Find More Than 52931+ Job Vacancy

Business Unit Overview

The government spends around £49 billion each year on contracts with third-party providers. Not only is this a huge sum of money, it also represents a vast array of important (and often life-enhancing or life-saving) goods and services, making the government’s need for capable commercial specialists increasingly important. Recognising this, the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO) was established in 2014 to be the employer of senior commercial professionals (now Grade 7 and above) and support departments in improving their commercial capability.

Working to the Government’s Chief Commercial Officer, the award-winning Commercial Capability Team, was set up at the same time, within the Cabinet Office to support those in the GCO and the wider Government Commercial Function (GCF). Over the past few years the size of the GCO has increased to circa 1500 employees, and requires a team of professionals to support this population.

The HR Operations Team acts as the central engine room, supporting the delivery of key objectives to improve the workplace, ways of working and employee experience, whilst ensuring the key administrative responsibilities of the People Services teams are efficiently managed and governed. The team also effectively manages relationships across a diverse range of stakeholders and boundaries.

Reporting to the Deputy Director of the Commercial Capability People Services team, the Head of Operations - People Services role offers a fantastic opportunity for a person with a passion for delivering and improving the customer journey. It is a multi-faceted role comprising the delivery of services across Recruitment, HR, Business Partnering, Talent, Performance Management and Reward requiring the role holder to balance strategic and operational demands.

The main responsibilities of this role involve leadership and direction of the People Services Operations team. Key responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

• HR Services: leading a team of circa 10 people to ensure that they are providing clear, timely and accurate HR advice to the Commercial Specialists employed in the GCO. This involves collaborative working with the wider Heads of HR to provide customer focused HR activity across the full employee life cycle.
• HR Systems: overseeing the current HR system and helping to ensure that any new system will meet the needs of GCO employees and the organisation is ready for the change. This involves attending Workday board meetings and the design authority meeting to approve changes or feed in requirements to improve the user journey.
• New joiners: being accountable for the new joiner experience ensuring the onboarding process is smooth and in the future working with the Head of Recruitment to integrate the recruitment operations team into the current HR operational team.
• Performance Management: ensuring the system enables the new approach to performance management to be delivered effectively. This involves working with the Head of Performance & Talent in particular to design suitable solutions and engagement sessions to help build line manager capability.
• Pay and annual pay award: managing the third-party payroll provider so that employees are paid on time, escalations are resolved and errors reduced plus supporting the operational delivery of the annual pay award so that annual compensation changes are delivered in line with the strategy. This involves working with the Head of Reward in particular.
• Finance and budget management: managing the relevant budget ensuring that appropriate cost and controls are in place to pay our suppliers. This involves working with finance and commercial colleagues.
• HR Policy Development/Continuous Improvement: Development of HR Policy and champion best practise with innovative ways of working that deliver a high-quality service for end users, which promotes growth and efficiency within the team.

Essential Criteria

The successful candidate must:

• Have evidence of people management experience in an operational environment.
• Demonstrate significant operational expertise in a leadership role, ideally gained from both the private sector and the civil service.
• Be able to demonstrate change within Diversity and Inclusion. Have the ability to lead and influence within this area and be a role model for behaviour change.
• Be confident analysing large volumes of data and using findings to support decision making processes.

Essential Experience (Lead Criteria)

• Significant experience of managing HR operational services ideally across a range of HR disciplines to multiple client areas.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to influence and engage to bring together individuals from various professions to deliver impactful change.
• A track record of setting high standards and delivering results in a complex and demanding environment. You will be able to demonstrate how you can prioritise a portfolio of work proactively and be accountable for the delivery of the outcomes.

Essential Technical Skills

• Qualifications and memberships: CIPD qualified or willing to work towards achieving this qualification

Desirable Attributes

• Experience of managing a HR Operations service to multiple business areas.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, with the ability to present clear, well-structured reports and briefs.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Leadership

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and average employer contributions of 27%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.

Job contact :

Name :
Steve Simpson
Email :
steve.simpson@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

Email :
cabinetofficerecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk