People Officer

National Housing Federation

Hours
35 hours per week

Length of contract
October 2027

About the Organisation

National Housing Federation (NHF) is a prominent membership organisation in England representing independent, not-for-profit housing associations. These housing associations are responsible for providing affordable homes to people in need and play a crucial role in addressing housing challenges across the country.

National Housing Federation plays a pivotal role in shaping the housing landscape in England. By representing housing associations and advocating for their interests, the NHF ensures that affordable housing remains a priority on the national agenda. It also supports the broader goal of creating equitable, sustainable, and thriving communities.

About the role

The People Officer has responsibility and accountability for the full employee life cycle and is involved in all areas of the Human Resources function to support staff and management at the NHF to be effective in their roles. The People Officer works as part of a small HR team, providing HR/recruitment administration and day-to-day advice to line managers and employees on general HR related queries, looking to raise standards of service delivery wherever possible. The People Officer works closely with the People Manager, Head of People and the Finance team.

An exciting opportunity has arisen at the National Housing Federation (NHF) for a People Officer to join our small people team on a fixed-term basis. You will play an important role in helping us deliver an effective and responsive People service across the organisation. The successful candidate will oversee the full employee lifecycle, have the opportunity to contribute to a range of People projects and initiatives and gain broad HR experience. This role will suit an experienced HR Administrator looking to take the next step to fulfil their career aspirations.

Responsibilities

Recruitment and Onboarding:

• Manage the recruitment process and provide support to hiring managers to draft effective recruitment adverts, job descriptions and interview questions.
• Provide managers with advice on resourcing, enhancing the applicant experience, and recommend best recruitment strategies.
• Advertise vacancies internally and externally and liaise with external stakeholders to ensure jobs are advertised on relevant additional platforms.
• Lead on the onboarding process for new employees, prepare the necessary documentation and undertake pre-employment checks.
• Support line managers through the induction and probation process.
• Arrange training sessions for staff and liaise with suitable external training providers.
• Assist with resolving queries regarding staff personal development requests.
• Be the primary contact for the online training platform, administer, monitor usage, and generate reports.
• Co-create and deliver in-house workshops on recruitment, benefits and wellbeing.

HR and Reporting:

• Act as systems administrator for the HR system and be the primary contact for queries on the HR system, ensuring confidentiality and GDPR and other legislation compliance.
• Provide appropriate reports for the purpose of auditing and monitoring employee data and training.
• Manage the monthly payroll process, log all organisational changes, and submit payroll instructions to the Payroll Officer for the payroll run.

Advice and General Admin:

• Provide day-to-day advice to line managers and employees on people policies and procedures and general HR related queries, escalating more complex issues to the People Manager.
• Monitor sickness absence and manage OH referrals.
• Manage the HR Admin inbox and generate all standard HR documents and letters.
• Manage the leaver process, ensuring all leaver information is recorded and calculated for payroll purposes, and conduct and act upon exit interviews.
• Recommend, research, and introduce new benefits to ensure a competitive and fit-for-purpose offering.

Skills, Competencies, Experience & Attributes

Experience:

• Previous HR generalist experience
• Proven experience in providing first-line advice and guidance on routine HR policies, processes and practices, annual staff appraisal processes and confidential/sensitive employee relations matters
• Previous experience in supporting managers to plan successful recruitment campaigns
• Use of HR Information System (HRIS

Knowledge:

• Up-to-date knowledge of employment law and best practice
• Knowledge and understanding of recruitment processes

Skills & Abilities:

• Good interpersonal and organisational skills
• Excellent written and numeracy skills
• Ability to deliver work accurately, within set timescales
• Conscientious and proactive approach
• Ability to use initiative and deliver expectations with little or no supervision
• Able to work as part of a small team
• Confidential approach with the ability to form strong, trust-based working relationships at all levels within the organisation
• Good decision-making skills
• Emotional intelligence with the ability to empathise with others
• Ability to take a pragmatic approach to find solutions that suit our workforce
• Strong IT skills, skilled in using Microsoft Word and Excel packages
• Have a positive ‘can do’ attitude and flexibility in taking on a variety of tasks, occasionally at short notice to meet business needs

Additional Requirements:

• Be committed to own personal development and undertake relevant training and development

Desirable:

• Generalist HR experience gained within the housing sector
• Experience managing OH referrals

Required Qualifications

• Educated to GCSE level and equivalent
• Level 5 CIPD qualification

Compensation & Benefits

• 27 days’ annual leave + statutory holidays + three closure days over the Christmas period.
• Flexible working for all staff, including working from home/hybrid working, and a flexitime/TOIL scheme.
• Attractive family-friendly policies.
• Private healthcare cover.
• Season ticket loans.
• Employee awards, and training and development opportunities.

Conditions of employment

• You must have the right to work in the UK. Please note that the NHF does not sponsor individuals to work in the UK.

Working locations

• Hybrid model, working in the London office and remotely
• Please note that the successful candidate will be expected to carry out two days of in-person working per week on average, which will include attendance at your office location.

How to apply

• To apply for this role, please complete our online application form. The application form includes your employment and education history, plus you will be asked to answer questions in relation to your knowledge, skills and experience, why you are applying for the role, and questions in relation to our values. The application form is anonymous and will not require you to upload a CV or cover letter. This will help us to shortlist interview candidates based solely on their knowledge, skills and experience.
• We are happy to consider reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process if you have a disability or have a condition that you feel may affect your performance during the recruitment process. Please e-mail the People team at [email protected] with your request or to arrange a time to discuss in more detail.
• The closing date for applications is 15th November 2026

Interviews

• The interview date are 25th and 26th November 2026

Policies

Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) are core values at the NHF, and all employees are expected to demonstrate their commitment in line with our EDI strategy. We are passionate about building and sustaining an inclusive and equitable working and learning environment for all staff. We believe every member on our team enriches our diversity by exposing us to a broad range of ways to understand and engage with others, identify challenges, and to discover, design and deliver solutions.

All staff at the NHF are responsible for strict compliance with our Health and Safety policies and procedures. All employees are responsible for highlighting concerns regarding health and safety so that suitable action can be taken to rectify the situation.

We are a disability confident employer, and if you are a disabled person who meets the skills and experience we consider essential for the role, we will offer you an interview. Please note: there may be occasions where it is not practicable or appropriate to interview all disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job. In certain recruitment situations such as high volumes of applications, we may be required to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people.

In these circumstances, the NHF will select the disabled candidates who best meet the minimum criteria for the job rather than all of those that meet the minimum criteria, as we would do for non-disabled applicants. This is in line with the Disability Confident guidelines.

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