Organisational Development Lead

You will be a part of our evolving Organisational Development (OD) service, working closely with other service leads to help the organisation to continue to grow as a great place to work. Within OD, we see our role as ‘helping to create a great organisation where everyone thrives’. As a member of the OD Leadership Team, you’ll have the opportunity to work with managers, teams and employees across the organisation, helping to create the best conditions for our diverse workforce.

Our forward-thinking OD service is leading, shaping and enabling strategic people development across the council. Within this, there are lots of opportunities for your own personal growth and development, alongside working within a supportive OD team who are all committed to making a positive impact.   

This role will give you the chance to work with leaders across the organisation, creating the conditions for individual and team performance to grow, and use engagement methods to capture and utilise our employee feedback to help the organisation make data-led decisions and mobilise people during change.

What you can expect to be doing:

In this role, you will be working to grow the capability of our leaders to create the conditions for the organisation and their teams to thrive, enhancing performance and continuous improvement in a large, complex organisation. Your role will see you working alongside leaders and managers at all levels, supporting them by using a range of dialogic and diagnostic OD approaches to enable evidence-based decision making. 

You will be providing specialist OD support in times of complex and system change, working with other specialist colleagues and services to align our people, structures and culture to the organisational vision, values and behaviours. 

About you:

You will be confident in developing strong, resourceful and collaborative relationships with colleagues across the organisation. You will be able to tailor your communication skills to adapt to the situation, deploying coaching, facilitation, negotiation and persuasion skills when needed. 

You will have experience in enabling significant systemic change in a large and complex organisation, being comfortable working alongside managers to deliver agreed outcomes. You will be able to utilise your knowledge and experience of OD and change management theories, and analyse qualitative and quantitative data quickly, to collaboratively make sense of the insights to ensure evidence-based decisions are made. 

This role is advertised as full time, (37 hours) and we can discuss flexibility of working arrangements to suit the best outcome for the successful applicant and the team.

This role will be based in Dorchester with a hybrid approach to suit your way of working and the service. There will be a need to visit hiring managers around Dorset on occasion as well as to spend time together as a team.

If you would like an informal chat about the role to understand more, please get in touch with Sheralyn Towner, Head of OD, by phone on 01305 224617, or by email on [email protected] until 24 October and David Patrick, OD Lead (Leadership & Change), by phone on 01305 224637, or by email [email protected] from 25 October. 

The assessment process will consist of question-based interviews as well as a presentation related to the role. More information will be provided to those taken forward to interview once the shortlisting is completed.

Interviews will take place on 12 November 2024.

We’re passionate about making Dorset a great place to live, work and visit. Working for us should be no exception.

At Dorset Council we:

• provide more than 450 services to over 300,000 residents
• have ambitious aspirations
• are excited about our future
• care about Dorset and all the people who live here
• know that all roles make a difference and that our employees are key to our success

You will:

• have access to a range of employee benefits 
• be part of an organisation that supports each other to grow and succeed
• have access to range of training opportunities which will help with your personal development and career progression

We are challenging ourselves to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation.

We recognise that recruitment and inclusion of individuals with diverse skills, perspectives and backgrounds will bring real strength to the council and our communities. We have a commitment to equality and welcome applications from everyone.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We offer an interview to everyone who declares a disability and meets the essential criteria for the role.

We are keen to make our interviews accessible. Let us know on your job application if you have a disability and need any reasonable adjustments.

We also look for applicants who share our commitment to our behaviours. We will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

If appointed, the personal information we collect from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected, you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found at https://www.cifas.org.uk/fpn.

This role is UK based and we will need to establish your Right to Work as part of the appointment process.

We use generic job descriptions and person specifications. This means the job title on any attachments may differ from the job title in the advert. We may provide specific information in a context statement if relevant.

Find out more about how to apply.