Deputy Director for HR Strategy and Partnering
Department of Health and Social Care
Apply before 11:55 pm on Monday 2nd December 2024
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Location
DHSC has a hybrid way of working. You will be expected to attend the office for more than 60% of your working time Subject to the capacity of individual buildings, there is no upper limit on the number of days of attending offices and this should be driven by business need.
About the job
Job summary
The role of Deputy Director for HR Strategy and Partnering is pivotal to the success of DHSC HR and DHSC overall. You will be responsible for a broad portfolio. You will lead the department’s strategic workforce planning process, ensuring we have the people and reward strategies, organisation design, and management information to ensure that the department can deliver on its aims. You will also lead the HR business partnering function and as such often deputise for me, offering counsel and advice to the department’s Permanent Secretaries and Directors General. As such, this is a uniquely high-profile role within HR that puts you at the heart of departmental decision-making.
The successful person will lead a large team based across our Leeds and London sites.
You will be a member of my small, but perfectly formed HR senior leadership team, with collective responsibility for the leadership and development of our function. As a team, we take great pride in supporting each other, balancing our professional and personal lives, and working with pragmatism and humour.
This role requires an exceptional senior level HR professional, with the experience and capability to lead a confident and expert HR service. I am looking for someone passionate about continuous improvement and delivering a high-quality service and with experience in leading and developing teams.
Job description
The Deputy Director for HR Strategy and Partnering has overall responsibility for driving, developing, and delivering a wide range of people and HR strategies and plans across DHSC. This is a broad and diverse portfolio, encompassing business partnering, strategic workforce planning, organisation design, a broad reward portfolio and people analytics.
It is a uniquely high-profile role: as the lead for HR business partnering, you will often operate on behalf of the HR Director; offering advice, expertise and insight to the Permanent Secretary and Directors General on a regular basis.
If you are looking for a role that will allow you the opportunity to develop even further in your HR career and provide you with the chance to shape a truly people-driven agenda this is the role for you.
Key Responsibilities
As Deputy Director for Strategy and Partnering your main responsibilities will include:
- You will operate as a key member of the HR leadership team, working closely with the HR Director to lead the HR function. The role offers the ability to look outwards both to the wider health system and across the wider Civil Service HR community. You will need to have proven abilities in building and maintaining your network across different organisations and evidence of encouraging your team to connect to the latest thinking and best practice to bring about lasting results.
- You will lead a high-performing team which comprises of c 35 highly effective and motivated HR professionals, but also calls on the capacity and skills of others across the HR function in a matrix way. Given the objectives of the team reach all parts of the organisation you will need to lead the team to operate in a highly collaborative way, equipping them to partner the business on a wide range of strategic interventions including reward, organisational design and strategic workforce planning.
Business Partnering
- You will set vision and direction for a highly effective team of HR Business Partners providing, motivation, and leadership to ensure they reach their maximum potential and deliver timely, high-quality, user-focussed advice and services.
- Critical to success in this role is your ability to maintain and influence relationships at all levels across the organisation and demonstrate your knowledge, expertise and passion. In the absence of the HR Director you will be the first port of call to the most senior leaders across the business for partnering advice.
Strategic Work Force Planning
- You will support leaders to develop workforce plans that reflect agreed priorities and affordability across business areas and underpin future capability needs. You will build and maintain strong, collaborative relationships across corporate services to understand the direction of the department and to lead people elements of fiscal events.
- You will utilise business insight and robust people analytics to steer and direct organisational workforce strategies.
Reward
- You will lead our corporate approach to the reward and recognition of colleagues, and to lead on the strategic engagement with our trade union colleagues.
- You will oversee some of the wider health system pay frameworks and ensure approvals of the most senior health system roles are effectively managed through the departmental renumeration committee.
Organisation Design
- You will have frequent and repeated interaction with the department’s Permanent Secretaries, Chief Medical Officer and Directors General advising on organisational design. You will need to be confident to advise and lead organisational design initiatives and transformation across the whole or part of the organisation in complex and ambiguous context.
Person specification
We are looking for an exceptional senior level HR professional and business partner, with sound judgement, excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work autonomously and calmly under pressure.
It is important through your CV and Statement of Suitability that you give evidence and examples of proven experience of each of the following essential criteria:
- Significant breadth and depth of HR business partnering, with demonstrable business/organisational awareness and evidence of successfully influencing organisational outcomes.
- Significant experience of successfully influencing and engaging senior stakeholders, up to and including Board level; with the ability to challenge, coach and facilitate to improve outcomes and performance.
- Significant experience within the HR profession and strong generalist HR skills and knowledge, including a good working knowledge of employment law, sensitive high-profile casework; and working effectively with staff groups, including trade unions.
- Significant experience of dealing with sensitive casework matters at the most senior levels, with associated judgement, diplomacy and discretion.
