People Business Partner

Hippo is seeking a People Business Partner to join our Hippo Herd. This role sits within an expanding People function that plays a pivotal part in supporting our existing Hippos during a period of exciting growth.

This role covers a broad strategic and operational scope across the business. How that splits day-to-day by business unit, strategic pillar, or initiative will be agreed and will evolve alongside the team and business needs. This description sets out the broad scope of the role rather than a fixed set of individual responsibilities.

Our People function is going through its own transformation and AI and automation sit right at the centre of it. We're building a People function where technology handles the repetitive, transactional work so our People Business Partners can focus their time and expertise on culture, coaching, complex problem-solving and the moments that need a human touch. This role is for someone who is excited by that shift, someone who wants to actively use AI tools and automated workflows to work smarter, generate sharper insight, and free up capacity for higher-value people work.

You'll support the ongoing development of a progressive and positive culture, with the overall goal of increasing levels of engagement, enablement, and retention, through the delivery of a high-quality, responsive and increasingly automated people partnering model.

What You'll Do

Across all of these areas, ownership at business partner level is about strategic judgement, mentoring advisors, and managing complex, high-risk casework with autonomy.

• Employee Relations & Manager Support: Act as a trusted coach and strategic advisor to senior managers and leaders on complex or sensitive people issues, high-level performance management, and organisational change. Build management capability at scale and personally lead complex casework requiring high-level risk assessment.
• Culture, Engagement & Wellbeing: Interrogate deep engagement analytics to shape targeted culture strategies; provide executive-level coaching that ensures wellbeing initiatives drive measurable organisational impact.
• Development & Capability Building: Design and drive strategic capability frameworks including leadership 360 processes, executive psychometrics and targeted mentoring programs to level up management performance across departments.
• Data & Insights: Lead data-driven decision-making across assigned business areas leveraging AI-powered analytics and predictive reporting to surface trends, inform senior stakeholders and continuously optimise service delivery.
• Business Partnering: Build strong strategic partnerships with senior leadership teams, deeply understanding their business strategies and ensuring People plans directly enable business outcomes.
• Team Leadership: Share responsibility for the day-to-day management, coaching, and professional development of People team members, driving an operational culture of continuous improvement and rapid technology adoption.