HR Director

HR Director
Hyde Park, London

The Royal Parks (TRP) is a charity managing over 5,000 acres of diverse parkland, rare habitats and historic buildings and monuments in eight Royal Parks across London. These are: Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, The Green Park, St James’s Park, The Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, Greenwich Park, Richmond Park and Bushy Park. They also manage other important public spaces, including Brompton Cemetery and Victoria Tower Gardens. They are among the most visited attractions in the UK with over 77 million visits every year.

In 2017, the charity was formed and took over the main responsibilities of management from the Royal Parks Agency (a former executive agency of the Department for Culture, Media & Sport) and the Royal Parks Foundation (a separate charity).

TRP’s exciting 2022-27 organisational strategy set out the charity’s ambitions to expand its services and enable the organisation to: change how it manages the landscapes to enhance biodiversity; think about the way it engages with visitors; diversify income further and, finally, think about the way the charity is organised including structure, systems and processes, and the culture of TRP. The strategy also looks at how the organisation delivers its services and TRP has insourced some operational functions which were previously delivered by contractors.

This has seen headcount grow from c170 people in 2022, to c320 today based across the parks. There are a further 80-90 seasonal staff, who are hired largely during the summer months. The possibility of insourcing more services is being explored which will create new organisational design and culture opportunities over the coming years.

TRP is led by Andrew Scattergood, CEO, and the Human Resources team is 10 strong. The new Director of Human Resources has been created to lead the function, as well as to contribute to and influence the overall corporate strategy and policy making from a people perspective.

Key Responsibilities

Reporting to the CEO and an active member of his Executive Team (ExCom), the main priorities for the Director of HR will be:

- Developing a people strategy for TRP and undertaking an organisational design review.
- Leading the 10 strong HR team.
- Working with the CEO, the Executive Team, Trustees and other stakeholders to ensure TRP has the right capability, culture and design to deliver their organisational vision.
- Providing senior level HR support and counsel to the CEO, Chair, Trustees, Executive team and Heads of Departments on the best HR practice.

The Individual

With personal values that align to those of TRP, the successful candidate will be a well round HR professional who possesses:

- Significant experience across a range of HR specialisms, including reward and recognition, welfare and wellbeing, learning and development, organisational restructuring and employee relations.
- Demonstrable leadership experience in managing teams and departments.

In person, you will be able to demonstrate the following skills, knowledge and abilities:

- Extensive knowledge of HR best practice supported by a working knowledge of underpinning employment law.
- Strategic thinking with the ability to translate vision into actionable plans.
- Effective planning and negotiating skills.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills and attention to detail.
- Able to establish trust and credibility with ExCom, trustees, managers and staff.