People Partner

About Ekco

Founded in 2016 Ekco is now one of the fastest growing cloud solution providers in Europe

We specialise in enabling companies to progress along the path of cloud maturity, managing transformation and driving better outcomes from our clients' existing technology investments.

In a few words, we take businesses to the cloud and back

We have over 1000 highly talented and supportive colleagues (and counting) across a number of regional offices in the UK, Benelux, South Africa, Malaysia & Ireland.

About the Role

Based in Cape Town, this People Partner role operates as part of our global People Operations team, delivering hands on people partnering primarily for our UK business. The focus is to enable ongoing UK transformation projects and BAU people operations, spanning culture initiatives, onboarding/offboarding, HRIS data management, workforce planning, entity consolidation, and core employee relations, reward, and payroll coordination. As our Cape Town office is a growing team, the role also involves sharing office management duties with existing team members in a high collaboration and high performance team. Reporting to the Director, UK People Ops.

Key Responsibilities:

•Partner with UK leadership and project teams to scope, plan and deliver people workstreams across transformation initiatives (culture, operating model, processes, systems).

•Drive high quality change outcomes with clear communications, stakeholder engagement, adoption plans and success metrics.

•Support entity consolidation activities, ensuring compliant, well managed people impacts, communications, timelines and documentation.

•Own end to end UK onboarding/offboarding workflows, ensuring a consistent, positive experience and timely access/asset changes.

•Maintain high quality HRIS data, audit readiness and process controls; drive data hygiene and reporting accuracy.

•Coordinate workforce planning inputs (headcount, attrition, succession) with Finance and UK leaders; prepare regular planning and variance updates.

•Provide pragmatic ER guidance to UK managers on absence, performance, investigations, grievances and disciplinaries; prepare documentation and case plans.

•Draft, update and socialise UK HR policies, handbooks and templates; ensure alignment to current UK employment law and best practice.

•Ensure compliance with UK employment legislation (including TUPE), and with UK GDPR/Data Protection Act; escalate legal risk appropriately and partner with Legal where needed.

•Support UK compensation cycles (job evaluation inputs, benchmarking, salary reviews, promotions) and benefits administration in partnership with Reward and external providers.

•Oversee accurate, timely UK payroll inputs (new starters, leavers, changes, deductions) with the Payroll team; reconcile variances pre cut off and manage approvals.

•Build trusted advisor relationships with UK leaders, managers and employees across functions.

•Collaborate across global People Ops, Legal, IT and Finance to land scalable processes, tooling and documentation.

•Use HRIS and people analytics to surface insights on headcount, attrition, diversity, engagement and ER themes; recommend actions..

•Support the development and implementation of career frameworks to enable growth and clarity across roles.

•Share office management duties with Cape Town team members, contributing to a collaborative and high-performance environment

Key Requirements:

•Demonstrated experience in a People Partner / HR Business Partner or equivalent role with UK as well as SA exposure, ideally within global People Operations teams and with technology sector experience.

•Strong practical knowledge of UK employment practices and employment law, including TUPE and contemporary ER casework.

•Hands on experience delivering people workstreams on UK transformation projects (e.g., culture initiatives, org changes, process or systems improvements).

•Operational fluency with modern HRIS (HiBob ideal) and payroll processes; high standards for data quality, controls and documentation.

•Comfortable navigating compensation & benefits cycles, benchmarking inputs and vendor coordination.

•Excellent judgment, written/verbal communication and stakeholder management skills; able to simplify complexity and influence decisions.

•High integrity and discretion with confidential information; rigorous, detail oriented and delivery focused.

Nice to haves:

•Relevant HR qualification (e.g., CIPD or equivalent) is advantageous.

•Evidence of continuous professional development in UK employment law / ER.

Why Ekco

• Microsoft's 2023 Rising Star Security Partner of the year
• VMware & Veeam top partner status
• Ranked as 4th fastest growing technology company in the Deloitte Fast Awards
• Ekco are committed to cultivating an environment that promotes diversity, equality, inclusion and belonging
• We recognise the value of internal mobility and encourage opportunities for internal development & progression
• Flexible working with a family friendly focus are at the core of our company values