People Administrator

People Administrator

Location: Cardale Park, Harrogate - with occasional travel across Oakdale sites. Up to 2 days per week home working once the full team is established and working well operationally.

Hours: 37.5 hours per week

Salary: Up to £29,000 per annum, depending on experience

Make a Difference Every Day

At Oakdale, we believe in care that changes lives. For over 25 years, we’ve been delivering trusted, evidence-based therapies and assessments for children, young people, and adults. As a values-driven organisation, we work with the NHS, schools, local authorities, and private clients, always putting people first.

Job Purpose

The People Administrator (HR, HRIS & Payroll) is the operational and administrative backbone of Oakdale's people data, ensuring contractual documentation is accurate and issued in a timely manner and that workforce information is accurate, complete and available when it's needed. The role also coordinates workforce data for the monthly payroll process, which is owned and run by the Finance department and acts as the first point of contact for employees and managers on payroll-related queries.

Key Responsibilities

Contracts & Documentation

• Issue accurate contracts of employment for new starters, ensuring correct terms, salary, benefits and start dates.
• Process and issue contract variations (e.g. changes to hours, role, salary, location) promptly and accurately, ensuring changes are reflected in the HRIS.
• Maintain up-to-date, compliant contract and letter templates, working with the People Partner to reflect policy or legislative changes.
• Ensure all contractual documentation is stored securely and in line with UK GDPR and data retention requirements.

Payroll Coordination

• Coordinate and submit accurate, timely workforce data (new starters, leavers, contract changes, absence, hours) to Finance each month to support the payroll run, which is owned and processed by Finance.
• Maintain a monthly payroll deadline tracker, ensuring all HR-owned inputs are captured and submitted ahead of Finance's cut-off.
• Act as the first point of contact for employee and manager payroll queries, triaging and resolving where possible, and liaising with Finance on more complex cases.
• Support reconciliation checks between Employment Hero and payroll outputs, flagging and helping resolve discrepancies.
• Maintain clear audit trails for all payroll-affecting changes (starters, leavers, salary changes, benefits, statutory payments).

HRIS Data Integrity (Employment Hero)

• Own the day-to-day accuracy and reliability of workforce data held in Employment Hero, including personal details, contracts, roles, reporting lines and absence records.
• Process employee lifecycle changes in the system promptly and accurately (new starters, leavers, changes to terms, promotions, transfers).
• Run regular data quality checks/audits, identifying and correcting errors or gaps before they affect payroll or reporting.
• Maintain up-to-date process documentation and data standards for how information should be entered and maintained in the system.
• Act as the day-to-day system administrator for Employment Hero, managing user access, permissions and routine configuration.

HRIS Optimisation & Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to maximise the functionality of Employment Hero, including automation of manual processes, workflow configuration and self-service features.
• Work with the Director of People and the wider People team to scope and test new HRIS features, modules or integrations as the system matures.
• Provide first-line support and training to managers and employees on using Employment Hero effectively.
• Keep abreast of Employment Hero product updates and recommend relevant changes to ways of working.

General HR Administration

• Provide administrative support across the employee lifecycle
• Maintain accurate, compliant personnel records in line with UK GDPR and Oakdale's data retention policies.
• Support the wider People team with ad hoc administrative tasks as required. 

Person Specification

Essential

• Experience in an HR administration 1 - 2 years.
• Strong working knowledge of HRIS platforms, with high attention to detail and a methodical approach to data accuracy.
• Understanding of core payroll inputs and processes (e.g. starters/leavers, statutory payments, contractual changes) sufficient to coordinate confidently with a Finance-owned payroll process.
• Confident using spreadsheets to manipulate and present data.
• Excellent communication skills, comfortable acting as first point of contact for employee queries.
• Highly organised, able to manage recurring monthly deadlines accurately and reliably.
• A discreet, professional and trustworthy approach to handling confidential personal and financial data.

Desirable

• Direct experience using Employment Hero or a similar cloud-based HRIS/payroll platform.
• Experience working in a health, social care or other regulated sector.
• Experience building dashboards or workforce KPI reporting.
• CIPD Level 3 qualification or working towards it.

Behaviours & Values

• Genuine commitment to Oakdale's purpose and person-centred approach to care.
• Reliable and consistent, with pride in getting the details right.
• Collaborative, working effectively across HR and Finance to keep processes joined up.
• Proactive in spotting and fixing data issues before they become problems.

This job description reflects the current requirements of the role and may be reviewed and amended in line with the needs of Oakdale Group.

Why Join Oakdale?

At Oakdale, your well-being and growth matter as much as the clients you support. We offer a package designed for balance, flexibility, and long-term career satisfaction, including:

• 29 days’ annual leave (including bank holidays), increasing with service
• Flexible and agile working from day one
• SimplyHealth: 24/7 GP access, counselling, physiotherapy, and more
• Exclusive, heavily discounted rates for you and your family on private ADHD and autism neurodevelopmental assessments, through our own expert service.*
• Fully funded flu vaccines
• Employee Wellbeing Initiative with trained mental health champions
• Smart Pension & Rewards: plan for your future with discounts and cashback
• Enhanced Occupational Sick Pay
• Cycle to Work & Technology Salary Sacrifice schemes
• Employee discount scheme
• Protected CPD days, annual away days, and high-quality training
• Professional registration fees covered (where applicable)
• Opportunities to influence service improvement and innovation
• Laptop, monitor, keyboard, and any additional equipment you need to do your best work

*Discounts apply to dependents living within the same household