Deputy Director, HR (maternity cover)

Job summary

We are running an information session where prospective applicants can find out more about the role. This will be hosted virtually by Andrew Faulkner, and will take place on:

• 11:15, Thursday 18th June

The session will be an opportunity to hear more about the role, the team and wider directorate and the department.

It will also be an opportunity for you to ask any questions you may have about the application, and the interview and assessment process.

Please register your interest before 09:00 Thursday 18th June by filling out this form and you will be sent an invitation.

Invites will only be sent after this deadline has passed.

This will take place virtually, via Google Meets.

If you wish to attend the session anonymously, and you are using a google email address to join, please ensure that you have changed how your name appears before joining the call.

Please note that the session will not be recorded.

Job description

Reporting to the Chief People Officer, the Deputy Director, Human Resources is a critical leadership role on the People and Workplace Directorate’s Senior Leadership Team. This role partners across the entire business and is vital for delivering and iterating our People Strategy. The successful candidate will join the DCMS Senior Civil Service, shaping the organisation's culture and ways of working.

The HR function manages all functional and transactional HR aspects of the employee lifecycle: Recruitment,Resourcing, Talent,Leadership,L&D,Diversity & Inclusion, Wellbeing, HR Policies,Reward,Performance Management, Employee Relations, and Case Work. It also leads transformation, change, and engagement initiatives, adhering to the Government Functional Standard for Human Resources.

As a dynamic and innovative leader, you will oversee programmes and services to achieve the People Strategy goals. Current priorities include: delivering the 26/27 Pay Award, enhancing staff engagement, investing in line manager capability, relocating roles to the Manchester hub (Places for Growth), maturing strategic workforce planning, and implementing a government-wide shared services HR system.

This 12-month maternity cover role is based in Manchester, requiring initial travel to London to build relationships; hybrid working is standard thereafter.

Person specification

The ideal candidate would have the following key skills and experience, please note that desirable skills will only be used in the event of tied candidates:

Essential Criteria

• Must have achieved CIPD Chartered Fellow membership (FCIPD) or be willing to work towards an experience assessment of this qualification upon commencement.
• Strategic Leadership & Transformation: senior HR leadership experience within a complex organisation, with a proven ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams to deliver structural transformation and operational design. A track record of building inclusive, high-performing teams through effective coaching, mentoring, and workforce capability enhancement.
• HR Innovation & Change Management: experience of successfully leading delivery through a culture of innovation and innovative thinking; adept at spotting emerging trends and opportunities and translating them into impactful outcomes. This will include applying innovative approaches to modernise and transform HR service delivery.
• Executive Stakeholder Influence: a track record of acting as a trusted advisor and constructive challenger to Board-level executives and senior stakeholders, with the ability to align people strategies with wider business goals.
• High-Performance Delivery: experience of driving high-performance delivery in ambiguous or fast-changing environments, successfully managing competing, high-stakes priorities across multiple HR portfolios while building team resilience.
• Operational Excellence & Data Insights: experience of leading a user-focused, legally compliant HR service. Proven ability to interpret complex data and metrics at a strategic level to influence decisions, mitigate risk, and drive continuous improvement across HR systems and practice.

Desireable Skills

OD&D consultancy experience - working as a strategic OD consultant or equivalent.

Qualifications

Must have achieved CIPD Chartered Fellow membership (FCIPD) or be willing to work towards an experience assessment of this qualification upon commencement.

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £86,000, Department for Culture, Media and Sport contributes £24,914 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

DCMS values its staff and offers a wide range of benefits to everyone who works here. We’re committed to developing talent, and supporting colleagues to have great careers in our department. To support with that, some of the benefits we offer include:

• Flexible working arrangements and hybrid working - DCMS staff work on a flexible basis with time spent in offices, and time spent working from home

• 25 days annual leave on entry, increasing to 30 days after 5 years’ service

• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

• Access to the Edenred employee benefits system which offers discounts to popular retailers and access to various useful resources such as financial and savings advice

• 3 days of paid volunteering leave

• Up to 9 months maternity leave on full pay + generous paternity and adoption leave

• Staff reward and recognition bonuses that operate throughout the year

• Occupational sick pay

• Access to the Employee Assistance Programme which offers staff 24/7 confidential support and resources such as counselling, debt guidance and management advice

• Active and engaged staff networks to join including the LGBT+, Ethnic Diversity, Mental Health and Wellbeing and Gender Equality Networks

• Exceptional learning and development opportunities that you can explore alongside your day to day work

• Season ticket loan, cycle to work scheme and much more!

Terms and conditions at SCS grades will vary. Those applying for SCS roles should refer to the candidate information pack for more information on terms and conditions.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

To apply for this vacancy, you will need to submit the following, via the Civil Service Jobs portal, which will assessed against the essential criteria for the role:

• A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements.
• • Please ensure you provide employment history that relates to the essential criteria, and that any gaps in employment history within the last 2 years are explained.
  • The CV should not exceed more than 2 sides of A4 and you should copy and paste your CV into the "Job History" section on Civil Service Jobs on the Civil Service Jobs application form.
• A Statement of Suitability explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role.
• • You must make direct reference to the essential criteria and back-up your statement with evidence rather than relying on assertions.
  • This should be 2 sides of A4 and no more than a maximum of 1000 words.

For the shortlist, we will select applicants who demonstrate the best fit for the role by considering the evidence provided in your application and how this meets the essential criteria. Following the shortlist there are no further pass/fail assessment stages and all candidates shortlisted will be invited to the final interview stage.

Should you encounter any issues with your online application please get in touch with: scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Shortlist

The panel will assess your application to select those demonstrating the best fit with the role by considering the evidence you have provided against the criteria set out in the ‘essential requirements’ section of this pack. Failure to address any or all of these may affect your application.

Feedback

Following interview, all shortlisted candidates will receive their outcome along with some short written feedback on performance at interview.

Please note you will only receive feedback if you complete the interview stage.

Assessment

If shortlisted you will be invited to undertake an assessment as part of the recruitment process, prior to your interview, this will be:

• A staff engagement exercise: this is a structured exercise which involves shortlisted candidates facilitating a discussion with a selection of staff from the Department on a given topic.

This exercise will take place remotely via Google Meet. This will not result in a “pass” or “fail” decision. It is designed to support the panel’s decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.

If you are shortlisted, you will also be offered an informal conversation with Andrew Faulkner, ahead of the final panel interview. This does not form part of the assessment process and is merely an opportunity for you to find out more about the role.

Interview

The interview process will assess behaviours andexperience and will include a a scenario based task. The scenario topic will be provided on the day of your interview.

The behaviours to be tested at interview are:

• Leadership
• Changing and improving
• Communicating and influencing
• Delivering at pace
• Managing a quality service

Your interview will take place, in person, at DCMS’ Manchester office: Bloc, 17 Marble St, Manchester, M2 3AW.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : SCS Recruitment
• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : scscandidate.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact the Head of Resourcing at recruitment.team@dcms.gov.uk, in the first instance.

Attachments

Deputy Director, HR - DCMS SCS Candidate Information Pack Opens in new window (pdf, 4573kB)