HR Manager Cover Letter Example

Staff turnover at Thames Valley Distribution has fallen from 28% to 19% in three years since I took over HR, and time to hire has dropped from 52 days to 34. I am applying to lead HR at Bourne Valley Foods as it grows to a fourth site, because that is the stage at which those two figures are easiest to lose.

Neither result came from one scheme. Turnover fell after we rebuilt induction, began stay conversations with people in their first year and made the pay review clear enough to explain on the shop floor. Time to hire fell when managers agreed role profiles before advertising and we interviewed within a week. I lead HR for 420 employees across two sites with an advisor and two coordinators, and we handle about 30 employee relations cases a year, each closed within the agreed time and none taken to an employment tribunal in three years. Each year I also run the pay and benefits review with finance inside a fixed budget, which keeps the pay conversation honest with staff.

Bourne Valley Foods is the kind of business where HR decides whether growth works. In my experience of shift work, people who leave tend to go in their first weeks, and the reason is more often the supervisor than the pay. That is why coaching managers on absence and performance conversations matters more to me than any policy. After updating our handbook with legal advice, I trained 40 managers in exactly those conversations. A family-owned firm opening a fourth site will need the same standard on every site, and I have spent fourteen years in people roles across depots and sites. On a new site I would put the first effort into its supervisors, before writing any new policy, because their first months set the turnover for years.

A first conversation could begin with the one-page format we use for stay conversations, which a supervisor can run without HR in the room. After that, the question I would most want to answer with you is where turnover is highest across your three sites today.