Legitimacy Consultant (EDI / WHS / ESG)

People-Centric Service Group
c£200,000 pro rata

This is an unprecedented opportunity to join one of the country’s most innovative, people-centric groups in a newly created, visionary role heading up group wide legitimacy.

Two decades old, the business has trailblazed in commercial growth and operational excellence, but also in their unparalleled people-centric culture where the entire business understands the importance of people representing the communities and customers they serve.

Their innovative service has won them significant recognition and an enviable client list within highly regulated environments as well as huge respect amongst the consumer base but all with an underlying reputation for objectivity.  Two decades of achievements and award wins set this innovative business apart from their competitors, and with continued demand for their services, an increased capability in their product and service portfolio and their quest to continually strive to innovate and keep both them, and their clients ahead of the curve, their future is as impressive as their history and even more exciting.

Replicating that innovative approach internally, they have created an upbeat, friendly, innovative, and fast-paced environment with, crucially, market-leading opportunity for advancement. But they seek to continue the development of that culture and environment for the personal and professional benefit of all employees; current and future.

This is an energised, open, authentic and innovative culture, which every employee works diligently to foster and continually improve. They are an opportunistic growth company that seeks to deliver long-term prosperity to allemployees.

The employee-focused culture they have created is truly exceptional; so much so that they have to manage the external communication of the breadth of employee initiatives & rewards to avoid negative customer reaction.

As their employee numbers increase and following the creation of a new group structure, they have a desire to ensure they have in place a full group-wide Legitimacy strategy, further developing and streamlining their current Culture, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (CDI&B) strategy along with current Workplace Health & Safety (WHS) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategies, plus adding in broader considerations covering all cognitive, pragmatic and moral aspects across the group, for the benefit and future success of the group. 

The legitimacy plan exists, but in order to objectively roll-out and deliver that plan, the decision has been taken to recruit an Interim Legitimacy Consultant until June 2024.

The Interim Legitimacy Consultant will be an experienced leader and strategic thinker with several years of experience in delivering CDI&B/WHS/ESG transformation strategies within medium/large companies. A partner with a truly group-wide mindset who will work closely with the leaders of the business to develop, implement, and drive the Legitimacy strategy.

The appointee will be a true change architect who can drive transformation by seeing solutions with tangible results that tap into the business’s core visions along with the business’s growth agenda. An individual with the desire and ability to roll up their sleeves and work in an ambiguous environment, a self-motivated individual who feels comfortable in a constantly evolving, dynamic and fast-moving organisation.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Take a deep interest in the broader business strategy, always drawing a clear line aligning Legitimacy deliverables and business outcomes. Be eager to identify areas of improvement to help us meet business growth goals.
• Serve as a key partner to the senior leadership team driving efforts to deliver a vision and strategy for their group-wide legitimacy that is aligned with the group’s strategic priorities and direction, its culture, and values.
• Lead and evolve the current CDI&B, WHS & ESG strategies, ensuring the newly created legitimacy strategy creates a psychologically safe culture, where psychosocial risk is mitigated, working closely with the Group talent, engagement and leadership functions alongside current DEI & WHS, to ensure alignment on all gendas including communications, process and policy improvements, leadership engagement and measurement
• Own the development and implementation of group-wide diversity initiatives, tools, and processes.
• Drive the continual evolution and execution of the legitimacy strategy in collaboration with Business Unit Directors and other stakeholders
• Provide change leadership governance for legitimacy change initiatives.
• Develop & implement group-wide programs and policies leveraging macro-trends, research, analysis, and benchmarks. Partnering with operational, people and talent leads to disseminate and optimise, collaborating with counterparts to ensure that the strategy and approach aligns to the wider people, business and value agendas
• Prepare communications and build presentations, for status reports, executive updates, meetings, annual planning, etc.
• Track key metrics (hiring, retention, promotion, attrition) by locations and demographics. Analyse and report findings to leadership and to other partners as needed (relationship teams, marketing, and communications).
• Work in partnership with key stakeholders to create, implement and monitor programs and policies designed to ensure fair and equitable treatment and selection of clients and vendor partners.
• Serve as the face all legitimacy programs; build external relationships with peer practitioners; be a trusted and respected voice of the legitimacy philosophy with internal and external audiences, being the subject matter expert on all matters organisational culture with a clear point of view on key topics, keeping close to arising topics in wider society and applying these to the context on a group-wide scale
• Work closely with external stakeholders to raise the profile and chart progress on legitimacy commitments, shaping and improving aspects which contribute to ESG ambitions.
• Work in partnership with our products and propositions, sales and health insights teams to shape and contribute to inclusive customer centricity
• Oversee CDI&B networks and their annual cycle, objectives, and activities, creating and owning a comprehensive view of all ongoing activity to enable key stakeholders to make an informed decision on priorities
• Procure and manage suppliers as required to ensure that relevant products and services are maximised, influencing the supplier and third-party strategies to be inclusive and championing for minority owned and supporting businesses.
• Support the SLT by bringing outside in thinking and thought leadership that helps lead the direction of the business.

As with all appointments in this highly people-centric business, candidate profile and chemistry fit is critical, but never more so than for this for this pivotal culturally central role. Working within a fast-paced, innovative, entrepreneurial environment, attitude is as important as experience. The person is everything. This appointee will be instrumental in adding to the tone, energy and culture for the business. The gravity of success is all about having the right attitude, underpinned with demonstrable experience.

Suitable candidates will already be high achieving, Legitimacy (or CDI&B/WHS/ESG) specialists. They will likely have held a number of leadership roles in delivering key projects, and possess a track record of personal success.

The appointee will possess a strong ethos of delivery through objective engagement, strategic planning, an innovative approach, informed collaborative insight, ideation and a ‘do’ not ‘think’ mindset.

They will be people, results and delivery oriented; hands-on and possess the ability to create a sense of mission and attentiveness to current and future requirements and challenges.

They should embrace, and be able to demonstrate the organisation’s Core Values:

• Courage
• Balance
• Empathy
• Openness

Skills & Experience Required:

• Must have a group-wide perspective and be comfortable with using a truly open mindset to take a broad view when approaching issues.
• Strategic thinker who understands and can effectively articulate the business case for diversity.
• Proven experience in developing and implementing legitimacy strategies with demonstrated results.
• Change management skills to develop and apply a structured process via the introduction of a toolkit for engaging and holding our businesses accountable to achieve and sustain business results and outcomes.
• Experience influencing individuals for whom they do not have a direct reporting relationship.
• Possess a mix of intellectual curiosity, creative thinking, and pragmatism; can translate bold thinking and strategies into practical solutions and bring ideas forward.
• Have a data driven approach with strong analytical skills, able to create the right people metrics and implement solutions to drive positive change.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, able to drive change without authority, think proactively, manage through ambiguity and function independently.
• Lead with humility and bring a positive, high-energy disposition, with the ability to inspire people to become part of the solution.
• Experience working in an open, diverse organisation, managing key stakeholders and leading a significant component of the leadership/learning agenda.
• Organisational savvy to comfortably manoeuvre through complex policy, process, and people related organisational dynamics.
• Expert at planning and prioritizing workstreams to meet commitments aligned with organisational goals.
• Project Management Accreditation (Price 2, APM, PMI etc)

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