About Savona
Savona is a leading independent foodservice wholesaler with over 50 years of experience supplying chefs, caterers, and hospitality professionals across the South of England. What truly sets us apart isn’t just our products – it’s our people, our culture, and our customer-first mindset. We’re a business built on relationships. Every order, every delivery, every conversation is driven by one simple value: put the customer at the heart of everything we do. Our team takes pride in going the extra mile – anticipating needs, solving problems, and delivering a service experience that is personal, reliable, and refreshingly genuine.
We work fast, stay flexible, and think differently. As an independent company, we have the freedom to innovate, to act quickly, and to put doing the right thing above all else. Collaboration and integrity guide how we work – with our customers, our partners, and each other. At Savona, you’ll join a team that values initiative, celebrates fresh ideas, and supports each other to grow. We’re passionate about food, serious about service, and proud of the reputation we’ve built.
The Role
This role is responsible for delivering a proactive, professional, and commercially focused HR service across the business. You will support a multi-site foodservice wholesale environment, ensuring effective people practices, robust compliance, and a strong, engaged workforce.
As HR Advisor, you will establish key relationships with Line Managers based in London, Oxford and Devon. With a growing workforce of 300 employees, your role will be to provide advice, guidance and support to the business, as defined, in line with best practice, legislation, and company policy. You will be based at the Oxford Depot and be required to make quarterly or ad hoc visits to London and Devon Depots. As a 24/7 business with round the clock shifts, you will be expected to work flexibly at times to see that every Line manager has access to you and HR services. By joining Savona, you’ll have the opportunity, to make a measurable impact and to advocate the important part our people play in Savona’s business. Your knowledge experience and expertise will need to add value and the role will give you a broad opportunity to develop your skills to prepare you for the next stage of your career in HR.
Key Accountabilities
- Recruitment and Retention (HR KPIs)
- HR Best Practice (Investors in People)
Key Responsibilities
- Deal with people-related queries, providing accurate advice and support, including advice on absence, grievance and disciplinary to line management and escalating as necessary, to ensure compliance with company policies and procedures, best practice and relevant legislation.
- Oversee onboarding, induction, and probation periods
- Advise managers on employment law, best practice, and risk mitigation.
- Participate in the recruitment and selection process including, being a point of contact for hiring managers, interviewing and coaching others to interview and take objective decisions with evidence, to optimise the process in line with company policies and legislation.
- Manage the day-to-day activity concerning employee well-being to ensure all policies are met and people are supported.
- Assist in the updating and implementation of policies and procedures to ensure they reflect current legislation and best practice and meet business requirements.
- Coordinate and maintain the collection and input of accurate data and information to ensure data integrity is maintained and to inform management on trends and issues to enable appropriate action to be taken.
- Design and deliver development activities, to assist in encouraging a climate of employee development and satisfaction in line with company values.
- Support for a wide variety of organisational change HR projects including achieving Investors in People standard in 2027
- Produce regular reports on turnover, absence, recruitment, and update business scorecard
Person Specification
- Has achieved CIPD Level 3
- Proven HR generalist experience in a fast paced, multisite environment
- Experience in foodservice, wholesale, or distribution
- Experience managing employee relations issues, recruitment, and performance processes with the ability to influence Line Manager action
- Track record of introducing meaningful practices across an Organisation
- Ability to engage with a range of stakeholders
- Ability to communicate at all levels
- Pragmatic with a solutions-focused approach.
- A good sense of humour with the ability to build relationships at all levels
- Full clean UK driving license
Based:
Kidlington, Oxford with occasional travel.
Job Type:
Full time/ Permanent
For an informal discussion about the role, please contact Gill Parks, Head of HR on 07341 563716
