External Affairs Manager

Contract: Full Time, Maternity Cover, 37 hours per week

Minimum 2 days in office

Are you a strategically minded external affairs professional looking for your next challenge and the opportunity to make an immediate impact in a fantastic organisation? Look no further, we are recruiting an External Affairs Lead to hit the ground running and help us deliver on our Corporate Plan.

We are an established, successful and ambitious provider of high quality, affordable housing and support services for our customers and communities. We’re a key player in the West Midlands and one of Homes England’s strategic partners.

We aim to increase our role and influence in the region over the coming months and years, strengthening existing partnerships and developing new ones. We need a strategically minded External Affairs Manager who can help make this happen. Is this you?

You’ll thrive on variety, enjoy working at pace and be proficient in stakeholder management, at all levels of seniority. You will be passionate about the power of communication and love what you do. You will make no apologies for your consistently high standards and expectations. You’ll be key in helping us embed an integrated and strategic approach to our external affairs activity.

This is a brilliant opportunity to join the team; we are embarking on an interesting and varied programme of stakeholder engagement that will shape the next chapter for whg.

If this opportunity excites you, please check out the job description for full details about the role.

Main job responsibilities:

• Ensure whg’s approach to stakeholder management is up to date, effective and fit for purpose

• Develop and lead on stakeholder management (including mapping and engagement) to support delivery of our Corporate Plan

• Undertake focused horizon scanning of the external operating environment to understand emerging risks and opportunities

• Monitor parliament, local and devolved governments for updates on relevant policy areas and provide timely briefings to senior leaders and board members

• Strategically analyse insight to determine the impact on the business and brief appropriate colleagues to support their decision-making

• Provide prompt and regular briefings (briefings may be written or verbal) to senior colleagues on the latest news and information about influential individuals, partners and target organisations

• Support senior leaders with briefings/presentations for external engagements e.g. conference appearances

We’re looking for someone who has:

• Have proven experience in a similar role

• Have a communications and/or external affairs professional qualification

• Have experience working with and advising colleagues at all levels, up to and including executive level

• Be strategically minded and able to analyse insight and intelligence

• Excel at building and maintaining professional relationships

What’s in it for you?

In return, you will receive a competitive salary, 27 days annual leave (plus Christmas shut down), a defined benefit pension scheme, health cash plan, a range of shopping and leisure discounts.

We are output focused and flexible and believe in giving colleagues the right balance of autonomy and support to enable them to work to their full potential. Despite the high expectation for performance and delivery, we are committed to ensuring colleagues have a healthy work-life balance and able to work in agile ways which support them.

About us

Our People Strategy presents a clear picture of how we will achieve our Corporate Plan aim, ‘Be an exceptional place to work that attracts, develops and retains talent’.The Strategy focuses on three key themes that help us support our colleagues to make a difference to our customers, the communities we serve and to themselves.

It is important to us that we have a diverse workforce, representative of the communities we serve. Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) to us means colleagues living our values, dedicated to doing the right thing and exercising good judgement. This will encourage a culture where all can thrive, acknowledging that everyone is different; what matters to us is that everyone can come to work and feel comfortable to be themselves.

We are proud to be accredited as a Disability Confident Employer and ensure that disabled people and those with long term health conditions have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations while working with us. We want to make it clear that we welcome disabled applicants for all our roles. If in doubt look out for the Disability Confident logo.

We will ensure that our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible, and we will interview applicants with a disability if they meet the essential criteria for a role. We will also support existing colleagues with a disability or long-term health condition enabling them to stay in work, making reasonable adjustments if necessary.

Closing Date: 30th April 2023

Interview Date: 9th May 2023

INDGEN