Head of Engagement, Culture & Workforce

Chief Operating Officer Group, Ministry of Justice

Grade 6

Job Summary

This is an exciting opportunity to take on a highly influential and impactful senior leadership role in the Chief Operating Officer Group (COO Group), which is a geographically dispersed group of c.3,000 people providing services to the largest Government department of over 90,000 staff.

The successful candidate will be responsible for designing and implementing a people engagement and capability plan that ensures we attract, identify, develop and retain, the right people with the right skills, at the right time. Working with the senior leadership team, you will deliver people initiatives that enable the group to deliver its strategic objectives and that will continue to make COO Group a great place to work. The successful candidate will bring positivity, energy, drive and creativity to the role, as well as a broad range of strategic, change and delivery skills. You’ll have strong leadership and influencing skills, experience of working with stakeholders across different functions, and an appetite for data and insight.

To effectively deliver your brief you will need to empower and lead through others, demonstrating empathy, emotional intelligence and a passion for making our organisation collaborative, highly engaged and supportive. This is a fast-paced, challenging role that requires a highly proactive approach to the work and provides the job holder with a high level of autonomy. The role reports into the Deputy Director, COO Group Corporate Hub.

Key Responsibilities:

• Development and implementation of the COO Group Strategy and People Plan that will equip our people to have the right skills and development to deliver their roles and reach their full potential; and leading a team to deliver a highly effective people service at all levels in the organisation.

• Leading on workforce planning, resourcing and induction for the group, ensuring alignment to departmental policies and priorities.

• Ownership of the COO Group engagement plan and response to the annual People Survey.

• Championing and promoting diversity and inclusion, wellbeing, and belonging initiatives across the Group that will continue to promote an inclusive and flexible culture.

• Delivery (personally or through others) of high-quality papers for senior governance meetings/boards. You will be expected to present these at such forums.

• Responsible for building leadership capability across the group’s senior leadership cadre.

• Building strong relationships at all levels across the group to resolve queries and issues quickly.

• Responsible for developing the core L&D offer across COO. Ensuring resources are balanced appropriately to equip staff to deliver effectively the day to day demands as well as the provision of L&D which is progressive, and talent focused.

• Being a member of the Corporate Hub senior management team.

• Undertake any other duties commensurate with the skill set of this post and grade.

• The post-holder will be responsible for a team of 10+ individuals, who deliver the people offer. The team is geographically dispersed at offices across the country and includes staff across all grades.

Essential Knowledge, Experience and Skills (linked to Behaviours)

Communicating and Influencing

• Strong communication, influencing and relationship skills with a proven ability to forge highly effective relationships with stakeholders at senior levels.

Seeing the Big Picture

• Experience of managing and delivering large scale people or capability projects.

Leadership

• Visible and inclusive leadership with a track record of empowering and inspiring teams to deliver high levels of performance.

• Be an effective leader and manager and be a role model for the Department’s values.

Working Together

• Expertise across a range of technical areas of responsibility within the role, as outlined in the key tasks, and the ability to empower and lead the team in the other areas.

• Be effective at prioritising your own work and that of the team.

Making Effective Decisions

• Experience of building capability and delivering high volumes of work within strict targets. Ability to address the challenges that brings in terms of engagement, recruitment, retention and succession planning.

• Have excellent organisational skills, attention to detail and an ability to interpret various data sources and make decisions confidently.

Essential Qualification

• Candidates must have completed or be working towards becoming a Chartered Member of the CIPD (Level 7)

Application Process

You will be assessed against the Civil service success profiles framework.

Sift

Please provide 250-word examples of how you have met each of the five behaviours listed below:

• Communicating and Influencing (lead behaviour)

• Seeing the Big Picture

• Leadership

• Working Together

• Making Effective Decisions

Strong behaviour examples will demonstrate clear evidence of the relevant ‘essential knowledge, experience and skills’, as set out in the job description above.

In the event of a large volume of applications being received, an initial sift will carried out on the lead behaviour, Communicating and Influencing.

Interview:

Interviews will be held virtually via MS Teams.

Candidates invited to interview will be assessed on the five Behaviours (listed below), and Strengths.

• Communicating and Influencing (lead behaviour)

• Seeing the Big Picture (to be assessed via presentation)

• Leadership

• Working Together

• Making Effective Decisions

Candidates will be asked to prepare a presentation relating to the Behaviour, Seeing the Big Picture. Further details will be sent to candidates invited to interview.