Director of People

Band 9

Main area Director of People Grade Band 9 Contract Permanent Hours Full time – 37.5 hours per week Job ref 349-COR-7028121*

Site Cobbett House, Oxford Road Campus Town Manchester Salary £105,385 – £121,271 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 09/03/2025 23:59 Interview date 25/03/2025

Job Overview

Join MFT as our Director of People and drive your career to new heights, at one of the largest and most complex NHS Trusts in England.

This newly created role means you have the opportunity to shape, influence and build how and where you want it to impact. Reporting directly to the Deputy Chief People Officer, you will be working in collaboration with our six Clinical Group Directors of Workforce and OD and will be instrumental in leading, shaping & guiding the Employee Health and Wellbeing service, Corporate HR Business Partnering and Medical Workforce teams. Most importantly, you will be horizon scanning, setting the strategic direction and the standardisation of the People Profession across the Trust, using the MFT People Plan as an enabler for change.

It goes without saying you will have autonomy to drive workforce transformation strategically and skillfully, achieved by influencing decision making and increasing organisational and individual awareness of exceptional people practice, through the introduction, development & maintenance of leading-edge interventions.

As for you, you are passionate about all things ‘people’, recognised as a role model leader with a compassionate & supportive style, an eagerness to empower others in decision making, with the expertise to encourage our teams to know they make valuable contributions, leading to a high performing, inclusive, open, and transparent culture.

Interested? Then please get in touch, we would love to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

• With extensive experience working at senior management level in a health, social care, or similar large complex organisations, you will provide effective leadership within the Workforce Business Directorate, ensuring individual contributions are maximised, and development needs are met, creating a truly integrated workforce service.
• With a successful record in service improvement and change, delivered across a complex organisation, you will make a significant contribution to the overall success of the Trust, setting and implementing strategic objectives as part of the MFT People Plan and other key Trust Strategies.
• With significant experience of providing advice on employment matters, in a large, complex, multi-professional organisation, you will lead the development and maintenance of MFT-wide workforce policies.
• With a thorough understanding and practical experience of delivering large scale employee engagement initiatives, you will work with other colleagues to influence how the employee experience shapes organisational direction, strategy and focus, using the MFT People Plan as an enabler for change.
• With considerable experience of developing and applying workforce & OD strategies, employment law and policies, you will actively engage in national policy development, Greater Manchester and Northwest Region strategy and change, researching best practice across the NHS, ensuring MFT is innovative in its approach to the people profession.

Working for our organisation

MFT is one of the largest NHS Trusts in England with a turnover of £2.8bn & is on a different scale than most other NHS Trusts. We’re creating an exceptional integrated health & social care system for the 1 million patients who rely on our services every year.

Bringing together 10 hospitals & community services from across Manchester, Trafford & beyond, we champion collaborative working & transformation, encouraging our 30,000 workforce to pursue their most ambitious goals. We set standards that other Trusts seek to emulate so you’ll benefit from a scale of opportunity that is nothing short of extraordinary.

We’ve also created a digitally enabled organisation to improve clinical quality, patient & staff experience, operational effectiveness & driving research, and innovation through the introduction of Hive; our Electronic Patient Record system which launched in September 2022.

We’re proud to be a major academic Research Centre & Education provider, providing you with a robust infrastructure to encourage and facilitate high-quality research programmes. What’s more, we’re excited to be embarking on our Green Plan which sets out how MFT continues to play its part in making healthcare more sustainable.

At MFT, we create and foster a culture of inclusion and belonging, provide equal opportunities for career development that are fair, open, and transparent, protecting your health and wellbeing and shaping the future of our organisation together.

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

To find out more about the key responsibilities and the specific skills and experience you’ll need, take a look at the Job Description & Person Specification attachments under the ‘Supporting Documents’ heading.

