Vacancy: Business Change Manager, University of Warwick, UK

Posted on: Nov.15.2021

Vacancy Type/Job category: Management & Professional
Department: Information and Digital Group
Sub Department: Strategic Change - Business Change
Salary: £42,149 - £50,296 per annum
Location: University of Warwick, Coventry.

Full time, fixed term position (24 months) x 2

Warwick University has an ambitious aim to further expand its ability to deliver complex and impactful change. The Strategic Change Team has been formed to bring together the key roles working in digital and non-digital change projects. One of the new elements of this team is the newly formed Business Change Team who have been created to provide enhanced change management capability and to continue to provide a continuous improvement function all of which will provide a better service to our change project customers. The role is fixed term for 24 months.

We are looking for Business Change Managers to operate at Grade 7 and who can work in partnership with the central team and the key stakeholders across Warwick to help prepare and help sustain the project benefits to the institution. We are looking for talented problem solvers who can challenge the status quo, negotiate, influence, problem solve and sell the benefits of our change initiatives.

Interview Date: TBC.

The Business Change Manager works in partnership with the Strategic Change Team and the business to drive and sustain change projects with a focus on people and ensuring a high adoption of new ways of working. They will focus on being the ‘voice of customer’ ensuring that barriers to operational success are heard and have a relevant mitigation plan.

In larger institutional projects the role will work in partnership with the project manager to focus on effective engagement with the business and to help plan effective implementation and evaluation. For smaller projects such as service or process review the role will act as a project manager delivering the end-to-end changes including those activities specific to business change.

• Advises project managers in stakeholder engagement and comms identifying the key things that teams affected will need to do differently when the project delivers its key outputs.

• Working with affected teams closely by being on the ground and providing feedback to the project team on key risks and issues when looking at the impact on teams, suggesting ways in which these could be mitigated to enable successful change adoption.

• Developing detailed communication plans to sensitively communicate the impact of changes on people, processes and systems.

• Developing detailed training plans and overseeing their implementation (delivering them where required)

• Developing detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) and guidance documentation.

• Ensuring that implementation plans are maximising the chances of success.

• Managing significant budgets in the implementation of training and SOPs dependent on the nature and scale of the change being delivered.

• Designing and implementing metrics to measure performance and identify early success measures that can be fed back to the project team.

• Agreeing and implementing all operational performance activities taking place at go-live and beyond. Confirming the benefits profile is in place and how they will be monitored over the short and medium term.

• Active support at go-live with business change team sat with impacted teams to see how the changes impact on operations on Day 1

• Acts as interface between the Strategic Change team and users, gathering early feedback on issues, success stories and opportunities for further improvement.

• Manages communications to affected teams to show issues are understood and successes are amplified.

• To help identify to operational managers where people or processes are causing issues working with them to mitigate these.

• Driving and ensuring adherence to ways of working.

• Communicating with Senior Officers and academic Heads of Departments to describe change requirements and champion the benefits.

• Presenting SLA compliance and recommending areas to target for continuous improvement and change.

• Early evaluation of the impact of changes and working with the project team and affected teams to resolve.

• Identifying opportunities for Continuous Improvement and scheduling and delivering those sessions post go-live.

• The postholder will manage project budgets that vary considerably in size and complexity depending on the project. These would be up to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

• Managing the implementation of projects and change initiatives of significant complexity and with institution-wide impact. Depending on the project may also be working with large external organisations.

• At times matrix-managing colleagues including projects officers and project support officers as well as stakeholders across the University.

• Will be responsible for providing training and guidance to stakeholders of varying grades (1-9) depending on the business change being implemented.

• Largely autonomous roles with an expectation of operating with minimal supervision. Will receiving mentoring/guidance/support when managing business change autonomously. Will also operate in project teams under the management of a Senior Project Manager.

The Person Specification focuses on the knowledge, skills, experience and qualifications required to undertake the role effectively. This is measured by (a) Application Form, (b) Test/Exercise, (c) Interview, (d) Presentation.

Essential Criteria 1:Degree or equivalent experience which would include at least two years of direct Business Change activity. (a)
Essential Criteria 2:Experience of translating strategic, process and system requirements into practical solutions (a)
Essential Criteria 3:Experience of developing workflows and processes, identifying potential systems to underpin delivery and progressing/resolving issues that arise with users, suppliers and stakeholders (a, c)
Essential Criteria 4:Understanding and experience of the implementation of IT systems with the ability to communicate to non-specialists (a, c)
Essential Criteria 5:Experience in planning, designing, facilitating, documenting and communicating the outputs of workshops and improvement events (a, c)
Essential Criteria 6:Budget management, ideally on a project basis (a)

Essential Criteria 7:Well-developed communication skills, both written and oral and using suitable technologies, including negotiating and influencing skills (a, c)
Essential Criteria 8:Excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to build relationships across a wide range of departments and roles (a, c)
Essential Criteria 9:High level analytical and problem-solving skills (a, c)
Essential Criteria 10:Resilience and ability to handle ambiguity and complexity (a, c)
Essential Criteria 11:Ability to assimilate complex and detailed information from a variety of sources and digest into clear and concise summaries and actions (a)
Essential Criteria 12:Understanding of the role and responsibilities of different university staff, and empathy with the concerns and experiences of staff and students
Essential Criteria 13:Understanding how people go through change with strategies to support people to do so (a)
Essential Criteria 14:Ability to prioritise, to multi-task and to work to strict deadline (a)
Essential Criteria 15:Project management skills and proven expertise in planning, stakeholder management and communicating progress (a, c)

If you do not yet have the right to work in the UK and/ or are seeking sponsorship under for a Skilled Worker visa in the UK points-based immigration system
please click on this link http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/humanresources/vacancies/righttowork which contains further information about obtaining right to work in the UK and details about eligibility for sponsorship for a Skilled Worker Visa.

The University of Warwick provides an inclusive working and learning environment, recognising and respecting every individual’s differences. We welcome applications from individuals who identify with any of the protected characteristics https://warwick.ac.uk/services/equalops defined by the Equality Act 2010.