People Director

Job description

Job responsibilities

The post holder will be an important member of the NHSBSAs Leadership Team. As part of this team, you will help lead the organisation into the future, managing day to day challenges and supporting the NHSBSA to realise its strategic ambitions.

You will champion and drive closer working and greater integration between Directorates to collectively ensure we fulfil our purpose and vision. This will include cultivating relationships with a wide network of colleagues external to NHSBSA. You will therefore provide a central leadership role to the future development and transformation of the NHSBSA services, workforce and organisational culture.

This role is a key decision maker and will have overall responsibility for the effective service delivery of the People function, influencing at the highest level and able to cope with competing demands. In conjunction with the Chief People Officer, youll develop and the deliver the overarching People Strategy, supporting the overall organisations strategic direction, whilst mitigating and managing any workforce risk. As an expert in holistic people best practice, this role will also provide significant support to the Executive Director team, deputising where appropriate, leading a senior management team and working with key external stakeholders across the system.

Job summary:1. As a Senior Leader and a member of our Leadership Team, reporting into the Chief People Officer, you will provide strategic, technical and professional expertise to deliver a leading-edge people agenda, maximising the use of resources within your remit, setting and achieving key performance indicators and break even budgets. Alongside this you will lead and embed significant workforce transformation and look to continuously improve colleague experience and business performance. Leading a diverse workforce, you will lead, inspire and develop colleagues across a range of disciplines through a high performing, inclusive and collaborative culture, in addition to building and maintaining effective trusted relationships with key stakeholders. You will be responsible for leading and managing the development and implementation of the right People strategies, policies and processes to enable the NHSBSA to deliver its ambitious agenda.

2. With a forward thinking, commercially minded and collaborative approach, you will be instrumental in leading, shaping and overseeing the Corporate HR, Organisational Design and Development and Colleague Experience teams that form the People function. You will horizon scan, collaboratively setting the strategic direction of the People teams across the NHSBSA, using the People strategies as a key enabler for change. Youll be required to act autonomously, making significant decisions that impact the organisation to ensure excellence is achieved and maintained.

3. Collaboratively lead and develop a strategic framework for the People Team, with robust plans to deliver against the strategic objectives of the overall organisation. Ensure People team priorities are aligned to overall strategy and reviewed regularly, with accountability for success driven within all teams. Develop feedback mechanisms to support the improvement of service delivery.4. Ensure the day-to-day provision of an effective overall People function, delivering service excellence aligned to our strategic objectives, and the continuous development of forward thinking, and legally compliant function. Ensure effective people practices, ensuring expert advice and support, on a wide range of complex workforce issues can be always provided. Provision of expertise level knowledge in employment related legislation and Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions.

5. Effective and supportive leadership of Heads of Service of a variety of people focused teams, ensuring service excellence and efficiency is embedded in all areas. Work to streamline processes and digitise where possible.

Strategic Leadership

6. This role will ensure strategic alignment of service delivery, workforce planning and operational excellence and ensure a culture of financial discipline, value for money and optimising resourcing is embedded. Youll champion efficiency, continuous improvement and customer centric innovation to enhance service impact and over see governance, risk, and compliance with a strategic and ethical lens, balancing ambition with responsibility.

7. Responsible for bringing together, connecting and aligning all organisational wide HR, OD&D and CESI programmes into one coherent strategic framework, enabling our workforce to thrive now and in the face of future demands.

8. Ensuring appropriate people policies are in place that support our colleagues and organisational aims, are accessible, embedded, continuously improved and legally compliant.

9. Provide expert advice across the organisation on complex workforce matters and provision of strategic solutions to related business challenges, including organisational change, new ways of working and transformation. Ensure our wider teams are appropriately resourced to deliver SME expertise.

10. Ensure our organisation develops and embraces Strategic Workforce Planning, ensuring we are fit for the future and agile to change. Ensure the provision of strategic advice on workforce impacts, workforce business planning and scenario planning for future business opportunities and challenges. Provision of strategies to help address organisations workforce risk.

11. Be an expert practitioner of change, ensuring best practice, and effective change management practices and skills are embedded across the organisation and led by SMEs, ensuring colleague wellbeing runs throughout any programme of change. Ensure we are ready and able to support large scale change/TUPE where required.

12. Ensure the organisation has a robust and strategic approach to talent acquisition, development, reward and recognition, ensuring effective resource planning, embedded EVP and an organisational view of vacancy levels, with appropriate, transparent and wide ranging strategies to attract, develop and retain the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles. Support the development of a creative and best in class approach to reward and recognition, within the boundaries of Agenda for Change.

13. Ensure that an agile, innovative and evidence based approach is taken in all aspects of learning, talent, leadership and organisational development and design which facilitates the cultural and wider transformation of the organisation as well as continuing to meet the existing needs of our customers and stakeholders and includes strategic leadership development strategies and interventions that mitigate retention and succession risk.

14. Ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion, social impact and wellbeing are key drivers running across all workforce strategies and work streams, ensuring strong levels of organisational wide engagement and a continued focus on this agenda at all levels.

Operational Leadership

15. Cultivate a high-performing, inclusive culture that empowers and engages colleagues, lead with authenticity, embedding the NHSBSAs values in decision making, behaviours and leadership practices. Develop and retain top talent, ensuring succession planning strengthens future leadership pipelines and navigate complexity with confidence, ensuring teams are agile, motivated and outcome focused.

