Senior People Partner

We believe we make a real difference to business owners, their teams, families and communities: they use our finance as a superpower either to seize opportunities for growth or move their business out from under the shadow of cashflow. It's our mission to finance a million businesses and we won't accept a world where they have to jump through unnecessary hoops and wait weeks, even months, for a decision. With iwoca businesses get the right finance with a few clicks, when and where they need it.

Since our launch in 2012, we have stayed true to our goals, and are now one of the biggest fintechs in Europe. Along the way, we have revolutionised lending with our cutting-edge tech platform, earned numerous industry awards, and made billions available to more than 100,000 businesses.

The role of the People Operations team is to develop and implement strategies that enable iwoca to attract, develop and retain the best talent, and ensure that iwoca strengthens our people and our culture as we grow. We're progressive, innovative and looking to set new standards in People Operations.

Note: this role is a 12 month Fixed Term Contract

As a Senior People Partner at iwoca, you'll play a key role in helping to build and manage high-performing and happy teams. You'll partner directly with specific managers / teams in order to do the following:

• You'll be a trusted advisor to support, influence and challenge managers on topics such as performance management, identifying and supporting our high potential team members, driving engagement.

• You'll confidently define, source & implement interventions to address areas of concern in the teams your support- and build processes and tools so that you can measure their impact ongoing.

• You'll bring experience and empathy to help manage complex and/or sensitive employee relations issues and ensure these are responded to and resolved fairly, swiftly and in line with iwoca's values and policies.

• You'll engage and consult with your key stakeholders to understand their business pressures and priorities . You enable your teams to solve their challenges rather than enforcing processes or mandating solutions.

• You'll provide 1-1 coaching directly to managers to help build their leadership capabilities

More broadly, you'll help to shape iwoca's overall People strategy by:

• Diagnosing issues we ought to address regarding our iwoca team and culture, and work with the rest of the People team to determine the best plan of action to address

• You have the ability to facilitate discussions around change and transformation and can identify in advance where and when change management will be needed and proactively participate in developing plans.

• Working on evaluating new benefits and policies, to help strengthen our employee value proposition and People practices

• Working with our People Experience, Talent and Ops Strategy teams to gather data and meaningful insights that help identify People issues and trends (attrition, performance, gender pay gaps, industry trends etc).

In this role, you'll work with teams based in the UK and Germany. You'll help ensure culture cohesion across different teams while also supporting local nuances. You'll also get to learn about the employment law landscape and how it varies between UK and Germany.

These are the skills and experiences you'll need to be great at this job:

• Strong experience providing specialist/expert HR advice and influencing others both at operational and strategic levelsin organisations of a similar size and complexity

• Curious and open-minded to learn about iwoca's approaches to people management and people strategy, and how to use your HR skills to achieve successful outcomes within this context

• Excellent stakeholder management. You are known as a true influencer, building trusted relationships with stakeholders at all levels in the business.

• Exceptional attention to detail - you care about the quality and accuracy of your work, you can avoid or find mistakes so that others don't have to.

• Genuinely passionate about people strategy and culture. You continuously develop your skills and update on best practice by networking, reading books, listening to podcasts etc.

• You truly value feedback and evangelise the benefits of thoughtful disagreement in an organisation.

• You'll have curiosity and interest to learn about employment law in other markets (specifically DE).

  • Ideally, you have some knowledge of German employment law and process, but this isn't essential.

  • You don't need to be able to speak German (we already have a German speaker in the team), however any German language skills are a bonus

The salary

We expect to pay from £70,000 - £80,000 for this role. But, we're open-minded, so definitely include your salary goals with your application. We routinely benchmark salaries against market rates and run quarterly performance and salary reviews.

The culture

At iwoca, we look to hire smart, passionate, humble individuals with a growth mindset. We prioritise a culture of learning, growth, and support, and invest in the professional development of our team members.

We value thought and skill diversity and encourage you to explore new areas of interest to help us innovate and improve our products and services.

Our friendly and inclusive environment, combined with our flexible work policies, ensures that you'll have the perfect balance between work and life, empowering you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The offices

We put a lot of effort into making iwoca a brilliant place to work:

• Offices in London, Leeds, and Frankfurt with plenty of drinks and snacks

• Events and clubs, like bingo, comedy nights, yoga classes, football, etc.

The benefits

• Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership

• A private GP service (separate from Vitality) for you, your partner, and your dependents.

• 25 days' holiday, an extra day off for your birthday, the option to buy or sell an additional five days of annual leave,and unlimited unpaid leave

• A one-month, fully paid sabbatical after four years.

• Instant access to emotional and mental health support.

• 3% Pension contributions and share options.

• Generous parental leave and a nursery tax benefit scheme to help you save money.

• Cycle-to-work scheme and electric car scheme.

• Two company retreats a year, we've been to France, Italy, Spain, and further afield.

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:

• A learning and development budget for everyone.

• Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers.

• Access to learning platforms like Treehouse.

Useful links:

• iwoca benefits & policies