Organisational Development Project Lead

Salary: £33,966 to £36,024 with progression to £44,263 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 20 October 2023

The Role

The University’s Vision and Strategy sets out an ambitious and exciting journey, to be a people focused, world-leading university that harnesses academic excellence, innovation and creativity to advance knowledge and provide benefits to individuals, to organisations and to society as a whole. In order to achieve this vision, we recognise that our people, and our culture. are critical to our success.  

As part of our work to build a more inclusive and supportive research culture, we have been focusing on individual and collective behaviours.  We believe that our ability to promote and support positive behaviours, whilst at the same time identifying and dealing with inappropriate behavioural effectively, will be critical in fostering safe and inclusive environments where everyone and their ideas can flourish.  This role will lead and manage a two-year fixed term project to build an impactful systems level approach to behaviours, promoting and recognising positive behaviours, whist addressing inappropriate behaviour, that will have reach beyond the research community across the wider University. 

You will lead the project design, delivery and evaluation across a prioritised set of activities that have been identified through a range of consultations.  You will engage with a range of stakeholders across the University at all levels to help deliver a step change in how we understand and support behavioural change. You will help to ensure that the work is values-led, building a culture that embeds psychological safety and trust. 

We are looking for someone with strong organisational and project management skills and excel at building strong working relationships with a range of stakeholders.  You will be able influence across all levels and bring ideas and new thinking to generate enthusiasm and commitment for change. You will have experience of delivering training interventions, ideally focused on behaviour and behavioural change. Preferably, you will have some experience of working with policy and supporting policy and process improvement. 

This role is fixed term for a period of 2 years initially and we would welcome applications from internal colleagues looking for a secondment opportunity.

Please reach out to Lisette Nicholson at Lisette.Nicholson@newcastle.ac.uk to have a chat about this opportunity.

Key Accountabilities

Project Management 
•    Create, actively monitor and manage an operational plan that translates the agreed high-level priorities and actions into a deliverable, resourced, timebound and measurable plan
•    Ensure that all stakeholders are regularly updated, to enable join up across the organisation and have appropriate opportunities for engagement, including the ongoing assessment of progress and benefit realization.
•    Report any issues or problems with progress and resources at the earliest opportunity, seeking to identify appropriate solutions

Learning and Organisational Development

•    Work collaboratively with colleagues across the University to help ensure we have a clear understanding of the learning and support needs of colleagues at all levels in relation to promoting positive behaviours as well as the identification and management of inappropriate behaviours
•    Carry out an analysis of the learning and development provision currently available to support this agenda, identifying duplication and gaps in provision with a view to developing any additional interventions or enhancing existing provision as required
•    Co-create, deliver and evaluate agreed programmes and identify opportunities to ensure the provision meets needs in a sustainable way
•    Analyse data to understand the impact and value of learning and development activities

Communication 

•    Create an overall communication plan for the project with key stakeholders including Executive Board, that includes a launch campaign as well as ongoing awareness and signposting, monitoring effectiveness and reach
•    Create, develop and evaluate a sharepoint hub that brings together and signposts all of the resources, support, training, reporting mechanisms and policy / processes related to colleague behaviour to create a clear and transparent route for all colleagues, whilst ensuring any content is complementary to student provision
•    Create regular opportunities for colleague engagement to understand experiences, views and ideas as well as perceived progress
•    Monitor and evaluate the use of the sharepoint pages, using this to develop resources

Policy and Process 

•    Undertake an audit of existing policy and processes that relate to colleague behaviour to understand how current and fit for purpose they are, identifying priority areas for development
•    Identify any gaps in provision and work with the relevant areas of the University to develop any additional policies and processes or ensure that improvement work is identified in forward plans

Governance and Oversight 
•    Investigate where data and insights that relates to colleague behaviour is currently held and reported, working with relevant areas of the University to identify any improvements to enhance transparency and increase the understanding of impact in relation to support and interventions
 

The Person

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

•    Track record of leading and managing projects in complex organisations, with a proven ability to deliver on cost, quality and time requirements
•    Experience of designing and delivering across  organisational development and / or learning interventions, ideally focused on behaviour
•    Experience in influencing culture change and working on projects that have had an impact on the culture and values of organisations
•    Some experience of policy development or process improvement
•    Understanding of employee engagement and practical experience of working on engagement activities, such as focus groups, experience in the use of engagement surveys would be desirable
•    Evidence of and passion for engendering an inclusive working environment
•    Proven track record on innovation; you keep yourself up to date and can demonstrate continued professional development
•    Strong data analysis skills, proven ability to use metrics and data to support critical thinking and improvement of processes or  services

Attributes and Behaviours

•    Works collaboratively and in partnership with others
•    Promotes and actively drives change
•    Excellent communicator, both verbal and written
•    Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail
•    Ability to persuade, convince and influence others in order to achieve results
•    Active advocate and role model for equality, diversity and inclusion
•    Displays enthusiasm, integrity and personal resilience

Qualifications
•    Educated to degree level or equivalent 
•    Qualifications in one of the following areas - Training, Human Resources, Organisational Development, Occupational Psychology, Project Management or Change Management would be desirable

#HR

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a silver Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 26149

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