Band 6 Communications & Engagement Officer

Job description

Job responsibilities

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE:

This role is for someone who wants to use their abilities and enthusiasm to make a positive difference to the lives of people living in our wonderful county.

Working across the main communications and engagement functions of our team, you will:

• Be a good communicator - we need solid written and verbal skills to support effective and targeted communication and engagement with a wide range of internal and external audiences.
• Be interested in engaging with communities - to find out what they think our team works with communities and voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) organisations across the county to learn about their experiences and views to help vital shape health and care services.
• Be good with people - in person, on the phone or via a screen or keyboard. A key aspect of our work is building and maintaining strong relationships with colleagues in NHS Somerset; partners across Our Somerset (our integrated care system); and external partners including MPs, members of the public, campaigners and local councillors.
• Work hard and take pride in your work - to develop and implement communication plans, create engaging content to capture hearts and minds across various channels, and ensure consistent messaging that resonates with our audiences and helps us deliver our goals.
• Improve lives - you will take responsibility for developing and delivering key public health and awareness campaigns. Examples include supporting our winter campaign to keep people well and out of hospital; our Take the Pressure Off hypertension campaign; our Somerset's Big Conversation engagement work; or our drive to make Somerset smoke free by 2030.
• Be flexible and willing to learn - to develop skills and experience you'll be getting involved in the whole range of communications and engagement activity, including proactive and reactive media; reputation management; branding; gaining and using public and stakeholder insight to inform our work; crisis management; design; film and photography; corporate publications and communications channels (including social media); stakeholder visits and internal staff events.
• Be well - organised were a small team who work on short, medium and long-term projects. You will need to bring or develop the skills to manage competing pressures and work effectively with others to get the job done.
• Enjoy a challenge and have fun! Our team brings together professionals with wide-ranging experience who love combining their expertise and stretching themselves to achieve great things on behalf of the NHS. We need people who go the extra mile to rise to challenges when the pressure is on, but who love the opportunity for fun with flights of imagination and flashes of creativity to break new ground in our work.

KEY RESPONSIBILTIES OF THE ROLE:

You will work in a flexible way to support the team and the organisation. Key responsibilities include:

• Support and develop marketing and campaigns in line with NHS Somerset priorities.
• Monitor and analyse the effectiveness of communication strategies, campaigns and activities to provide insights and recommendations.
• Managing and updating website content on the NHS Somerset and Our Somerset websites
• Developing and managing NHS Somerset's social media accounts, including creating, scheduling, and monitoring social media posts and sharing audience insight to help us improve our strategy and tactics
• Support, write and implement communications plans. Ensure communication and engagement initiatives are delivered within budget.
• Produce materials to support engagement activities. These include slide decks for focus groups, surveys, promotion materials and supporting content for social media campaigns.
• Keep up to date with national guidance and best practice principles relating to communications and engagement.
• Make best use of all communications channels to ensure targeted engagement reaches seldom heard groups and communities.
• Lead on identifying segmented audiences and the most appropriate channels in which to reach them, in order to deliver timely, relevant and purposeful communication activities.
• Produce engaging content to maximise engagement and reach, including text, images and videos across all digital channels and platforms.
• Have a flexible approach to work, sometimes working different hours to meet the needs of the service and having to cover for colleagues in the Communications and Engagement team when cover/extra resource is needed to meet the demands of the service.
• Ensure personal continuing professional development is maintained, including attending relevant internal and external development, training all-staff days and workshops.

Collaborative Working

• Liaise with external suppliers (for example, graphic designers, video producers and website developers) to design and produce materials and content.
• Liaise with colleagues across the system and support and produce written communications such as briefings, press releases, media enquiries, correspondence responses and staff communications.
• Support the organisation and our team to build and maintain relationships with staff and stakeholders.
• Support and manage events, meetings and briefings with staff, partners and stakeholders.

The job description and person specification are an outline of the tasks, responsibilities and outcomes required of the role. The job holder will carry out any other duties as may reasonably be required by their line manager.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to degree level in relevant subject or equivalent level of experience of working at a similar level in specialist area.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of coordinating projects in complex and challenging environments.
• Proven knowledge of commissioning design, print, video, photography and other communications service.
• Ability to evaluate campaigns and communications plans identifying key learnings to inform future activity.
• Good knowledge of Microsoft packages including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
• Proven knowledge of the media handling and the ability to deal with press enquiries.
• Recent and significant experience using content creation software to develop engaging content such as videos and social media graphics.
• Creative flair to adapt subject matter into content relevant to target online groups and communities.
• Confidence to take ownership of issues and see them through to conclusion.
• Ability to deal with complex and sensitive situations, using a non-judgmental empathetic approach.
• Excellent organisational and time management skills and ability to adhere to strict deadlines.
• Motivated, resourceful and showing good initiative when required able to secure co-operation of colleagues at all levels in addressing concerns.
• Strong team player able to support work across the communications and engagement team.

Desirable

• Evidence of continued professional development.
• Previous experience in similar role in public sector.
• A good understanding of the health and social care environment and roles and responsibilities within it.
• Ability to use website content management software to create and edit webpages and an understanding of how the accessibility requirements for public sector organisations must be applied to our online content.
• Track record of proactive creativity and the ability to generate and then deliver on new and inspiring ways to identify and engage with key audiences.

Communication

Essential

• Skilled communicator with excellent writing, report writing and presentation skills; capable of constructing and delivering clear ideas and concepts concisely and accurately for diverse audiences.
• Skills for communication on complex matters and difficult situations, requiring persuasion and influence.
• Good spelling, grammar and attention to detail.
• The ability to turn complex information into simple and clear communications material.
• Skills for nurturing key relationships and maintaining networks.

Personal Statement / Motivation for Applying

Essential

• Please use this section to explain how you meet the additional criteria in the Personal Specification including your reasons and motivation for applying.

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

NHS Somerset Integrated Care Board

Address

ICB Wynford House

Wynford House, Lufton Way

Yeovil

BA22 8HR

Employer's website

https://nhssomerset.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)