and changing environment, and able to “connect the dots” across multiple services and priorities.

This is a fantastic role for someone who wants to go beyond traditional HR and truly shape culture, capability, and leadership in services that make a difference to communities across the UK.

Package Description

As a Senior People and Culture Lead, you’ll be part of our valued team at HCRG Care Group.

You will feel valued as a Senior People and Culture Lead within HCRG Care Group, receiving access to exclusive rewards and benefits including: 

• £55,000 – £60,000 with group pension 
• Private medical insurance with fast access to the most used specialists including for musculoskeletal problems and for mental health support – at locations across the country
• Membership of My Reward Hub, giving you access to discounts on every day purchases like grocery shopping as well as cashback and voucher offers for treats for you and those special to you
• Access to your wages as you earn them to help cover life’s emergencies and avoid overdraft fees or high interest rates
• Online and face to face help with your mental and physical wellbeing – from healthy recipes and activity challenges through to post trauma support, legal, debt and life management help, as well career coaching and counselling
• Access to eLearning, bespoke career pathways and opportunities for continuing professional development through our ‘Outstanding’ learning and development team, The Learning Enterprise
• An open, just culture where you’re encouraged to have and implement ideas which can help us deliver our purpose: changing lives through transforming health and care – backed up by at least £100,000 of ringfenced innovation funding each year 
• The pride of working for an organisation committed to the highest clinical and quality standards: with the majority of our rated services holding “good” or “outstanding” ratings from the Care Quality Commission