Tallented is working with a 4 sized MAT in Portsmouth.

This is a highly impactful, "hands-on" operational role designed for an HR professional who excels at the sharp end of people management. We are partnering with a four-school MAT located in Portsmouth to recruit a dedicated HR Business Partner. The Trust requires an individual whose core expertise lies in complex casework management and the strategic execution of absence management protocols.

In this role, you will be the trusted, primary advisor to the Headteachers and Senior Leadership Teams across the four academies. Your primary focus will be providing robust, legally compliant, and highly empathetic casework management. You will guide school leaders through the intricacies of disciplinary procedures, complex grievance investigations, and sensitive capability and performance management processes. You will ensure that all cases are handled with procedural fairness, mitigating legal risk to the Trust while supporting leaders to make difficult but necessary decisions to uphold organizational standards. You must be comfortable having challenging conversations and acting as a steady, objective voice in emotionally charged situations.

Your secondary, yet equally vital, focus is absence management. The Trust recognizes that high levels of staff absence directly impact the continuity of education and place undue strain on school budgets. You will move the Trust away from a purely reactive approach to sickness tracking. Instead, you will analyze Trust-wide absence data to identify underlying trends and hotspots. You will manage the Occupational Health referral process, support leaders in conducting effective return-to-work interviews, and develop proactive wellbeing interventions designed to reduce both short-term and long-term sickness absence. This role demands a CIPD-qualified practitioner with a profound understanding of UK employment law and a resilient, solutions-focused approach to HR.

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