HR services

Juniper's end-to-end HR service is flexible and tailored to every school. Our experienced consultants can help you establish a strong culture among staff, provide casework support on all employee-related matters, and handle your everyday HR admin for you. 

✔︎  recruitment, restructuring, and redundancy

✔︎  grievances

✔︎  attendance, absence, and occupational health

✔︎  investigations 

✔  DBS and pre-employment checks

✔︎  mediation, negotiations, and settlement agreements 

✔︎  legal advice 

✔︎  contracts and HR administration support

✔︎  policies, guidance, and templates (via Knowledge Hub) 

✔︎  regular HR newsletters and policy updates 

✔︎  staff and leadership training courses

✔ support on all people management and HR matters 

Yes! When you subscribe to our HR Connected or Consultancy service, your school will be assigned a named HR consultant as your primary contact. For routine enquiries, you can also call our advice line anytime to speak to an HR advisor and get instant support. 

Our advice line and support is available 

Monday – Thursday: 9:00am – 5:00pm 

Friday: 9:00am – 4:30pm 

No. In our HR Connected Package, you will have unlimited access to remote advice and support subject to reasonable usage limits. Face to Face support can be purchased as a package of days or for one-off support. 

No, we work for the school or trust as the employer, and it would not be appropriate for us to provide advice to individual employees, which could be in conflict with the employer's wishes or intentions. We will, however, support the school in appropriate meetings and discussions with staff.  Staff should get advice from their union or Citizens Advice. 

Yes. All of our HR Consultants are well-versed in current employment law, and we have specialists who can advise on complex legal HR matters.  We can provide formal risk cost analyses on particular cases, produce settlement agreements and support employers through employment tribunal cases.     

Yes, our services are provides to all relevant leaders and managers in the school, academy or trust and this included Governors and Trustees. We will work with Governors on issues relating to leaders (e.g. capability or conduct issues) and advise Governor panels hearing HR matters.  We also work with Governors and school leaders or strategic matters such as pay and policies and provide training.  

Our staff have CIPD or equivalent qualifications or experience. Our team have a strong mix of public and private sector experience, including extensive experience working in Education HR.  Individual team members also have other qualifications, such as employment law and mediation and are deployed to support relevant work as needed. 

No, our Advice Line is an integral part of our expert education HR service, operated by experienced HR practitioners from within our team. We do not operate a ‘call centre’ model. 

Yes. You can purchase days or hours on a pay-as-you-go basis for a variety of activities, including face-to-face support and training.  We also offer a number of specialist services, including mediation, senior recruitment support and investigation services, which can be purchased as required. 

The Knowledge Hub is an online portal that puts all the education HR information and templates you need at your fingertips. From school recruitment guidance to model policies and everything in between, you can instantly access up-to-date expert-written documents 24/7, 365 days a year. 

HR Connected is our most popular package, providing telephone, email and online meeting support.  You will have access to our dedicated email and telephone Advice Line as the first port of call for all routine and one-off HR enquiries and support from a dedicated HR Consultant for more complex, strategic or in-depth queries and casework. HR Connected includes access to our Knowledge Hub. 

Effective HR helps your school meet its needs by managing your most valuable asset – your employees. HR supports your school by providing a framework of expectations, support and procedures for employees and managers to improve employee engagement and productivity.    

HR policies provide schools with the framework for managing people. They usually set out the employers 'approach, rules and expectations, and the steps to be followed by employees and employers. Written Policies and Procedures ensure legal compliance, fairness and equality. Some policies are required by employment and education law, and others are recommended as best practices.   

You can do many things around well–being support for teachers, from having an effective well–being policies such as health, leave of absence and flexible working to ensuring effective communication and management of workloads and the provision of training for staff and managers.   

The HR function helps a school to deliver its objectives. Guiding managers to recruit the right people with the right skills and supporting effective development, performance, attendance and conduct, HR support helps to avoid and manage problems effectively and efficiently.   These functions are all vital in improving the overall effectiveness of individuals to support and deliver for pupils.