Head of Internal Communications

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Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key job responsibilities

1. Provide strategic direction, challenge and leadership on the implementation of NUH’s internal communications strategy, translating strategic activity into messages and activities that are relevant to our colleagues and secure support for it at Board and senior level, including a clear understanding of the resources required to deliver it.
2. Take the communications lead on engaging with our colleagues on the organisation’s long term Strategy.
3. Review our existing approach to internal communications and identify how we can deliver a better service, including new channels and opportunities to reach colleagues, especially where engagement and involvement is low.
4. Develop strong relationships with staff at all levels of the organisation; this will require strong communication and influencing skills in order to convey complex information to a diverse audience.
5. Support leaders and managers across NUH to communicate effectively with their colleagues and recognise the importance of good communications.
6. Work with the Board, executive team and other senior leaders to ensure they are visible and approachable for all staff.
7. Deliver effective and informed change management communications to a diverse and busy workforce with a number of competing priorities in a compassionate and engaging way.
8. Help the Trust understand and meet our financial challenge, ensure we are engaging with colleagues to understand our operational performance and lead the team in our support of NUH’s Networks to help us meet our ambitions on inclusivity.
9. Overseeing continued embedding of our Trust values and People First approach.
10. Work in partnership with HR colleagues to ensure a robust and effective staff engagement approach is in place – one that listens to staff, acts on their feedback and communicates what has been done.
11. Use insights, data and feedback to inform and plan internal communications activity and regularly measure the effectiveness of the internal communications strategy, contributing to the team’s forward planner and quarterly performance reports.
12. Develop and drive a truly innovative approach to the development of internal communications, enabling NUH to explore some of the newest approaches from industry and the public sector. Persuade others of the benefits of new approaches and work across departments to gain support for the testing and evaluation of new techniques.
13. Develop strong relationships with communications teams across the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire system and region to share best practice and explore opportunities to work in partnership.
14. Implement and manage an annual internal communications audit and deliver action plans to make the required improvements.
15. Lead the ongoing development of the Trust’s internal communications channels so that they are targeted and effective at connecting with multiple audiences across the organisation.
16. Work with relevant internal stakeholders to deliver campaigns that support widespread and/or localised behaviour change, engagement and awareness.
17. Lead for communications on shared campaigns and projects with the HR team and the relevant divisions to promote health and wellbeing, our equality and diversity priorities and other major internal programmes and projects.
18. Work with the communications team to develop timely, engaging and relevant content for all colleagues, including copy-writing, photography and film to tell our story in way that excites, inspires and reassures as appropriate.
19. Advise senior colleagues on strategic internal communications issues, writing briefs and reports as required.
20. Provide expert, specialist advice to support organisational change and transformation programmes, making decisions on the appropriate internal communications approaches / visual identity strategies, alongside the optimal channel deployment to achieve objectives.
21. Work with the Awards and Recognition Manager to ensure there is an effective approach to staff reward and recognition, including the management and organisation of staff recognition events and processes.
22. Line management responsibility of the internal communications team, supporting their professional development and training.
23. Develop, implement and monitor performance of the internal communications team’s business and strategic planning processes.
24. Take responsibility for own areas of work, working independently without supervision and on own initiative.
25. Prioritise, plan and allocate resources for the delivery of key internal communications strategies including budget and staffing.
26. Develop and deliver plans for major projects including identifying the resources needed to deliver them.
27. Produce business cases as needed for investments in the function taking into account the Trust’s policies and procedures for making best use of public money.
28. Plan for, advise and support the use of internal communications channels in the event of a crisis, as part of crisis communications handling, for example issues that impact normal service provision, major incidents or unexpected service closures.
29. Identify, record and manage key risks and issues relating to internal communications and engagement.
30. Ensure all communications and engagement work is inclusive, putting specific arrangements in place to engage with those groups and/or individuals that are harder to reach.
31. Participate in the out-of-hours on-call rota for media enquiries, social media and communications support. This may involve travel to any hospital site at short notice out of hours.
32. Financial and budgetary responsibilities for own team and projects, escalating issues appropriately and providing solutions where budgets may be falling off target.
33. Maintain expert knowledge of communications and engagement best practice developments.
34. Work flexibly and undertake other duties commensurate to the grade as required.

