Senior Organisational Development Adviser

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: 15 May 2024

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.  To achieve this vision, we recognise that our people, and our culture are critical to our success.  

Our ambition for this role is to ensure outstanding service delivery in the recurring activities of the Organisational Development (OD) team. This is a key responsible role that sits at the heart of operational delivery of our ‘business as usual’ activities such as the Open Learning Programme, Welcome Event, Learning Community, NU Mentoring Scheme and a wide variety of development programmes.  You will co-ordinate OD’s approach to mandatory training (University Essentials), working in partnership with OD colleagues and other stakeholders.  You will manage the Learning Management System ensuring it remains fit for purpose and working collaboratively with People Services colleagues to improve reporting capabilities and effectively support the transition to a new SAP-based system. You will also line manage the Administration Team Leader. 

In order to be highly successful in this role you will have a strong passion for organisational development and excellent communication skills with experience of working in a role with multiple priorities and stakeholders. You will be able to balance attention to detail while being able to see the bigger picture and committed about providing service excellence. You will be a strong team player, who can excel at building strong working relationships with a range of internal and external stakeholders. 

We are happy to discuss flexible working requirements for this role and we are currently working with a hybrid model of some campus and home working.

Please do reach out to Julie Bullimore at julie.bullimore@newcastle.ac.uk to have a chat about this opportunity.

To apply, please upload a CV and cover letter outlining your unique fit to the criteria set out in our person specification below.

Interviews will be held on our Newcastle campus Thursday 23rd May 2024

Key Accountabilities

• Managing the University’s organisation-wide learning and development programmes, including scoping, design and evaluation of development initiatives to meet the needs of the University, e.g. the Open Learning Programme, NU Mentoring etc
• Co-ordinating Organisational Development’s contribution to mandatory training (University Essentials), liaising with key partners to ensure content is fit for purpose and producing regular reports for stakeholders
• Managing the Learning Management System (LMS), working collaboratively with the Administration Team to ensure learning and development data is captured effectively
• Line management on a day to day basis- leading, supporting and creating the conditions for colleagues to be the best they can be and deliver against agreed goals, priorities and outcomes
• Utilising data and metrics to understand the impact and value of the internal development platform (Open Learning Programme) and use this to regularly report on progress and recommend improvements
• Working in partnership with the People Engagement and Culture team and People Services colleagues to improve OD reporting capabilities with a view to establishing a regular OD Reports for People Matters Group
• Supporting the future transition from the current LMS to a new SAP-based system
• Ensuring all contracts for provision delivered under the Open Learning Programme comply with all procurement and regulatory requirements and represent excellent value for money
• Co-ordinating regular content for the Open Learning Programme Community Teams channel, working in partnership with People Engagement and Culture Team Colleagues
• Working in partnership with the People Engagement and Culture senior team and OD Leads to co-ordinate and consolidate communications across the People Engagement and Culture teams and actively publicise events/activities across the functions
• Working in partnership with OD Leads to ensure the effective implementation of our approach to colleague engagement and experience
• Responsibility for the internal and external webpages of the Organisational Development Team and providing the wider People Engagement and Culture team with advice for their online presence
• Supporting the delivery/facilitation of University-wide events, e.g. Experience Days

The Person 

Knowledge, Skills and Experience 

• Experience of operational aspects of a learning and development function including the supporting processes and systems, e.g.  Learning Management Systems
• Track record of supporting projects in complex organisations, with a proven ability to deliver on cost, quality and time requirements
• Experience in influencing culture change and working on projects that have had a demonstrable impact on the culture and values of organisations
• Experience of influencing stakeholders to deliver projects and effective services
• Awareness of  of psychometrics and the use of these methodologies in development
• Practical experience of working on engagement activities, in particular the use of engagement surveys and or focus groups
• Experience of working with a range of IT platforms, including the microsoft suite.  Of particular benefit would be experience working with learning management or HR systems and web page / sharepoint pages
• Evidence of and passion for engendering an inclusive working environment
• Proven track record on innovation; you keep yourself up to date on trends in the wider OD and learning world and implement these as a matter of course
• Experience in management or supervision of others

Attributes and Behaviour

• Works collaboratively and in partnership with others
• Promotes and actively drives change taking into account different perspectives
• Excellent communicator, both verbal and written engaging a wide range of stakeholders
• Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail
• Ability to persuade, convince and influence others in order to deliver an excellent service
• Active advocate for equality, diversity and inclusion
• Displays enthusiasm, integrity and personal resilience
• Self motivated
• Effective problem solver

Qualifications

• Qualifications in OD or learning and development or equivalent experience would be desirable but not essential

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.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

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

Requisition ID: 26943

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