HR Business Partner at GSK in UK – London – New Oxford Street

Job description

• The HR Business Partner (HRBP) will act as a strategic and trusted partner to leaders within the UK Commercial LOC driving the organisation's people agenda across talent, leadership, capability and culture.
• The role sits at the heart of a fast-moving commercial environment and will be instrumental in enabling the LOC's ongoing business transformation, ensuring that change is led effectively, leaders are supported through complexity, and the organisation continues to build the capability it needs to compete and grow.
• This is a role for an experienced HR professional who can operate credibly at a senior level, navigate a large and complex, matrixed organisation, and translate global talent and people strategies into practical, locally relevant action.
• Leaders across the UK Commercial LOC see HR as a genuine strategic partner, sought out for judgement, insight and challenge.
• Talent and succession plans are robust, locally relevant and aligned to global strategy, with clear pipelines for critical roles.
• Transformation and change initiatives are delivered with strong people outcomes, leaders feel equipped and supported to lead their teams through change, and employees experience clear, well-managed transitions.
• Employee consultation obligations are met with genuine engagement, not just compliance, and employee relations risks are well managed.
• Reward, capability and workforce plans support the attraction and retention of a high-performing, diverse workforce and enable the broader commercial strategy.
• The HRBP is recognised as someone who consistently thinks beyond their immediate remit to the wider organisational context and contributes actively to the broader HR and business agenda.

Responsibilities

• Strategic HR Partnership & Business Acumen
• Act as a strategic HR partner to VP/Senior Director-level leaders, translating the commercial strategy into an integrated people plan for the UK LOC.
• Use strong business insight and data (including analytics and AI) to identify people-related risks, opportunities and interventions that improve performance.
• Prioritise HR initiatives based on strategic impact, cost, risk and short- vs long-term trade-offs, ensuring alignment with global frameworks and governance.
• Transformation & Change
• Lead and support large-scale change and transformation (e.g. commercial model shifts, organisational redesign, major projects) with clear people and change plans.
• Diagnose change needs using data and systemic thinking, designing integrated solutions that help leaders and teams understand, embrace and embed change.
• Coach and influence senior leaders to effectively lead change, balancing business outcomes with people impact and risk.
• Talent, Leadership & Capability
• Partner with leaders to identify current and future talent and capability needs, ensuring robust succession and talent pipelines for critical roles.
• Translate enterprise talent and leadership strategies into interventions that build high-performing, future-ready teams.
• Coach and challenge senior leaders on leadership effectiveness, team performance, and talent development.
• Culture & Engagement
• Shape and champion a culture that supports the UK Commercial strategy and GSK values, promoting an inclusive and high-performance environment.
• Use organisational insight (engagement surveys, exit data, workforce analytics) to identify culture strengths, risks and opportunities and convert these into targeted actions.
• Support leaders to build clear engagement strategies and understand the impact of their behaviours on culture and employee experience.
• Workforce Planning & Organisational Effectiveness
• Develop and implement workforce and capability plans that ensure the right skills, resources and structures are in place to deliver the commercial agenda.
• Use organisational design and effectiveness principles to improve clarity of roles, accountability, decision-making and ways of working.
• Apply data and analytics to diagnose organisational issues, assess options and track progress against agreed outcomes.
• Employee Relations, Governance & Reward
• Manage relationships with employee representative bodies (including Information & Consultation Forums) and ensure UK consultation and ER obligations are met with genuine engagement.
• Provide expert guidance on ER and HR governance, partnering with specialist teams to manage escalations and mitigate risk in line with GSK policies and UK employment law.
• Work with Reward partners to shape local reward and retention approaches that attract, engage and retain a high-performing workforce.
• HR Operating Model & Stakeholder Influence
• Partner across the HR model (HR Embedded, HR Centre of Excellence and People Services) to bring the HR operating model to life, reducing unnecessary customisation and championing standard tools and processes.
• Build credible, trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, influencing decisions and constructively challenging thinking with an enterprise mindset.
• Represent HR as a strategic function, contributing to the shaping of business and people agendas, not just their delivery.

Requirements

• We are looking for professionals with these required skills to achieve our goals:
• Significant experience as an HR Business Partner supporting senior business leaders, ideally within a large, complex, matrixed organisation.
• Demonstrable experience leading or closely supporting organisational transformation, with direct experience of the UK employment/organisational landscape.
• Experience delivering interventions across a range of HR activities including leadership development, talent management, building high-performing teams, workforce planning and performance management.
• Experience partnering with and/or managing employee representative forums, including Information & Consultation Forums (I&CF).
• Strong track record of translating global or enterprise-level talent strategy into local execution.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the confidence and gravitas to challenge senior leaders constructively.
• Strong understanding of UK employment law and its practical application in a commercial setting.
• If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus:
• Experience within the pharmaceutical industry or another highly regulated, scientific or technical sector.
• Regional or international HR experience supporting multiple business areas and managing complex global change.
• Experience working within global/regional organisations where local delivery must align to global frameworks and governance.

Skills

Preferred

• Regional or international HR experience