Jack Newton

FTSE 250 People Business Partner within Purpose Built Student Accommodation, covering 2 regions across 14 sites in England & Scotland. Hub based in Birmingham partnering extends to key stakeholders across Finance, IT, Sales & Marketing, Health & Safety and Asset Quality. Additionally responsibility for company engagement strategy, alongside one direct report to coordinate this across various platforms including Workplace, Viva Engage, LinkedIn as well as internal town halls.

• Managed business relationships by establishing and maintaining partnerships with stakeholders.
• Led onboarding process to successfully integrate new hires into company culture.
• Facilitated training programs, resulting in better job performance.
• Oversaw payroll and benefits administration to increase employee retention rate.
• Handled disciplinary procedures, ensuring compliance with employment laws.
• Streamlined HR processes resulting in time and cost savings.
• Ensured legal compliance by keeping up-to-date with current UK employment legislation.
• Coordinated employee engagement surveys leading to improved morale and productivity.
• Developed succession plans securing the future leadership of the organisation.
• Improved employee satisfaction by implementing innovative HR policies.
• Held company-wide town hall meetings to convey updates.
• Created a supportive environment during periods of organisational restructuring, reducing employee stress levels.
• Led the successful integration of newly acquired businesses, promoting cultural cohesion.
• Built strong relationships with stakeholders to facilitate successful change management.
• Facilitated workshops for employees to better understand and accept company-wide changes.
• Performed exit interviews, gaining useful insights to improve employee retention rates.
• Facilitated effective TUPE transfers, managing employee retraining, engagement and communication to ensure smooth transition.

Reporting into the HR Manager for UK and ROI I partnered with line managers and function heads across 4 areas of the business in the North. My responsibilities included:

• Responsible for absence management and reporting.
• Using HR data, identifying trends and areas for improvement or action.
• Responsible for ensuring all new legislation, policies or procedures are successfully communicated and transitioned through the businesses.
• Where required attend meetings to take notes, providing advice and support to Line Managers.
• Proactively taking on new projects that add value to the business.
• Business Partner to 2 business areas under the Rentokil umbrella; Ambius and Property Service, working closely with the Ops Director and Area Operations Managers to drive HR strategy and performance.
• Prepared detailed reports on HR metrics to inform strategic decision-making by management.
• Facilitated training sessions to improve staff competency and performance levels.
• Delivered HR boot camps to newly appointed managers.
• Led annual salary reviews, talent reviews, succession planning and performance management.

• Part of a HR services team based at head office, covering UK and Northern Ireland.
• Completing contract changes, and producing relevant supporting documentation.
• Processing leavers.
• Conducting administration tasks such as requested for contract information, P45/P60, parental leave
• Additional payments, DEA, and absence information.
• Liaising with line managers, HR business partners, and directors to produce letters in relation to contract
• Changes, changes to terms and conditions, and on boarding.
• Conducting inductions for new patrol colleagues.
• Advising line managers and colleagues on HR processes and toolkits.
• Working closely with employee relations and learning and development teams.

• I took time out, following a restructure, and opting to take voluntary redundancy in order to pursue a long term ambition to change career away from Retail and broaden my knowledge in he field of HR.
• During this time I enrolled in a CIPD course, studying towards level 5 in people management it also allowed me to spend time at home with my young daughter.
• Towards the end of this period I was successful in obtaining a role in HR at The RAC, leading to further exposure and quickly re-establishing myself in a new industry using past experiences combined with my newly acquired CIPD qualification.

• The role reported directly to the General Store Manager. It oversaw the day to day trading, loss prevention, service and HR operation within the store, leading a team of 9 direct reports and 326 indirect reports.
• The store was in a low demographic, high crime area, therefore having its issues with internal/external theft, high labour turnover and absenteeism.
• On average the store takings would be around £680k per week, over £34m annually, with P&L accountability.
• Due to its relatively small site in comparison to other stores and a very high footfall, with low basket spend it was the 8th highest taking stores per sqft in the business.
• Successfully involved in implementing a £3.5m refit in 2019, giving a better shopping experience for customers, re-engaging colleagues with fully refreshed colleague areas, and improving customer availability measures by over 4%.
• Implemented one of the biggest single pieces of changes to hours the company had ever done, and a business first for voluntary redundancy and part buyout for hourly paid colleagues. Ultimately saving over £500k in the first year, and enabling greater flexibility for task and RPRPRT across the store.
• Worked alongside E-Commerce Team to increase replenishment to capacity to accommodate a step up in Home Shopping vans from 4 to 7 in the space of 6 months adding a further £80k a week to the sales line. Balancing the increased demand, by chasing new and innovative ways to maintain availability for both the online and instore customer.