Decision Making and Continuous Improvement

16. Continuously develop and drive service insight and other complex data to evaluate current operating model and service provision, to determine changes needed within the service area whilst inspiring horizon scan across the People function and wider organisation. Leading on major strategic projects, in conjunction with other Directors and Executive Leadership Team, acting as SRO for programmes and projects undertaken where appropriate.

17. Budgetary responsibility for the People Team. Overall responsibility for the effective management and monitoring of budgets. This will include prioritisation of resources and ensuring all benefits are captured and delivered. Allocating funds for high-priority, high-impact activity by seeking out the most cost-effective way to deliver services, ensuring corrective action is taken where necessary including working closely with other stakeholders.

Transformation, Innovation and Stakeholder Influence18. Lead large scale change, and transformation with vision, adaptability and strategic foresight. You will foster a culture of curiosity, challenge and continuous improvement to drive sustainable innovation, building and leveraging influential relationships, managing complex stakeholder landscapes with political acumen. This role will align internal and external partners to advance NHDBSA mission, securing commitment to shared goals.

19. Building and leading effective partnerships with our recognised Trade Unions, and colleague representative groups, chairing our Working in Partnership Committee and other relevant boards/committees.

Leadership level responsibilities and accountabilities20. Be a champion for equality and diversity for the organisation, actively working to create and maintain an environment that is diverse and inclusive of all.

Please review attached job description for full responsibilities.

Person Specification

Personal qualities, knowledge & skills

Desirable

• Project/change management experience/ In depth knowledge & experience of managing projects and project teams
• Experience of working within a highly regulated sector
• Coaching and mentoring at leadership level
• Knowledge and understanding of the social, political, environmental and financial context of the NHSBSA, its clients, customers and suppliers

Experience

Essential

• Extensive experience of staff and budget management across a complex people team, and organisationally wide
• Management of systems in a service delivery environment
• Experience of working with/across other NHS organisations for benchmarking purpose to identify best practice/areas for improvement
• Experience of developing and delivering business improvement plans, business planning and key performance indicators

Desirable

• An awareness of the NHSBSA's strategy, business plans and major programmes of work

Qualifications

Essential

• Significant and extensive in-depth relevant senior leadership experience in leading a large People function

Desirable

• Educated to Masters level in relevant subject or equivalent levels of qualifications and/or experience of working at senior leadership level
• FCIPD
• Employment Law related qualifications

Personal qualities, knowledge & skills

Essential

• Ability to work at a senior strategic level to lead and deliver performance excellence, grow existing services and develop new services to meet both business and customer needs
• Proven contribution to high level decision making and policy development at organisational level and within a People SME.
• Extensive specialist knowledge of developing and implementing HR policies and procedures and associated Employment Law and complex cases.
• Highly developed analytical and problem-solving skills, capable of interpreting and evaluating complex, multi-faceted information, leading the delivery of associated project plans, and using insight to shape strategic decisions and drive impactful outcomes.
• Ability to think strategically and respond quickly to complex changing circumstances and high pressure situations, maintaining a clear view of overall operational priorities

Experience

Essential

• Significant experience working at a senior level in a large, complex organisation and an emotive environment including input to development of People strategy and intelligent use of workforce information to inform strategic and operational decisions.
• Significant experience of contributing to organisational strategy and translating that into service deliverables.
• Significant experience in managing change and being a catalyst and leader in a changing environment, harnessing others to embrace transformation.

Personal qualities, knowledge & skills

Essential

• Uses enterprise-wide thinking to break down silos, fostering collaboration and accountability at all levels.
• Strong leadership skills, including an ability to motivate and inspire teams to be successful and become high performing
• A high degree of political astuteness
• Building and maintaining constructive working relationships with appropriate stakeholders/contacts
• In-depth knowledge of current UK Employment law and legislation
• Ability to influence, persuade and motivate others
• Ability to manage varied and complex relationships to facilitate change and improvement
• Commitment to act as a role model empowering transparency, inclusivity, honesty and objectivity
• Proven ability to lead and embed a culture of innovation and creativity through collaborative working, developing and delivering effective solutions to complex challenges that drive continuous improvement and add value.
• Strategic Vision and Execution: Proven ability to build organisational capabilities, establish a clear strategic vision, and translate it into successful outcomes.

Experience

Essential

• Significant experience in managing a highly complex budget.
• Extensive experience of building effective working relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders to maintain strategic relationships and provision of mutually acceptable solutions to business issues.
• Experience of performing at high level over a sustained period of time, in a large organisation which has a complex operating environment, where there is uncertainty and continual change
• Significant experience of motivating, enabling and empowering teams to deliver
• Experience of creating, inspiring and driving cultural change within an organisation and across a sector
• First class experience of modelling exemplary leadership skills and behaviours, communicating an organisational purpose and leading highly engaged teams
• Extensive experience of developing a customer focused, quality driven culture.
• Extensive prior relevant and demonstrable experience working at a senior leadership level in a people related specialism.

Desirable

• Policy development and implementation.
• Stakeholder/relationship management

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 Business Services Authority

Address

Stella House

Newcastle Upon Tyne

NE15 8NY

Employer's website

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