- Evidence of strong leadership and a wide-ranging portfolio of delivery; with the ability to deal with ambiguity and lead a team through change.
- Ability to work autonomously, calmly and confidently under pressure, recognising when urgent action is required vs longer term solutions.
Qualifications
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Leadership
- Working Together
Benefits
Whatever your role, we take your career and development seriously, and want to enable you to build a really successful career with the Department and wider Civil Service. It is crucial that our employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead, and you’ll benefit from regular performance and development reviews to ensure this development is ongoing. As a Civil Service employee, you’ll be entitled to a large range of benefits.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service values and supports all its employees.
We have strong and pro-active staff networks, special leave policies for hospital appointments, reasonable adjustments put in place for those who need them, and diversity talent programmes to help everyone irrespective of background, to achieve their potential.
Pension
Your pension is a valuable part of your total reward package.
A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension; where your contributions come out of your salary before any tax is taken; and where your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire. Visit Civil Service Pension Scheme for more details.
Generous Annual Leave and Bank Holiday Allowance
25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service. This is in addition to 8 public holidays.
This will be complimented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the King’s Birthday.
Staff Wellbeing
Flexible working including part-time or time- term working and access to Flexible Working Schemes allowing you to vary your working day as long as you work your total hours.
Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers.
Childcare benefits (policy for new employees as of 5 April 2018): The government has introduced the Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) scheme. Working parents can open an online childcare account and for every £8 they pay in, the government adds £2, up to a maximum of £2000 a year for each child or £4000 for a disabled child. Parents then use the funds to pay for registered childcare. Existing employees may be able to continue to claim childcare vouchers, so please check how the policy would work for you here.
Onsite facilities Opportunity to use onsite facilities including fitness centres and staff canteens (where applicable).
Things you need to know
Selection process details
To apply for this post please submit the following documents no later than 23:55 on Monday 2nd December 2024.
- A CV (which is for information purposes only) setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years.
- A Statement of Suitability (no more than 1250 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the criteria in the person specification.
Applications will be sifted against your statement of suitability. Please note that your CV is for information purposes only and will not be scored.
Failure to submit both documents will mean the panel has limited information on which to assess your application against the criteria in the person specification.
As part of the online application process, you will be asked a number of diversity-related questions. If you do not wish to provide a declaration on any of the particular characteristics, you will have the option to select 'prefer not to say'. The information you provide when submitting your application will help us monitor our progress towards the Civil Service becoming the most inclusive employer by 2025.
Selection Process
A panel chaired by Jenny Richardson, HR Director, DHSC will assess your application to select those demonstrating the best fit with the role by considering the evidence you have provided against the criteria set out in the ‘Person Specification’ section. Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application.
Jenny will be supported by a selection panel made up of other senior stakeholders for the role, full details of this panel will be shared with shortlisted candidates.
Shortlist
You will receive an acknowledgement of your application through the online process.
The panel will select a shortlist of candidates whose applications best demonstrate suitability for the role, by considering the evidence provided against the essential criteria set out in the ‘Person Specification’.
Candidates applying under the Disability Confident Scheme and A Great Place to Work for Veterans Scheme who meet the minimum selection criteria in the job specification are guaranteed an interview.
Assessment
If you are shortlisted, you will be asked to take part in a series of assessments which will include both an Individual Leadership and Technical Assessment. These assessments will not result in a pass or fail decision. Rather, they are designed to support the panel’s decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.
Discussion with Outgoing Post Holder
Shortlisted candidates may be given the opportunity to speak to the current outgoing post holder, Anna Jenkins prior to the final interview. This is an informal discussion to allow candidates to learn more about the role, and is not part of the assessment process.
Interview
You will be asked to attend a panel interview in order to have a more in-depth discussion of your previous experience and professional competence in relation to the criteria set out in the Person Specification.
Shortlisted candidates may be asked to prepare a 5-minute presentation at interview on a scenario issued to them 30 minutes ahead of their panel interview. This presentation will be designed to assess each candidate’s experience with briefing Ministers. Full details will be provided prior to the interview.
You will be asked a series of questions at interview around the following behaviours, strengths and the essential criteria earlier in this pack.
Behaviours:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Leadership
- Working Together
Strengths:
- TBC at interview.
Interviews will take place in person at 39 Victoria Street, London. Full details of the interview format will be provided to shortlisted candidates prior to interview.
Feedback
Feedback is only available to shortlisted candidates. Please contact scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk at Government Recruitment Service to request feedback on your application or interview.
A reserve list will be held for up to 12 months, which we may use to fill future suitable vacancies for candidates who are considered appointable following interview.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.
Security
Nationality requirements
Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : SCS Recruitment Team
- Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : scsrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact DHSCSCSrecruitment@dhsc.gov.uk in the first instance.
If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission.
