Head of Legal - Employment and Immigration

This posting is for hourly paid logistics employees to apply through.

Ocado Group is an equal opportunities employer and as such makes every effort to ensure that all potential employees are treated fairly and equally, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, marital status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, age, or disability or union membership status. 

About Us

Our teams are putting the world’s retailers online using the cloud, robotics, AI, and IoT. We provide services to partner clients globally via our innovative advanced robotics technology, known as the Ocado Smart Platform ("OSP"), this drives our highly automated, multi-million pound Customer Fulfilment Centres (CFCs). In our CFCs - together with the proprietary software applications - we operate a world-class online grocery business that automates the single pick of products, ready for your online delivery.

About the role

The Employment and Immigration Law team sits within the Legal team and is managed by an Associate General Counsel.  The Legal team sits within Ocado Group’s Legal & Business Integrity Department.

The Head of Legal – Employment and Immigration will be responsible for delivering strategic legal and commercial advice on all employment and immigration matters across the Ocado Group, both in the UK and internationally. This role also includes the leadership and management of a small, high-performing team.

Working in close collaboration with stakeholders across the business—including executive leadership—the Principal Legal Counsel will be expected to build trusted relationships and provide clear, pragmatic guidance that aligns with Ocado Group’s objectives and values.

In addition, the role will actively support and, where appropriate, represent the wider Legal team in senior leadership and management forums, contributing to key decisions and ensuring legal considerations are effectively integrated into business strategy.

This position offers significant flexibility in terms of working patterns and locations. However, the successful candidate will need to be available to attend our Head Office in Hatfield (currently at least two days per week), as well as other Ocado sites when necessary. Travel to Employment Tribunal hearings and occasional out-of-hours work may be required.

Accountabilities

• Being a trusted strategic partner for key stakeholders, including members of the executive team and being the go-to subject matter expert for all employment and immigration matters for Ocado Group.
• Managing or overseeing the management of internally managed employment litigation as well as complex employee relations matters such as internal investigations, disciplinary matters or grievances;
• Partnering with key stakeholders on industrial and employee relations strategies as well as overseeing the management of works council or collective employee relations issues;
• Proactively identifying and managing legal changes that could impact our operations as well as strategic priorities for the business and work with the relevant stakeholders to agree solutions and take responsibility to achieve advantageous outcomes for the business.
• Supporting on the relevant aspects of commercial and M&A activity;
• Partnering with key stakeholders on the strategy for creation and implementation of people related policies across our global operations;
• Identifying priority training needs and overseeing the roll out of an employment and immigration training programme across our global operations;
• Advising on employee incentive programmes (including share schemes) and benefits;
• Leading, managing and coaching a small team covering employment and immigration matters to deliver high quality and commercial advice to the Ocado Group business in a timely manner.
• Has a well-developed pragmatic and customer-focussed approach to risk management.
• Is flexible in their communication style and seamlessly adapts responses to the stakeholders in vague or challenging situations in order to exceed the business’s expectations.
• Models, encourages, recognises and rewards a strong and unwavering focus on results.
• Building and developing strong relationships with external counsel and managing those relationships effectively from a delivery, risk and cost perspective on a daily basis.
• Contributing to the development of the Legal team’s strategy and proactively maintaining and raising the profile of the team by developing and taking forward team initiatives/objectives.
• Responsible for the creation, development and update of relevant standard contract templates and expertise materials for the Ocado Group business.
• Contributes to developing more efficient legal systems and operations that affects the function and looks for opportunities to improve e.g. automation or smarter in-house legal working.
• Support and management of legal budget in respect of employment and immigration operations globally.
• Supporting, coaching and developing the wider Legal team to fulfil their potential and to deliver quality advice.

About you 

• UK qualified lawyer with at least 8 years post qualification experience as an employment lawyer (although candidates with less experience who can demonstrate they have the skills and experience will be considered);
• Trained with a leading law firm or well-respected in-house team, and will have demonstrable management experience;
• Demonstrable experience of working with senior management including at executive and board level and operating with broad latitude in complex environments;
• Significant experience advising of managing employment law matters outside of the UK and liaising with / coordinating international legal counsel;
• Outstanding business judgement and client counselling experience; and
• Strong academic qualifications.

Preferred 

• Prior experience advising and managing global immigration matters (or a willingness to learn);
• Experience working within an in-house legal team at a large global organisation.

What we offer you

Our employee benefits are designed for you, we care about people and we’ve ensured we have a wealth of benefits that focus on your well-being. We regularly review our benefits to ensure we are supporting our employees appropriately.

• 30 days ‘working from anywhere in the world’ policy 
• Wellbeing support through dedicated apps and an Employee Assistance Programme 
• 25 days annual leave, rising to 27 days after 5 years service (plus optional holiday purchase)
• Pension scheme (various options available including employer contribution matching up to 7%)
• Generous Private Medical Insurance (within the first month of joining!)
• Income Protection (can be up to 50% of salary for 3 years) and Life Assurance (3 x annual salary) 
• 22 weeks paid maternity leave and 6 weeks paid paternity leave (once relevant service requirements complete) 
• Train Ticket loan (interest-free)
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Free shuttle bus to and from Hatfield Train Station to the Hatfield offices 
• Free shuttle bus to and from Welwyn Garden City Train Station to the Welwyn Garden City offices
• Opportunity to participate in Sharesave and Buy as You Earn share schemes
• 15% discount on Ocado.com and free delivery for all employees (within the first month of joining!)