Job at a glance
Are you a resilient, commercially minded HR professional ready to help shape the future of a world-class institution? The British Library is seeking Strategic HR Business Partners who can build trusted relationships with senior leaders, translate organisational priorities into a clear people and workforce agenda, and lead the people dimension of significant change. If you bring strong strategic partnering, organisation development and workforce planning expertise, this is an opportunity to make a visible contribution in a role deliberately protected from routine casework and transactional activity., As the senior strategic people partner for a defined portfolio of directorates, you will hold trusted relationships with executive and senior leaders and work alongside directorate leadership teams.
You will translate business and organisational priorities into clear workforce, organisation development, capability and culture plans, ensuring that people considerations are integral to strategic decisions rather than addressed after they have been made. Using evidence, workforce information and organisational insight, you will diagnose root causes, identify emerging risks and understand what each directorate genuinely needs.
You will coach and constructively challenge senior leaders, helping them strengthen management capability, accountability and confidence while supporting better, more consistent people decisions. You will lead the strategic people dimension of major transformation and organisational change, including restructures, TUPE and formal consultation. You will retain oversight of workforce and employee relations themes within your portfolio, using patterns and insight to identify organisational risk, but you will not own routine casework or transactional delivery.
A central part of the role will be commissioning and coordinating specialist support from Organisation Effectiveness and the Centres of Expertise. Rather than personally delivering every intervention, you will define the requirement, bring together the right expertise and remain accountable for ensuring that directorate priorities are addressed. You will work closely with People Services, employee relations and specialist colleagues to ensure solutions are coherent, evidence-led and delivered through the appropriate route.
This is a genuinely strategic partnering role. Routine casework, shared inbox activity, recruitment administration, contract chasing and line management of operational advisory teams sit outside the role, protecting your capacity to focus on strategic relationships, workforce planning, leadership coaching, organisational diagnosis and change. You will also champion equality, diversity and inclusion, contribute responsibly to workforce and HR budget decisions, and build strong internal and external professional networks.
Qualifications: Chartered CIPD membership, or Level 7 equivalent, with degree-level education or equivalent professional experience. Strategic partnering: Proven experience of holding senior client relationships and translating organisational strategy into workforce, capability, culture and organisation development priorities. Public-sector context: Experience gained in a large, complex or unionised organisation, with the judgement and political sensitivity to operate confidently with senior stakeholders.
OD and change: A strong track record of leading the people dimension of complex organisational change, including restructures, TUPE and formal consultation. Workforce insight: The ability to interpret workforce data, organisational health information and employee relations themes to identify trends, diagnose root causes and mitigate risk. Commissioning and delivery: Experience of defining requirements, commissioning specialist expertise and coordinating colleagues across HR, OD, employee relations and operational services to deliver organisational outcomes.
Leadership impact: Strong coaching, influencing and constructive cha