Director - People Strategy & Insights

Director - People Strategy & Insights

Job Description

This is an exciting new opportunity in the Bank’s People Directorate as part of a major strategic change programme to maintain the modern and professional provision of the Bank’s central services – CS 2025. We are hiring a Director of our new People Strategy & Insights Division. You will be at the forefront of building this new function and strengthening the ability of the People Directorate and the Bank to develop and execute its People Strategy.

As a new role and function, it brings together existing functions and, reflecting our on-going focus on people in the achievement of the Bank’s mission, it introduces new roles and capabilities to strengthen the People function. It is an outward-facing role across the Bank and externally, meaning that you keep your finger on the pulse of business needs and employment and workforce trends, working with the People Leadership Team and professionals across the People Directorate and Central Services to ensure that the right people are focusing on the right things at the right time to develop and deliver our People Strategy.

Your key responsibilities and scope of the role include:

• Developing, embedding, and measuring the success of the Bank’s People Strategy, ensuring it remains relevant to the Bank’s vision to be ‘human and humble and in step with the changing world’; working with specialist People Directorate leads and the Bank’s most senior leaders to ensure the Bank’s People Strategy is joined up and coherent.
• Providing inclusive leadership to a team of people professionals, and role model the expectations of leaders at the Bank: Leads Change – ensuring we are in step with a changing world; Engages with Impact by communicating with purpose; and Assures Quality by enabling technical delivery of high-quality outputs.
• Leading and developing a team of People Strategy Partners, who are the People Directorate’s relationship link with the Deputy Governorships across the Bank; and collaborate with other business partnering functions across other central functions.
• Establishing and leading a People Insights function, to build a rich and insightful picture of the strength of our workforce and effectiveness of our employee value proposition (EVP), drawing on both quantitative and qualitative sources (including employee engagement insights); and leading the adoption of the Bank’s data strategy in relation to people data.
• Leading and driving the Bank’s leadership development agenda, to develop our current and future leadership cohort to meet future business needs.
• Providing oversight of the Bank’s talent strategy and agenda, with a dotted reporting line from the Talent division to ensure plans are aligned.
• Leading and maintaining the People Directorate’s book of work, including responsibility for a People Planning function to co-ordinate and deliver projects, manage the portfolio of work, source the right expertise from across the relevant functions and communicate plans to the wider Bank. As part of this work closely with the Executive Director, Change and Planning and Communications colleagues to ensure strategies and plans align.
• Leading the directorate’s professional development plans, engaging with third party professional networks and organisations as appropriate, to ensure the right capabilities are developed to support the needs of the Bank in delivering its People Strategy and services.
• Deputising for the Executive Director, People across Bank governance committees and internal and external commitments; and acting as the lead for major Bank wide programmes with significant people implications e.g. UK Resourcing Strategy.

As a role model for being ‘human and humble and in step with the changing world’, you will work in partnership with the Senior Leadership Team across the Bank to ensure that the People Strategy is embedded and evolves to reflect business needs. This means working closely with that cohort, using your expertise and commercial insights to deploy different methods and approaches to secure that engagement and bring about consistency. Your external network will help you keep in step with the changing world, meaning that you can keep the People Strategy relevant.

Number of direct reports: 8

Role Requirements

Essential Criteria

• Strong working background in professional HR leadership and employment practice, including specialist experience in setting HR-related strategic priorities.
• Strong business sense and cultural awareness, with the ability to understand the immediate and longer-term business priorities and those of the wider financial services and economic environment.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to take on exciting challenges and mitigate emerging risks.

Minimum Criteria

• Specialist knowledge and experience of driving, embedding and measuring organisational and people strategies across organisations, including behavioural and cultural change, acquired in an HR role.
• Extensive knowledge of up-to-date external practice, supported by an established professional network.
• Well-developed inclusive leadership skills and dedication to developing your team.
• Experience of building productive relationships with and influencing multiple stakeholders both internally and externally up to board level and with unions/staff representatives.
• Excellent analytical skills, with the ability to demonstrate creative problem solving and influencing through analysis. You have used data insights to support the argument for strategic change.

Desirable Criteria

• Relevant professional qualifications.
• Experience of working in both the private and public sector.

You should not be put off from applying if you do not meet or do not have all of these criteria – we would actively encourage you to get in touch to discuss what support you might need to close any gaps and/or any other skills you might have which you think could be effective in this role.

Our Approach to Inclusion

The Bank values diversity, equity and inclusion. We play a key role in maintaining monetary and financial stability, and to do that effectively, we believe we need a workforce that reflects the society we serve.

At the Bank of England we want all colleagues to feel valued and respected, so we're working hard to build an inclusive culture which supports people from all backgrounds and communities to be at their best at work. We celebrate all forms of diversity, including (but not limited to) age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. We believe that it’s by drawing on different perspectives and experiences that we’ll continue to make the best decisions for the public.

We welcome applications from individuals who work flexibly, including job shares and part time working patterns. We've also partnered with external organisations to support us in making adjustments for candidates and employees in the recruitment process where they're needed.

For most roles where work can be carried out at home, we aim for colleagues to spend half of their time in the office, with a minimum of 40% per month. Subject to that minimum requirement, individuals and managers should work together to find what works best for them, their team and stakeholders.

This role can be based from either our London or Leeds offices.

Finally, we're proud to be a member of the Disability Confident Scheme. If you wish to apply under this scheme, you should check the box in the ‘Candidate Personal Information’ under the ‘Disability Confident Scheme’ section of the application.

Salary and Benefits Information

This specific role offers a competitive base salary. We encourage flexible working, part time working and job share arrangements. Part time salary and benefits will be on a pro-rated basis as appropriate.

In addition, we also offer a comprehensive benefits package as detailed below:

• A non-contributory, career average pension giving you a guaranteed retirement benefit of 1/95th of your annual salary for every year worked. There is the option to increase your pension (to 1/50th) or decrease (to 1/120th) in exchange for salary through our flexible benefits programme each year.
• A discretionary performance award based on a current award pool.
• An 8% benefits allowance with the option to take as salary or purchase a wide range of flexible benefits.
• 26 days’ annual leave with option to buy up to 12 additional days through flexible benefits.
• Private medical insurance and income protection.

National Security Vetting Process

Employment in this role will be subject to the National Security Vetting clearance process (and typically can take between 6 to 12 weeks post offer) and the passing of additional Bank security checks in accordance with the Bank policy. Further information regarding the vetting and security clearance requirements for the role will be provided to the successful applicant, and information about how the Bank processes personal data for these purposes, is set out in the Bank's Privacy Notice

The Application Process

Important: Please ensure that you complete the ‘work history’ section and answer ALL the application questions fully. All candidate applications are anonymised to ensure that our hiring managers will not be able to see your personal information, including your CV, when reviewing your application details at the screening stage. It’s therefore really important that you fill out the work history and application form questions, as your answers will form a critical part of the initial selection process.

The closing date for applications is 5th February

The assessment process will comprise of a two stage interview process with a Korn Ferry on-line leadership assessment for candidates successfully passing the first round interview.