Organisation Design and Development Practitioner

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration.

The Organisation Design and Development (OD&D) team sits within Strategy & Organisational Effectiveness. OD&D provide specialist consultancy to help the organisation adapt to changing priorities, strengthen its operating models, and improve ways of working. The team works in a flexible consultancy model, partnering with leaders across all directorates to design and embed organisational changes, support people centred transformation, and strengthen organisational effectiveness. With one SEO practitioner moving into the Census Programme, this role plays an important part in maintaining and growing OD&D capability across the core organisation.

The complexity of the role arises from balancing multiple OD&D assignments, working across directorates with different needs, and supporting leaders to make evidence based design and development decisions. The postholder will often work in ambiguous or evolving situations, requiring them to analyse issues, identify risks or dependencies, and influence decision making without formal authority. While the role does not directly manage budgets or large-scale delivery functions, it plays a significant part in shaping how work, teams and ways of working are designed and implemented across ONS.

Job description

The ONS is looking for experienced Organisation Design and Development (OD&D) practitioners with proven delivery within a complex organisational or programme environment to strengthen organisational effectiveness across ONS through people centred organisation design and development support. You will lead smaller OD&D projects and contribute specialist facilitation, discovery and analytical expertise to larger change initiatives. Through this work, you will help ONS transform and improve how it organises and delivers its services, embed sustainable ways of working, and build capability across the organisation.

This role provides practical organisation design and development support across ONS. You will lead smaller OD&D projects and support larger ones through discovery work, analysis and facilitation. Day to day, you will help teams understand how their work is organised, identify opportunities to improve structures and ways of working, and develop clear OD artefacts that support decision making.

You will work closely with colleagues and leaders to offer evidence based advice, constructive challenge and hands on support that strengthens alignment, behaviours and working practices across the organisation. The role requires strong Organisational Design expertise, facilitation skills, curiosity and the ability to work collaboratively across boundaries in a dynamic environment.

Role Responsibilities:

• Lead end-to-end organisation design activity on smaller projects from scoping and discovery through to design, recommendations and implementation support.
• Support larger or more complex organisation design initiatives by providing analysis, insight, facilitation and the development of key OD artefacts such as structures, role profiles and design options.
• Review how work is organised and develop practical, evidence-based options to improve clarity of roles, accountabilities, interfaces and ways of working.
• Apply systems thinking and industry best practice so designs reflect interdependencies between people, processes, technology and governance.
• Design and facilitate workshops that help teams diagnose issues, explore options, align around priorities and co-create practical organisational solutions
• Support organisation development interventions that strengthen leadership capability, effective ways of working and collaborative behaviours across Census teams.
• Design and facilitate workshops and senior leader discussions to diagnose issues, explore options and co-create organisational solutions.
• Provide expert OD&D advice, challenge and recommendations to senior leaders, supporting them to embed organisational changes and sustain them through delivery phases.
• Drive continuous improvement by capturing learning, sharing good practice, strengthening OD tools and approaches, and building strong stakeholder relationships across ONS.
• Become an active member in the cross government OD&D community of practice.

Person specification

EssentialCriteria:

• Working knowledge of organisation design methods and tools, including operating model components, role and capability analysis, spans and layers, and design principles.
• Ability to conduct OD&D discovery and analysis, including synthesising qualitative data, understanding organisational interdependencies, and identifying root causes of structural or ways of working issues.
• Strong facilitation skills, including workshop design, use of diagnostic tools and techniques, and the ability to guide teams through problem solving and co design activities.
• Proficiency in producing OD artefacts, such as structures, design options, process/activity maps, role profiles and insight summaries.
• Competence in analysing complex information, using systems thinking concepts, or organisational mapping techniques to inform design decisions.
• Strong written and visual communication skills, including the ability to create clear documentation, reports and presentations that support decision making.
• Understanding of change implementation tools, including impact assessment, behavioural change approaches or transition planning.

Qualifications

CIPD Level 5, or willingness to work towards.

Behaviours

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £41,985, Office for National Statistics contributes £12,163 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.

Inclusion & Accessibility

At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.

As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.

If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.

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.

Security Clearance:

The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying.

A lack of UK residency in itself is not always a bar to security clearance but the Department will need to consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.

If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.

At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:

• Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
• UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
• Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
• Security Services records

Application process:

Number of Stages: 2 stage process

Stage 1: Application

Stage 2: Interview

Stage 1 - Application

The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, CV, skills, experience, and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.

A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum word-count allowed is 1250, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.

In instances where a high number of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted, and candidates will be invited to interview based on merit order, i.e., those with the highest scores.

Stage 2 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert.

A scenario task will be required at interview. The task will be provided to candidates who have passed the initial online application stage, on the day of their interview, you will be given time to prepare. This task will assess candidates against the Success Profiles Behaviour 'Delivering at Pace'.

Interviews will be held in person at our Newport office - Cardiff Rd, Duffryn, Newport NP10 8XG.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Sift - w/c 13th April

Interviews – w/c 27th April

Dates are subject to change

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment below.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

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 : Sinead Matthews
• Email : recruitmentoperations@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitmentoperations@ons.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

Attachments

2721 Advert 1B Permanent - ONS National v1-00 Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)