HR Business Partner - 5 months Maternity Cover - Scale-up B-Corp

Wolf & Badger is on a mission to make retail fair. Working to support our community of 2000+ independent designers from around the globe, we connect customers with ethically sourced fashion, design, home and wellness through our online marketplace and flagship stores in London, New York City and Los Angeles. We are an ambitious scale-up business of c.110 people currently located between London, New York and Los Angeles. We are a Certified B Corporation, with social and environmental purpose at the core of everything we do, read more about us here.

Wolf & Badger is looking for an experienced, hands-on and proactive HR Business Partner to support our talented and passionate global team. You will report to our CFO, collaborate across departments and be supported by our People, Culture & Talent Coordinator. As a skilled generalist, you will lead and execute on the day-to-day management of our people team for the duration of our Head of People’s maternity leave and be accountable for tracking and meeting targets in line with our 2025 People Strategy. You will be genuinely motivated by our mission and exemplify our company values of Innovation, Execution and Fairness.

The duration of this maternity cover role will be 5 months, with a target commencement date of early May 2025.

This is an incredible opportunity to partner with our leadership team in a trailblazing ethical business.

In this hybrid role, you will champion our collaborative culture, in-person and online. You will spend 60%+ of your time (avg 3-days per week) at our beautiful and vibrant HQ in Soho, Central London. 

Key Responsibilities

• Compensation & Benefits: Manage UK, US, and Spain payroll, perks and benefits. Administer promotions and ad-hoc pay benchmarking.
• Events & Engagement: Host collaborative staff events, org-wide meetings and DEIB initiatives. Analyse engagement survey data for risks and opportunities in order to execute on changes/improvements. 
• HR Operations & Compliance: Maintain policies, handbooks, and legal compliance. Liaise with auditors, key suppliers and government agencies on people and payroll matters.
• HR Guidance: Support managers and the business with formal people processes (performance and disciplinary processes, probationary reviews etc). Provide guidance on our policies to staff and advice to managers. Be a point of escalation for the People, Culture & Talent Coordinator. 
• Talent & Performance Management: Manage and delegate on recruitment activities, onboarding, mentorship, training, performance reviews, and succession planning.
• Workforce Planning & Reporting: Manage headcount tracking, remuneration committee reporting, and board-level hiring and engagement updates.
• H&S, DEIB & Wellbeing: Ensure compliance with workplace safety training, harassment prevention, violence prevention, DEIB and wellbeing processes.
• HR Systems & Administration: Oversee absence management, employment contracts, software license access, and HR platform administration.
• Operations Support: Act as a point of escalation for improvements and issues in our office environment and be a secondary point of contact for relevant equipment needs and software troubleshooting.

Required

• Significant prior experience working closely with executives as an HRBP, People Partner, Senior HR Manager or similar in a medium-sized start-up/scale-up.
• Holistic and up-to-date knowledge of Human Resource operations, legal regulations and employment law in the UK. You will have access to support from 3rd party experts as needed.
• Passionate about fair, ethical and sustainable business practices. You will be a key ESG partner in our values-led B-Corp.
• Empathetic, diplomatic and trustworthy with excellent skills in stakeholder management at all levels.
• Logical and confident with data and numbers to spot trends and errors.
• Tech-savvy and enjoys working with cutting-edge software, analysing data and making recommendations based on insights. 
• Competent at utilising MS Office applications and/or google equivalents (spreadsheets, docs, slides).
• Hands-on generalist experience of people management across the employee lifecycle.
• Impeccable communication and interpersonal skills. Confident public speaker for leading org-wide meetings, training sessions and events.
• Resilient and adaptable to support our fast-paced scaleup business 
• Effective at project-management to prioritise, lead and execute across People team activities.
• Has the right to work in the UK as visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
• London-based or within commutable distance of our Central London HQ and happy to meet the 60%+ onsite working requirements.

Highly Desirable

• Prior experience of managing one or more direct reports. Our People, Culture and Talent Coordinator will report to you.
• Relevant HR qualification e.g. CIPD Lvl 5 
• Exposure to and understanding of NY and California employment law.

• Competitive salary of £60k-£65k per annum, dependent on experience. Pro-rata for this 5-month contract.
• 25 day holiday allowance in addition to bank holidays.
• Flexible hybrid working policy with a creative work environment in Soho, Central London. Onsite requirements are an average of 3+ days per week.
• Paid volunteering leave, pet-ernity leave and heartbreak leave.
• Quarterly Wellness Wallet - to spend on products or services meaningful to you.
• Subscription to yulife health and wellbeing app.
• Opt-in health insurance plan via salary sacrifice.
• Ample paid sick leave to support mental and physical health.
• Staff discount across Wolf & Badger, in-store and online.
• Work in a positive organisation for people and the planet. We are a certified B Corp!

Leave benefits will be pro-rata in line with a full time commitment for 5 months.

Wolf & Badger is an equal opportunities employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and candidates. We encourage applications from people from all walks of life.