About this role
Job summary
We are continuing to improve our service and are seeking to recruit highly motivated and enthusiastic HR Helpdesk Agents. This is a varied and enjoyable role, where you will be providing advice and supporting staff across 2 acute hospital sites and several community facilities with HR queries and sickness absence.
You will provide a proactive and responsive first point of contact to staff contacting the Helpdesk.
There will be a requirement to work shifts on-site between 6am - 6pm to assist with covering annual leave. Otherwise the core working hours for this post will be between 8am - 4pm, Monday to Friday.
The post holder will respond to calls providing accurate and timely advice to staff and managers on all types of absences and HR queries. You will provide clerical and project support to the HR Team, including work processing, photocopying, filing and comprehensive administration duties.
You will have excellent communication and interpersonal skills and have proven administrative and IT skills. You will be able to provide a high level of customer service, showing empathy and understanding in dealing with queries.
The successful candidate will have general admin experience, including experience of working in a high volume environment and relevant NVQ 2 or equivalent.
Proposed Interview date: 19th June 2026
Main duties of the job
You will respond to calls providing accurate and timely advice to staff and managers on all types of absences and HR queries in accordance with internal processes and standard operating procedures.
You will be required to provide HR project and admin support, answer comprehensive queries, provide advice, guidance and support to staff and managers and where appropriate, direct both staff and manager to the correct function or resource in order to resolve their query. Ensuring KPIs are achieved effectively.
About us
We are ESNEFT and we provide hospital and community health services to almost one million people across east Suffolk and north Essex. Our dedicated staff deliver care from acute hospitals in Colchester and Ipswich, community hospitals, surgeries, community clinics and in patients' own homes.
We are one of the largest NHS organisations in England, employing more than 12,000 staff.
We pride ourselves on supporting our staff. We offer a wide range of training and development opportunities, as well as flexible working options.
Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services.
Our philosophy is that Time Matters to everyone. Across the Trust, we concentrate on improving the things we do and removing those which cause time delays for our staff and patients.
We are investing in our commitment to Time Matters with a partnership with leading electronic patient record (EPR) supplier Epic. This digital transformation will bring what's widely regarded as the world's best EPR system to ESNEFT, transforming life in hospital for staff and patients.
Find out about living and working here - www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkPu7HphU8A
Job description Job responsibilities
Provide accurate and timely routine advice to managers and staff on all types of absences in accordance with internal processes and standard operating procedures. Appropriately escalate more complex queries to the shift supervisor/operational manager for resolution. Provide a proactive and responsive first point of contact to staff contacting the Employee HR Helpdesk. Record absence on Health roster. Provide a high level of customer service, showing empathy and understanding. Use a range of systems e.g. ESR look up, Intranet, Microsoft Office suite and other HR Systems. For wider HR matters, answer general queries and where appropriate, signpost staff and managers to the correct function within HR or forward the query on their behalf.
For full details of the responsibilities and duties of this role please see the attached job description.
Person Specification
Qualifications Essential
GCSE grade 5/C or equivalent in English and Maths
Desirable
NVQ level 2 in administration/secretarial or equivalent
Experience Essential
Previous administrative role Use of Microsoft Office Experience in a customer support role
Desirable
Experience within relevant work area
Knowledge and Skills Essential
Confidentiality and Data Protection Customer Service Excellent communication skills Standard Keyboard skills
Desirable
NHS Knowledge of relevant work area Advanced keyboard skills
Disclosure and Barring Service Check This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Employer details Employer name East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust
Address IP City Centre
Ipswich
IP2 8SD
United Kingdom
Employer's website https://www.esneft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)