Candidate Information Pack

To support this vacancy, we have developed a bespoke ‘Candidate Information Pack’ which provides specific information about the role and the Selection Process. To request a copy of this pack, please contact Talent Attraction & Senior Acquisition Service Manager Sinéad Gamble, via email

Diversity Matters

MFT is committed to promoting equality of opportunity, celebrating and valuing diversity and eliminating any form of unlawful discrimination across our workforce, ensuring our people are truly representative of the communities we serve. All individuals regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation are encouraged to apply for this post. As an inclusive employer, we are here to support you. If you have any special requirements to help you with your application, email our team at

We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Person specification

Qualifications – Academic / Professional

Essential criteria

• High level of general education to degree level or equivalent.
• Educated to Master’s level or holder of relevant professional qualification in Organisational Development, Change, Social Psychology or similar field.
• Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) or demonstrable equivalent experience.
• Track record of continuous personal and professional development.

Skills and Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Ability to operate at Director level or immediate next tier within large complex NHS organisation.
• Experience of working to and supporting a Board Director.
• Proven applied knowledge on employee experience / staff engagement, equality, health and wellbeing and related issues at both a strategic and operational level within a large complex organisation.
• Evidence of well-developed project management skills.
• Highly developed problem solving, analytical and interpretative skills with a proven ability to analyse and interpret data to identify trends and variances.
• Ability to analyse both strategic and operational problems and develop innovative and practical solutions and to progress these through to implementation.
• Excellent influencing skills.
• Ability to respond and deliver in a complex and rapidly changing environment where there is a high level of ambiguity and fixed time constraints.
• Ability to work under pressure and to assess and manage competing priorities.
• Ability to delegate work and to supervise work in progress to required timescales.
• Highly effective interpersonal skills to facilitate collaborative working with a wide range of stakeholders to develop mature relationships with key partners and to develop effective networks.
• Excellent leadership skills – ability to negotiate and influence others across boundaries in a complex environment.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral, with a proven ability to communicate effectively at all levels.
• Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the legal framework surrounding employment.

Desirable criteria

• Transformation or improvement qualification.

Experience

Essential criteria

• Extensive experience of leading and delivering service improvement and change projects across a complex organisation.
• Extensive experience working at senior management level in a health or social care organisation.
• Significant experience of providing advice on workforce matters working in a large, complex, multi-professional organisation.
• Demonstrable experience of managing staff and employee relations.
• Considerable experience of developing and applying HR strategies, employment law and policies.
• Proven experience of collaborative working with a range of stakeholders and relationship management.
• A thorough understanding and practical experience of delivering staff engagement initiatives, team development, leadership and management and other training.
• Experience at a senior management or professional level, with staff management and financial / budgetary responsibilities, within a healthcare or similar complex organisation.
• Experience of procurement and management of external consultancy contracts.
• Experience of strategic thinking at a senior level.
• Experience of undertaking organisation / team diagnostic needs assessments and analysis.
• Experience of presenting to and facilitating small and large diverse groups at all levels.

Personal Attributes

Essential criteria

• Effective interpersonal skills and personal credibility, with the ability to quickly gain the confidence of and build relationships with others, including managers, clinicians and staff.
• Innovation & Creativity – ability to make decisions that encourage new ways of working and develop a culture of innovation.
• Achievement focused – ability to set targets and get things done to achieve continuous improvement.
• Politically astute.
• Flexible and willing to commit to achieving results and meeting deadlines.
• Sets high standards and motivated to achieve these.
• Initiative – sees opportunities and acts on them – proactive rather than reactive approach.
• Aware of own limitations.
• Able to work autonomously and as part of a team.
• Able to adapt style to the needs of a diverse environment.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

This post will require a submission for Disclosure to be made to check for any unspent criminal convictions.

Documents to download

• JD/PS (PDF, 501.3KB)
• FR form (PDF, 920.2KB)

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name Sinead Gamble Job title TASA Service Lead Email address

If you have problems applying, contact

Address MFT Resourcing Services

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

M14 7LU

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