Ministry of Justice

The Role:

This is a unique and significant leadership role at the heart of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) People and Capability Group. The successful candidate will be instrumental in leading and executing a comprehensive strategy to improve the overall experience of the MoJ workforce, that brings together people and expertise from across the Department, Civil Service, and external partners. This role will ensure that MoJ transforms and sets its strategic direction for employee experience and coordinates this across the Civil Service strategies ensuring that we are a model employer. A core strategy will be setting the standards for inclusive workplaces so that we can attract the right people with the right mix of skills and experience, thereby ensuring the department has a diverse workforce that delivers for citizens.

We are looking for an experienced leader with deep HR and employee experience delivery expertise in an operational context, skills, and a track record in building and leading motivated, diverse, skilled teams. The role holder will need to be enthusiastic about working collaboratively with other operational leaders to help teams deliver complex systems and policy transformation.

The Deputy Director, Employee Experience will lead a geographically dispersed, multidisciplinary team that holds a high-profile agenda focused on the implementation of the commitments set out in the MoJ People Strategy, with a particular focus on building a “culture rooted in our values”.

This is a challenging role which requires a strong understanding of the legal, political, and social factors that influence the Civil Service and its organisations. The postholder must be a confident, inclusive leader who understand how to build and motivate a high performing team that delivers strategic work and expert advice to support MoJ to deliver its objectives.

Key Responsibilities:

A specialist Deputy Director role, responsible for the following areas and priorities:

• Working in a systematic way, using data and insight, via delivery of a comprehensive Employee Insights Programme to guide work, and inform people related decision making to improve employee experience across the organisation.
• Developing departmental employee listening approach that includes responsibility for departmental delivery of Civil Service People Survey.
• Leading a team of subject matter experts to develop people policy and provide expert advice to support the effective delivery of organisational priorities and compliance with equality legislation.
• Acting as a trusted adviser to the Director General, People and Capability and MoJ Executive Committee, demonstrating pragmatism and political understanding to support the business in handling reputation management issues.
• Building strong and effective relationships with senior internal and external stakeholders, at all levels, through collaboration, professional credibility, and emotional intelligence. This includes a wider MoJ network, with colleagues in internal communications, Agencies and Arm’s Length Bodies (ALBs), senior leaders and beyond.
• Providing strong, collegiate leadership across MoJ People & Capability Group to set direction, convey a future vision, motivate teams and develop, attract and retain talented staff from the widest possible pool of talent with a more diverse range of skills backgrounds.

Person Specification

Essential criteria:

Outstanding strategic and operational leadership across HR portfolios that can translate to transforming the employee experience across large and complex organisations. Confident in setting direction, shaping solutions and operating confidently at a senior level specifically across the workforce culture employee experience and workplace wellbeing portfolio.

Significant experience of working with and presenting to Board/Executive level, possesses a breadth of strategic experience in developing and delivering strategy across a complex operational landscape in a public sector context and has recent senior HR experience within the last 12 months.

Exceptional communication skills, the ability to influence and build consensus with senior stakeholders, alongside a proven aptitude to draft and deliver complex information in a responsive and clear manner, with a focus on reputation management which build deep and inspiring collaborative partnerships, with external organisations and top officials including Non-Executive Directors, to deliver macro level outcomes.

Personal credibility and highly developed leadership skills including the ability to build, inspire and develop high performing teams of HR professionals, creating an environment of constructive challenge, continuous improvement and openness to new approaches and behaviours, drawing on good practice across both the public and private sector.

The scale of senior level HR delivery that showcases your ability to link strategic thinking to business performance and having the courage to challenge the status quo and taking calculated risks to make step changes in how the organisation works.

Desirable criteria:

• CIPD qualified (minimum Chartered level)