Head of People Transformation - 12M FTC

Location: London, London, United Kingdom

London Store Support Centre and Home

Fixed term contract – 12 months

About the team

Our People Transformation team turns the organisation’s biggest workforce questions into practical, high-value change. Working across the People Division and directly with business leaders, the team brings together expertise from People Partnering, Centres of Expertise and operational teams to shape and deliver complex programmes. The portfolio is varied and strategically important, offering the opportunity to influence how our workforce, skills and ways of working evolve over the longer term.

More about the role

As Head of People Transformation, you will lead significant people change outcomes from early discovery and solution design through to implementation. You will work with a People Leadership Team sponsor to define the scope, milestones, governance, stakeholder plan and measures of success, then bring together an agile, cross-functional pool of colleagues to deliver them. You will select the right delivery approach for each programme, remove barriers, manage risks and ensure the work creates measurable value across capability, capacity, cost or productivity.

Your day-to-day work will move between strategic problem solving, programme leadership and senior stakeholder engagement. Current and emerging work ranges from defining people initiatives to support long term multi-year business programmes with changing workforce requirements, to programme management of in-year delivery of people initiatives including adopting new ways of working and building specific capabilities (e.g. AI and digital enablement). Projects may be at different stages, so you will need to be comfortable scoping new questions, securing agreement to proposed interventions, leading focused delivery sprints and adapting plans as business priorities change.

More about you

You will bring a broad understanding of HR and People priorities, gained through a specialist, generalist, People Partnering or People-project background. You can translate complex business scenarios into clear People implications and practical workstreams, while applying commercial judgement to prioritise activity and investment. You are comfortable engaging senior leaders, constructively challenging established thinking and gaining commitment to solutions that may be new to the organisation.

You will also know how to lead through a matrix. This means setting clear outcomes, allocating work, coaching and developing others, and holding contributors accountable even when they do not report directly to you. You take ownership from problem definition through to resolution, look for simpler and more effective ways of working, and remain adaptable when priorities or project resources change.

Essential criteria

• Demonstrable end-to-end leadership of a large-scale transformation or change programmes, including solution scoping, delivery planning, implementation and measurement against defined outcomes.

• Proven experience of translating business or workforce challenges into People interventions, drawing on knowledge of HR disciplines, colleague lifecycle activity or workforce planning.

• Evidence of selecting and applying more than one project delivery methodology, such as agile and waterfall, to balance pace, quality, risk and agreed measures of success.

• Demonstrable experience of influencing Director-level or equivalent stakeholders, securing decisions, resources or cross-functional commitment to deliver a complex outcome.

• Proven leadership of colleagues or matrix project teams, including setting accountabilities, allocating work, monitoring delivery, coaching contributors and addressing barriers to performance.

#LI-UH

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work–life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. We’re the first to say we do HR differently here. For a start, we work as business partners and specialists. Whether that’s making sure nearly 150,000 colleagues are paid on time, or shaping a strategy that helps us attract the right people, put them in the right place, and unlock their potential. This is a fast-moving business, and our policies and rewards evolve with it. That’s why we’re as flexible as we can be about where and when you work. We’re also flexible about your future. There’s always room to move up or across, if that’s what you want. We really value different perspectives, so there’s no one opinion, no single path, and yours matters.

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 65% of salary, depending on how we perform (in cash and shares).

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday, and we provide private healthcare. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. You'll also receive a company car cash allowance unless you are going to travel 10,000 business miles in your role, then you'll be able to choose a car. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).