Wellbeing and Attendance Team Lead in Belfast

REPORTS TO: Head of Health, Wellbeing and Attendance

RESPONSIBLE FOR: Leading a sub team of Wellbeing and Attendance Management Specialists throughout multiple locations to proactively support a health, wellbeing and attendance culture throughout EA schools and services. Will also be responsible for scoping, initiating and delivering support projects throughout to improve service delivery to our children and young people. The post will require regular travel throughout Northern Ireland.

JOB PURPOSE: Under the leadership of the postholder, the sub team will work collectively to develop and deliver annual programmes of support, aligned with the HR and Corporate Business Plans, to continuously support EA schools and services to enhance overall education delivery to our children and young people. This will include providing additional support to School Leaders and other managers across EA, as a lead on supporting wellbeing and reducing employee absenteeism to enhance EA’s health, wellbeing and attendance culture. Working across all localities, the postholder will initiate, execute and oversee allocated/approved wellbeing and attendance support projects with a clear focus on prioritising outcomes that will have the most direct, positive impact on children and young people, including targeting areas of high absenteeism where additional advice and guidance is required.

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop and manage a range of Health and Wellbeing preventative strategies and tools.
• Key role in ensuring that Health and Wellbeing activity across EA services and schools is streamlined, customer and child focused, effective and efficient.
• Work closely with School Leaders and Managers to develop a clear understanding, appreciation and solutions focused approach to the wide-ranging and complex Attendance Management needs.
• Work closely with Head of Service and other HRCS colleagues to identify key priority areas to inform and develop annual support projects portfolio.
• Work closely with the Head of Service to identify, prioritise, scope, plan and manage a range of targeted interventions to include both service improvement projects and projects to address specific attendance management trends.
• Develop and successfully use attendance management information to plan, track and review improvements and savings in attendance management.
• Ensure the appropriate quality advice and support to managers and leaders on attendance management issues proportionate to the risks involved and, in a customer-focused and child-centered manner.
• Help ensure that any HR or contract performance management issues impacting on staff attendance are identified, escalated and resolved efficiently and effectively.
• Oversee Project management of key complex Attendance Management projects within and across services/directorates.
• Identify, scope, plan and manage the delivery of projects to continuously improve Attendance Management processes.
• Work collaboratively within the Health, Wellbeing and Attendance Team and other specialists to inform, complement and enhance service delivery and ensure that effective and efficient resolution is achieved for attendance management issues.
• Monitor, manage and continuously improve attendance management practice and reporting, providing accurate and timely management reporting information such as savings from relevant contracts as required.
• Build internal and external relationships with key stakeholders to identify opportunities for joint working that might bring greater consistency across the sector, and/or improve efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery.
• Continuously develop procedures and protocols in line with emerging best practice in the field of Attendance Management.
• Work collaboratively with EA Data Analytics to accurately record, analyse and report information to develop, benchmark and measure success of the team collectively and individual projects.
• Contribute to the development and delivery of programmes of training to support effective Attendance Management for corporate managers, school managers and school governors.
• Be a role model for creative and innovative solutions to support attendance management and proactively share insights and learning within the team.
• Develop and maintain collaborative relationships with external agencies such as Health & Safety Executive; Public Health Agency NI; Employers for Disability etc. to ensure best practices.
• Maintain appropriate communication within the Health, Wellbeing and Attendance Team and relevant Directorates to ensure the needs of customers are being met.
• Raise awareness of the range of Health & Wellbeing support available to staff including those who are hard to reach.
• Ensure that Health & Wellbeing information on EA’s website and intranet is maintained and utilised fully.
• Manage the deployment of resources including staff and to plan work of others and will be responsible and accountable for service delivery in an assigned area.
• Review individually on a regular basis the performance of any direct reports, identifying individual/team training requirements and initiating further training.
• Deputise for the Head of Health, Wellbeing and Attendance as required.
• Represent EA at Department of Education and other education partner forums/working groups focusing on improving employee health, wellbeing and attendance.

