Head of Leadership Development and Experience

Purpose of the Role

• As the Head of Talent and Capability at Pets at Home, you will steer our learning and development strategy to build a world-class pet care platform.
• Your role involves creating innovative learning programmes that equip our team with the skills and capabilities needed to deliver exceptional service and care. Reporting to the Director of Centres of Excellence, you'll work closely with senior leaders, developing policies that align with our strategic goals and enhance our Colleague Value Proposition.
• You are accountable for overseeing comprehensive training programmes across our Petcare Centres, Grooming Salons, and Practices, ensuring they reflect our values and strategic intent.

Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Strategy and Service Development: Craft and implement an overarching learning strategy that aligns with our business objectives, enhancing capabilities throughout the organisation.
• Colleague Value Proposition: Ensure our learning and development offering is a key element of our employer value proposition, attracting and retaining top talent.
• Industry Best Practice: Stay informed of emerging trends and innovations in talent development to ensure Pets at Home remains at the forefront of the industry.

Programme Design and Delivery

• Learning Programmes Oversight: Lead the creation and implementation of effective onboarding, leadership development, technical training, and soft skills development programmes.
• Core Learning Solutions: In partnership with Core and Future Skills Leads, develop programmes like our Induction, Performance Management, and Leadership Frameworks.
• Expertise Learning Strategy: Collaborate with the Expertise Lead on strategies catering to Petcare Centres and Grooming Salons, including initiatives like the Prep It, Clip It, Snip It Programme.

Team Leadership

• Performance Management: Guide a high-performing Learning and Development team, setting goals and engaging in regular performance evaluations to foster growth and accountability.
• Capability Building: Enhance the team's capabilities by promoting a culture of collaboration, innovation, and ongoing professional development.
• Demand Management: Oversee workload and capacity planning to ensure agile and effective service delivery.

Stakeholder Management

• Prioritisation and Delivery: Work with executive and senior stakeholders to prioritise Learning and Development initiatives that align with strategic goals, maintaining a high challenge, high support model.
• Trusted Advisor: Establish relationships with senior leaders to effectively integrate talent initiatives across the business.

Support Services

• Financial Oversight: Collaborate with Finance to manage the Learning and Development budget, ensuring strategic allocation of resources.
• Data and Reporting: Implement robust data management and reporting to evaluate the effectiveness of programmes and compliance.

Values and Behaviours

Our values and behaviours underpin everything we do and how we do it. They help us stay true to our purpose, which is why we exist. Its what drives us to provide the very best pet care products, services and advice, in a way that's both socially responsible and environmentally sustainable, creating a better world for pets and the people who love them.

Education

Skills

Future Skills IdentificationProgramme Impact EvaluationCommunicationFacilitationPlanning and OrganisingProblem SolvingLeading through ChangeLearning AnalyticsContinuous ImprovementBusiness PlanningDecision MakingLearning Technology Platform ManagementStakeholder ManagementPeople ManagementBuilding Relationships and NetworksBusiness AcumenChampioning Inclusivity

Competencies

Enterprise-Level Financial ManagementLeading and ManagingBuilding Leadership CapabilityDriving Delivery and Resource AllocationProblem Solving and Decision MakingCoaching and MentoringTeam Leadership

Head of Leadership Development & Experience

Shape the leaders, culture and colleague experience that will define the future of Pets at Home.

Location: We welcome applications from those looking for hybrid working, based 2 days per week in our Handforth (Cheshire) Office.

Competitive package, including excellent benefits.

Purpose

At Pets at Home, we're on an exciting journey to become an even better place to work, grow and belong. To help us achieve our ambitious plans, we're looking for an exceptional Head of Leadership Development & Experience to lead the strategy and delivery of leadership capability, colleague experience, future talent, learning innovation and Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (EDIB) across our business.

This is a unique opportunity to influence the experience of thousands of colleagues, develop the leaders who will shape our future and create an environment where every individual can thrive, develop and feel they truly belong.

Reporting into our People Director, you'll work at the heart of the business, partnering with senior leaders to build the leadership capability, culture and talent pipelines needed to deliver our long-term ambitions.

What You'll Be Doing

As the strategic lead for Leadership Development & Experience, you'll bring together several critical people agendas into one connected approach, ensuring our colleagues have the skills, support and opportunities they need to succeed at every stage of their career.

You'll lead a talented multidisciplinary team covering leadership development, future talent, colleague experience, engagement, EDIB, learning design and digital learning, creating a clear vision that delivers measurable impact across our Group, Retail (Pets at Home) and Vet Business (VetsforPets).

You'll:

✅ Define and evolve our leadership philosophy, frameworks and expectations across every level of leadership.

✅ Create world-class leadership development pathways that build capability from first-line manager through to senior leadership.

✅ Develop future leader and emerging talent programmes that strengthen succession pipelines and accelerate internal career progression.

✅ Champion Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging, ensuring inclusion is embedded in decision-making, leadership behaviours and colleague experiences across the business.

✅ Lead our colleague listening and engagement strategy, using colleague insight to shape culture, improve experiences and drive meaningful action.

✅ Design and continuously improve the moments that matter across the colleague lifecycle, from onboarding and development through to recognition, wellbeing and career growth.

✅ Shape the future of learning through innovative, digital and AI-enabled solutions that build critical capability and support business transformation.

✅ Partner with senior leaders and executive stakeholders to ensure leadership, talent and engagement considerations are embedded within major business and change initiatives.

Why This Role Matters

This role goes far beyond learning and development.

It's about creating an organisation where:

• Great leadership becomes a competitive advantage.
• Future leaders are identified, developed and ready to step forward.
• Colleagues feel engaged, valued and connected to our purpose.
• Inclusion and belonging are experienced by everyone, every day.
• Learning is modern, accessible and aligned to the skills we'll need tomorrow.
• Culture drives performance, retention and growth.

The impact you create will be felt across every part of our business, and will directly contribute to our long-term success.

What We're Looking For

We're looking for a strategic, commercially-minded people leader who combines big-picture thinking with the ability to deliver tangible results.

You'll bring significant experience leading large-scale leadership development, learning, talent or colleague experience strategies within a complex, fast-paced organisation.

You'll also have:

• A track record of building and implementing leadership and talent strategies that improve organisational capability and performance.
• Experience developing future talent pipelines, succession frameworks and career development pathways.
• Strong expertise in colleague engagement, culture, inclusion and organisational development.
• A passion for creating outstanding colleague experiences that drive engagement, wellbeing and retention.
• Experience leveraging digital and innovative learning solutions to build capability at scale.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate at executive level.
• Strong leadership capability, with experience leading and developing high-performing teams.

Most importantly, you'll be passionate about helping people realise their potential and creating environments where everyone can thrive.

Why Join Pets at Home?

At Pets at Home, our people are at the heart of everything we do.

This is an opportunity to shape a people agenda that genuinely impacts thousands of colleagues across our stores, distribution centres, support offices and veterinary practices.

You'll have the freedom to think boldly, challenge convention and create programmes, experiences and cultures that make a real difference.

If you're excited by the opportunity to develop exceptional leaders, build future talent, champion inclusion and create outstanding colleague experiences, we'd love to hear from you.

Join us and help build the leaders, culture and colleague experience of tomorrow. 🐾