Senior People Business Partner - London

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Please note that the advert will close at 00:01 on Friday 23 May and therefore we advise getting your application in no later than midnight on Thursday 22 May but we would recommend applying today as we may close applications a week before the advertised closing date if we receive a high volume of interest.

As the UK’s communications regulator, we’re delivering vital work that helps keep the UK connected and shapes the future of how we’ll stay connected with each other.

Our work covers everything from phones and broadband, through to TV, radio, the postal service, and wireless devices. We’re also taking on the challenge of making the online world a safer place. And we need people of all backgrounds, skill sets, and experiences to help us achieve our goal of making communications work for everyone.

About the team you’ll be part of

This role sits within Ofcom’s People, Culture and Workplace (PC&W) team. Our PC&W team support the organisation at a strategic level, ensuring we have the right capability and ways of working in place to deliver on our objectives for our consumers and leading transformation and cultural change to support an increasing regulatory remit.

The PC&W team is here to support colleagues through their journey at Ofcom – from recruiting them to their role, to the moment they head to pastures new. This includes learning and development, diversity and inclusion, career progression as well as supporting well-being and providing practical information around pay and benefits.

The purpose and scope of the role

This role will be the dedicated People Partner to 1 or 2 of our Groups (functions) within Ofcom to ensure these client areas are operating effectively and delivering the organisational strategy, alongside supporting the Group Director management teams in their day-to-day leadership.

Your Key Responsibilities

• You’ll be an active partner to your Group Director(s), providing collaboration between the organisation and the wider PC&W team to deliver cohesive and effective ‘fit-for purpose’ people strategies, tools and frameworks.

• You’ll partner with the Group Director(s) and their Directors to ensure people priorities are supported and are aligned to the wider organisational strategy.

• You’ll lead on end to end organisation design, ensuring our organisations support deliver the business plans whilst allowing for flexibility and career mobility.

• You’ll lead the creation and delivery of the People Plans across your client areas, identifying common themes and barriers to effective delivery which are shared as insight into the CoE’s.

• You’ll understand (through curiosity and interest) the organisational unit strategy and priorities, and proactively identify associated people implications and opportunities for improvement. Sharing any insights with the CoE’s.

• You’ll act as a coach to your Group Directors and their wider management teams, providing support, challenge and feedback on their leadership style and impact.

• You’ll manage stakeholder expectations/demands, being mindful of resource and prioritising work to meet the demands of the priorities set out in the People Plans.

• You’ll identify barriers, which prevent the organisation from operating effectively, and advise/implement strategies to minimise or remove these.

• You’ll work in collaboration with all PC&W CoE teams to provide insight and feedback into the development and continuous improvement of key people strategies and frameworks, providing insight into potential barriers to effective implementation, measures and plans to mitigate risk. You will also build strong relationships to ensure that collaboration happens at the scoping, testing, and implementation stages of work.

• You’ll ensure key people processes/cycles such as strategic workforce planning, talent management programmes, pay review, succession planning, performance management, colleague engagement and action planning are executed effectively across your Group.

• You’ll provide oversight to the Heads of Business Partnering/P&C Director of all relevant risks and mitigations to be raised and addressed at SMT level.

• You’ll lead or collaborate on complex organisational design and change projects as required.

The skills, knowledge and experience you’ll need for success.

• You’ll have partnered at a Senior Executive level on people initiatives across the colleague lifecycle.

• Executing Plans: you’ll have a proven track record of creating, shaping, and executing against People Plans (from the centre out and from the business into P&C).

• Channelling Influence: you’ll have high levels of commercial and business acumen, including using data to be able to influence decisions.

• Forming Relationships: you’ll have evidence of excellent interpersonal and stakeholder management skills: building, strengthening, and influencing relationships at all levels of the organisation, challenging decisions where necessary and with the ability to coach and influence Directors in people issues and the wider people agenda.

• You’ll have experience of working collaboratively with CoE’s, knowing when and how to engage and are comfortable holding contracting conversations on ways of working.

• You’ll be proactive in resolving issues and removing barriers to change and proven experience in supporting business readiness.

• You’ll be able to influence an array of senior stakeholders and be comfortable in giving feedback and challenging on leadership style and impact.

• Scanning Horizons: you’ll be confident in horizon scanning and analysing the bigger picture to spot issues and proposing and implementing course correction plans.

• You’ll be aware of and confident in articulating the broader impact of decisions and provide visibility of these to others.

• You’ll possess highly developed communication and influencing skills to build and sustain relationships, with confidence and gravitas and are able to demonstrate an array of influencing styles and how to adapt style accordingly.

Ofcom has a clear mission: to make communications work for everyone. To be able to deliver on this, we want our organisation to reflect the diversity of background, experience, upbringing and thought that exists across the UK. We aim to recruit from the widest pool of candidates possible – no matter your social background, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or disability. 

Where positions are listed as full-time, we remain open to reduced hours, part-time arrangements, job shares, and other flexible working options. From day one, we champion flexible work arrangements to accommodate individual needs.

We also warmly welcome applicants who are returning to the workforce after a break – for whatever reason. If you have taken time away and are ready to rejoin, we look forward to reviewing your application.

Our recruitment processes prioritise accessibility and inclusivity. If you need information in an alternative format or have specific preferences, please contact our recruitment team at [email protected] or call 0330 912 1378.

As a Disability Confident employer, we offer interviews to disabled applicants who meet essential criteria for advertised roles. Learn more about this scheme here.