Head of People and Culture

As our Head of People & Culture, you will join a team that leads with kindness, dreams big and takes action together. You will be a genuine partner to our management team - helping us build the capability, structure and culture we need to grow well, not just grow fast. You will own everything from how people experience their day-to-day at ES, to how they grow here, building a people function that feels as considered and purposeful as everything else we make.

💰 Salary: £70k

👩 Reporting to: Associate Chief of Staff

📍 Location: Potters Bar

🏙 Hybrid: 3 days per week in Potters Bar

📝 Employment type: Full Time

Why this role matters ✨

The Elizabeth Scarlett team is growing fast, and our people & culture needs an organised, supportive, uplifting leader who can help ensure we also build a brilliant working environment, united by our mission and culture. This is your chance to:

• Build the people & culture function from a strong, mission-oriented vision into a strategic engine that scales with the business.
• Be a partner to our management team, shaping how ES makes decisions about its people, not just supporting from the sidelines.
• Be the person who turns our mission into something every employee feels day to day, not just something we put in our marketing.
• Shape, from the ground up, how people join, grow and stay at Elizabeth Scarlett.

What you will be doing 🚀

Drive People Relations

• Work alongside our existing HR Manager (contractor) to manage employee relations casework with care and consistency.
• Own and evolve our staff handbook, policies and HR processes, keeping us compliant, fair and aligned with our brand and business priorities as we scale.
• Be a trusted point of escalation for sensitive people matters, balancing kindness with clear boundaries.

Lead Recruitment and build our Employer Brand

• Own the end-to-end recruitment process - partnering with hiring managers on job descriptions, managing our Talent Acquisition Associate, and driving every hire through to a signed contract, with offers issued, negotiated, and executed without delay.
• Build a recruitment playbook that improves time-to-hire without compromising on quality of hire.
• Position ES as an employer of choice, building recruitment strategies that also grow a strong talent pool for future succession.
• Champion candidate experience as an extension of our brand and mission.

Build People Growth

• Design and deliver our L&D programme, including workshops that build real capability, not just tick boxes.
• Partner with team leads to build development paths for their people, running a rhythm that flows from weekly 1:1s through to formal reviews, not just a once-a-year form.
• Ensure every employee is supported with a clear development plan and next steps in their progression.
• Own our probation and performance review cycles end-to-end, from framework design to ensuring its delivery.
• Build progression framework and succession thinking so people can see a genuine future at ES, not just their next review.

Own People Experience

• Design and lead a people and culture strategy that brings our values to life day-to-day, not just on paper.
• Own our office spaces, making sure they’re fit for purpose and that people have the equipment and space to do their best work.
• Plan our internal events calendar - from team socials to the annual retreat and strategy days.
• Manage and improve our benefits offering, keeping it competitive, valued & collaborative.
• Connect the team to our conservation mission, so our impact feels real, not just something we read about.
• Use employee feedback and people data to see what’s working in our culture - and fix what isn’t.

Who we are looking for 🧳

• Experience
• • Likely 7-10 years in people, HR or culture roles, with time spent owning a function.
  • End-to-end ownership of a people function - recruitment, employee relations and L&D.
  • Has owned internal culture and events programmes.
  • A track record designing and delivering development frameworks and review cycles.
  • Management experience, preferably within a lean people team.
  • Comfortable being strategic as well as hands-on.
  • Backgrounds we value: Mission-led or purpose-driven consumer brands, 50+ team size, scale-up environment.
• Culture fit
• • Kind, collaborative and uplifting.
  • Entrepreneurial and action-oriented.
  • Appreciates the value of brand as a growth lever.
  • Cares about the quality of the work and the people creating it.
  • Excited to join a purpose-led brand blending creativity, commerciality and conservation.

What success looks like

By 6-12 months in, you'll have rolled out a development framework and run your first full APR cycle. You'll have refreshed our events and culture calendar and reviewed our benefits offering so both genuinely reflect where ES is now, backed by real feedback and people data rather than guesswork. You'll have built a recruitment playbook that's measurably shortened time-to-hire, and worked with our HR Manager to bring more consistency and confidence to how we handle people relations and policy. Leadership will already see you as a genuine partner in the room, not just someone who executes decisions made without you.

What we offer 💡

• Salary, bonus & benefits

• • £70k DOE
  • 10% discretionary performance bonus
  • Private medical insurance, health & wellbeing discounts, stress support
  • Income protection, life assurance (up to pension age) & enhanced Pension contributions
• Flexibility and time

• • Hybrid working with regular time in Potters Bar office (3 days in-office)
  • 24 days holiday plus bank holidays

• Personal development
• • Annual Development budget (3% of salary)
  • Annual summer retreat (e.g. 42 Acres in Somerset)

• Team perks
• • £500 ES products per year at 60% team discount
  • 25% friends and family discount code

• Impact and ownership
• • Full ownership of the people function, with the autonomy to shape it as ES grows.
  • Direct contribution to our wildlife conservation mission.

🌿 Help us build a team where every person grows as fast as our mission does. Apply now and bring your talent to Elizabeth Scarlett.