• The role reported directly to the General Store Manager. It oversaw the day to day trading, loss prevention, service and HR operation within the store, leading a team of 9 direct reports and 352 indirect reports.
• On average the store takings would be around £690k per week, over £36m annually.
• The store was in a low demographic and built up residential area. The colleague base had an average length of service of over 15 years with several having worked at the site since it's opening in 1972.
• This brought its own challenges, as whilst very committed from a length of service point, the store was heavily unionised and not particularly susceptible to change, therefore it required a very dynamic approach to engage the team at a time when the need for change to remain competitive is ever increasing.
• Worked alongside E-Commerce Team to increase replenishment to capacity to accommodate a step up in Home Shopping vans from 4 to 6 in the space of 6 months adding a further £60k a week to the sales line. Balancing the increased demand, by chasing new and innovative ways to maintain availability for both the online and instore customer.
• Implemented changes in replenishment that require more automation and the use of handheld devices and cross departmental working. This require being dynamic, selling a new way of working to the team, adapting training to suit those not as comfortable with technology, and using reward and recognition to influence the team to embrace the changes and new ways of working.
• Oversaw a change consultation with the night teams, to align shift patterns to a new way of working. Many colleagues had various shift patterns that no longer suited the current operation and customer shopping habits. Therefore a full re rota of the team was carried out, which required an assessment of current working patterns versus new ways of working to justify the need for change.

• Working in 4 different stores, this role was business partner to the General Store Manager, store conscience, and custodian of people policies, ensuring the well-being of teams of up to 400 colleagues. The roles involved working closely with the stores leadership team to deliver HR metrics such as absence, labour turnover, engagement, and labour costs, and in addition to influence and engage them in vacancy identification, succession planning, training and development, and ensuring that key organisational strategy was effectively communicated.
• Maintaining colleague files and training records through a team of HR administrators.
• Completing right to work checks, and ensuring that copies of these were filed and up to date.
• Recording temporary right to work documents and following up in the run up to these expiring to obtain renewed documentations from the colleague.
• # Identifying vacancies in stores and setting up job adverts both internally and externally.
• Liaising with jobcentres, training providers, colleagues and schools, to identify candidates and promote roles and careers within Asda.
• Facilitating assessment centres and interviews for successful candidates.
• Conducting inductions, introducing new starters to the corporate messages and values, as well as completing legal training.
• Following up with line managers to ensure that job specific training was completed within the agreed timescales.
• Monitoring and maintaining colleague absence records, and ensuring that a there was follow up with high absence colleagues, and where applicable occupational was involved to support colleagues.
• Overseeing issues of disciplinary and grievances, giving guidance to managers where needed to ensure thorough investigations took place based on facts, and that the right course of action was taken.
• Liaising with colleague representative's and GMB trade union representatives, to listen and identify any potential issues or concerns within the store.
• Facilitating in store and regional development days, to showcase opportunities to upskill or progress within the business, enabling the formation of a highly skilled, cross functional team with a strong talent pool for succession planning.
• Identifying training needs with line managers and supervisors, and holding upskilling sessions on areas of focus such as absence, mental health awareness, and colleague engagement.
• Carrying out change consultation from initial briefing, to capturing roles at risk, and supporting line managers and colleagues through the process where business changes were enacted. These included redundancy, hours reductions, TUPE, and changes to terms and conditions.
• Proof reading letters and employee documentation including training records and details of meetings that have been completed by line managers.

• During this time I held several roles with over 20 direct reports. Running departments to ensure operational standards were maintained as well as key metrics including wage and waste cost controls, sales, availability, absence, LTO, and shrink.
• Implemented promotional displays to increase product visibility and sales.
• Resolved customer complaints effectively, protecting the store's image and consumer relationships.
• Streamlined operations to maximise efficiency and minimise waste.
• Managed staff rosters, ensuring adequate coverage during peak times.
• Maintained an organised stock room for easy accessibility of goods.
• Oversaw visual merchandising efforts that enhanced overall store appearance.
• Ensured compliance with all relevant food safety regulations maintaining high standard of operation.
• Monitored compliance with waste management regulations reducing environmental impact.
• Managed risk assessments to identify potential hazards in the workplace.