Person specification

Training and qualifications

Essential criteria

• Educated to a Masters level or equivalent level of experience of working at a senior level in specialist area.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.

Desirable criteria

• Evidence of leadership development.

Experience

Essential criteria

• Specialist knowledge and experience of internal communications and considerable experience of leading internal communications at a senior level in a large complex organisation.
• Experience of dealing with senior executives; providing counsel and where appropriate.
• Evidence of successful communication strategy, development and implementation.
• Experience in measuring and evaluating communications and designing channels that target audiences precisely.
• Excellent knowledge of how communication techniques are evolving and ability to use this information to continually transform Trust communications and plans for all audiences.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of leading internal communications strategies within large NHS organisations.
• Understanding of the public sector and awareness of the relevant social and political environments and impact on the health economy.

Communication and Relationship Skills

Essential criteria

• Experience of receiving highly complex, difficult, sensitive and controversial/ contentious information which needs translating to different internal audiences and may require negotiation with senior stakeholders with whom the post holder will be required to influence on handling matters.
• Ability to influence and persuade others by articulating a balanced view and providing constructive challenge and feedback.
• Understanding of the practice of internal communications and engagement effectively to a range of different audiences, using a variety of methods, techniques and best practice.
• Excellent IT skills, including ability to use desktop publishing software and content management systems.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate and work with staff from across the organisation at all levels.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of creating and giving presentations to a varied group of internal and external stakeholders.
• Experience of supporting and organising successful staff award programme and events.

Values and Behaviours

Essential criteria

• Must be able to demonstrate behaviours consistent with the Trust’s values; We are Kind, Inclusive, Ambitious and One Team.
• Respects, values and cares for others; supports learning and development of self and others.

Come and join our wonderful team at NUH. We are big believers in diversity and welcome new ideas to help develop our team in order to deliver world class healthcare to the vast patient populations we serve. With endless personal development opportunities available, at the NUH we will endeavour to turn your job into a career!

We particularly welcome applications from people who identify as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, or Disabled, as we are striving to be better represented at NUH.

Closing Dates: Please submit your application form as soon as possible to avoid disappointment; we reserve the right to close vacancies prior to the published closing date if we receive a sufficient number of completed application forms.

Communication: All communication related to your application will be via the email address you have provided. Please ensure you check your email account including your junk email regularly.

Easy read application: if you have a disability and find it difficult to complete our online application form, you can apply via our easy read application which you can find on the intranet .

NUH are now able to offer application completion support and interview preparation support. Please follow the link to book onto our sessions: Support for NUH Job Applications.

Applicants are kindly requested to refrain from using AI at any stage during the recruitment process.

If you are aged 16 or 17 and applying for a role that is more than 20 hours a week, please be aware that you will be asked to commence an Apprenticeship within the Trust alongside your role, as long as there is a suitable apprenticeship standard available.

For more details visit; School leaving age – GOV.UK ().

Salary: The quoted salary will be on a pro rata basis for part time workers.

Disability Confidence: All applicants who have declared a disability and who meet the essential criteria for the post will be shortlisted.

At Risk of redundancy: NHS employees within the East Midlands who are ‘at risk’ of redundancy will be given a preferential interview where they meet the essential criteria of the person specification.

International Recruitment: If you are applying for a role with us from outside of the UK then please read the guidance on applying for a health or social care job in the UK from abroad.

ID and Right to work checks: NUH authenticate ID and right to work documentation including passports and driving licenses through a system called Trust ID. NUH will scan your ID and right to work documentation in to the Trust ID system at your face to face ID appointment.

Consent:

• Transfer of information: If I have previous NHS service – I consent to the transfer of my Electronic Staff Record (ESR) data between this and other NHS Trusts.
• Disclosure and Barring Service: Your post may be subject to a DBS check which incur a cost dependent on the level of check required (£42.90 for enhanced and £22.90 for standard).

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Documents to download

• Head of Internal Comms JD (PDF, 800.3KB)
• Head of Internal Comms Person Spec (PDF, 432.4KB)
• Mindful Employer (PDF, 242.5KB)
• Equality and Diversity (PDF, 122.3KB)
• Equal Opportunities (PDF, 57.4KB)
• Disability Confidence Scheme (PDF, 51.0KB)
• Rehabilitation of Ex Offenders (PDF, 106.0KB)
• Application Process Booklet (PDF, 24.8MB)

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