Other Responsibilities:

• Lead and add value to the success of the overall Health and Wellbeing Centre of Excellence.
• Promote a culture of supportive attendance management.
• Hold budgetary approval at an appropriate level and ensure resources are managed within the agreed budget for the Service.
• Ensure that the Authority’s policy on Data Protection (in particular processing sensitive personal information) is properly complied with.
• Ensure that the Authority’s Equal Opportunities Policy, relevant Codes of Employment and Practice and other relevant legislation are adhered to.
• Participate as required in the selection and appointment of staff in accordance with the policy and procedures laid down by the Authority.
• Undertake other related duties within the grade and competence of the post-holder as required.
• The post holder may also be required to work outside normal office hours on occasions.
• This job description will be subject to review in light of changing circumstances and is not intended to be rigid and inflexible but should be regarded as providing guidelines within which the individual works.
• In accordance with Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act (1998), the post-holder is expected to promote good relations, equality of opportunity and pay due regard for equality legislation at all times.

PERSON SPECIFICATION:

• You must clearly demonstrate on your application form under each question, how, and to what extent you meet the required criteria as failure to do so may result in you not being shortlisted.
• You should clearly demonstrate this for both the essential and desirable criteria, where relevant.
• The stage in the process when the criteria will be measured is outlined in the table below.
• Shortlisting will be carried out on the basis of the essential criteria set out in Section 1 below, using the information provided by you on your application form.
• Please note that the Selection Panel reserves the right to shortlist only those applicants that it believes most strongly meet the criteria for the role.
• In the event of an excessive number of applications, the Selection Panel also reserves the right to apply any desirable criteria as outlined in Section 3 at shortlisting, in which case these will be applied in the order listed.

Essential Criteria:

• Hold a bachelor’s degree (UK Qualifications and Credit Framework Level 6) or an equivalent or higher qualification AND within a large service delivery organisation have three years’ demonstrable experience of providing specialist attendance management advice and support to a range of managers within education on a range of non-routine, complex attendance management cases; OR within a large service delivery organisation have five years’ demonstrable experience of providing specialist attendance management advice and support to a range of managers within education on a range of non-routine, complex attendance management cases.
• Have experience of providing advice, guidance and support to senior managers to support their staff health, wellbeing and attendance.
• Have experience of successfully leading a range of absence projects resulting in tangible attendance, policy and process improvements.
• Have experience managing staff including experience of proactively addressing performance management concerns.

Knowledge:

• Knowledge of relevant HR policies and procedures.
• Knowledge of relevant employment law relating to Attendance Management.

Other:

• Willingness to undertake some evening work to support Board of Governor training and selection panels.
• The successful candidate will be required to have access to a suitable vehicle (appropriately maintained and insured for Education Authority business) that will enable them to carry out the mobility requirements of the post in an efficient and effective manner.

Desirable Criteria:

• Hold a membership of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) at associate level or above.
• Demonstrable experience of working successfully with more than one organisation resulting in tangible attendance, attendance policy and attendance process improvements.
• Have three years' experience working within the Health and Wellbeing aspect of Human Resources.

Our Values:

Through the selection process we will also seek evidence that the personal values of candidates align with those of the EA. This will include evidence of commitment to equality and excellence in service delivery.

DISCLOSURE OF CRIMINAL BACKGROUND:

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups (Northern Ireland) Order 2007 defines working directly with children or young people or in specified places as ‘regulated activity’. In the event that you are recommended for appointed to a post that involves ‘regulated activity’, the Education Authority will be required to undertake an Enhanced Disclosure of Criminal Background.

Please note that you WILL be expected to meet the cost of an Enhanced Disclosure Certificate.

Further information can be accessed at NI Direct or the Department of Justice.

APPLICANT GUIDANCE NOTES:

To view the applicant guidance notes, please click here. To learn about the many great benefits of joining the Education Authority, click here. The Education Authority is an Equal Opportunities Employer.