HR Assistant (with French)

Key Responsibilities and Deliverables

• Responding to telephone, email and on-line enquiries and providing answers; managing the enquiry from initial contact to closure and ensuring a high level of customer service. Ensuring that correct and timely advice is provided and escalates issues where appropriate
• Providing transactional processing and administration for all main HR processes including recruitment, on-boarding, pre-employment checks, appraisals, performance management, salary and bonus review, secondments, leavers, retirements, maternity/new parent leave, work experience, long service awards and renewal of fixed term contracts
• Providing standard external correspondence which may include, references mortgage/rental applications and business visa letter
• Updating documents in response to new legislation or policy changes
• Actively participate in regular team meetings to ensure information is shared
• Involvement in HR projects
• Administration support for the Firm's graduate programme
• Updating and maintaining accurate information on the firm's HR System (Workday)
• Building and maintaining effective relationships with the other members of the HR team
• Actively participating in process improvement discussions, identifying, and communicating opportunities to improve the way that work is done, and implementing necessary changes

Key requirements (Communication/skills/experience)

Essential

• Customer service experience within a professional or commercial environment
• Clear and concise written and oral communication skills, with an excellent telephone manner
• Ability to build working relationships with a range of people at all levels
• Excellent organisational and time management skills with the ability to manage tasks efficiently and with a high attention to detail
• Focus on finding the right solutions and problem solving
• Positive attitude with strong team skills, sharing knowledge, collaborating with, and supporting colleagues
• Commitment to the highest level of integrity
• High level of PC/database skills, including MS Office and Excel
• Proficient English and French language skills

Desirable

• An understanding of working across cultural boundaries
• Previous experience of Workday or other HR database preferable but not essential
• Fluent written and oral skills in Spanish and/or German languages would be advantageous

Function

HR Operations is focused on providing excellent service delivery to the firm with services that are efficient, legally compliant, timely, accurate, consistent, and proactive. Activities span the full employee lifecycle from talent attraction to offboarding as well as providing support on other operational deliverables, such as knowledge management. The function consists of a multi-tiered team of HR professionals in various geographic locations.

Freshfields Overview

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is a major international law firm, providing business law advice of the highest quality. We want to be the law firm that clients turn to for legal advice where it most matters, wherever in the world that may be. The Firm has over 2,400 lawyers in 28 offices around the world, providing a comprehensive service to national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments.

Our people make our firm - we are a people business and want to create a welcoming and supportive environment where all can flourish. We see diversity as a strength which creates fresh perspectives and generates new ideas. We enjoy our work and are determined to do an outstanding job. We deliver best when working in teams. Our culture is a product of the combined mindsets and behaviours of our people which is through the Being Freshfields principles, outlined below:

• we show respect to everyone
• we are there for one another
• we are open with each other
• we are positive role models

We think and work globally - we don't just say we are one firm; we act like one firm right across the world. We work wherever our clients need us. This is how we define ourselves, not by reference to where we have offices. Cross-border work isn't just what we do, it is what we excel at. We understand what it really takes to work across different legal systems and commercial environments and to bridge language and cultural gaps.

We aim to add value in everything we do - we are passionate about helping our clients succeed. We use our experience and creativity to help clients make judgements and achieve their goals. In everything we do, we seek to make a real difference to the communities in which we operate.

Freshfields is committed to promoting equality and diversity and to developing a culture that values differences, recognising that employees from a variety of backgrounds make important and positive contributions to our business and how we service our clients.