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Manager Qualitative Design Researcher – Research & Insights, EY Seren

About EY Seren

Growth comes from solving problems that matter for people. For customers, employees, and society at large. At EY Seren we focus on the ways in which people find resolutions. Helping them make better choices and solving their most pressing problems. Working with organisations to create the platforms, products and services for tomorrow. Making the world an easier, more enjoyable and sustainable place to live and work.

We’re a group of world-class design researchers, designers, strategists and technologists. We provide full-service business transformation. Building a better working world, by creating new ways to serve people and help them grow – that’s growth re-imagined.

The opportunity

This role sits within EY Seren’s Research and Insight team. Everything we do is guided by our purpose: we believe helping humans to continuously understand each other, and become more responsive to one another's needs, is central to successful transformation - whether personal, organisational or global. We appreciate that humans are complex - full of contradictions, dilemmas and irrationality. We believe appreciating human complexity is the key to building empathy and connection, which allows us to unlock growth and human transformation.

As one of our Lead Design Researchers you will work within cross-functional teams to inform improvement of existing services, the design of new ones, and - ultimately - fuel the growth of our clients’ businesses and build a better working world. You will have the opportunity to work with some of the largest and most prominent organisations across a variety of sectors – from financial services, energy and resources to local and central government.

EY Seren provides an environment in which you can grow as a design research professional and learn from other world-class practitioners. EY provides structured learning & development and even offers fully-funded MBAs in Technology and Sustainability to all employees.

Your key responsibilities

You’ll be a passionate design researcher and champion for customer-centricity. As well as being an expert in qualitative research, able to turn your hand to driving forward design research engagements, your real passion is collaborating across boundaries with other research and design disciplines – finding out how to fuse design research with our quantitative research, data analysis, and futures research teams. Working with our wider service design and build practices to apply your insights into the iterative and agile process, all with the goal of helping our clients provide products and services that help their customers progress in life.

• Spearhead research streams within mixed-practice EY Seren teams, leveraging the power of qualitative design research, and drawing on the wider Research and Insight capability

• Provide hands-on guidance and direction throughout the work, coaching individuals and providing leadership to the client, EY and EY Seren team
• Manage your team through the work, in terms of both soft pastoral factors to ensure we maintain EY Seren’s values and high quality of care, as well as hard factors such as issues and risks, escalating to Practice Lead and Director where necessary
• Work collaboratively with other Practices in EY Seren to combine the power of qualitative design research with our company’s design, business and delivery expertise
• Provide teams and clients with a clear view on all research options available, working with sales team to handle pricing and resourcing
• Play a collaborative role in executing on the Practice’s strategy and plan for the year

• Line Manage a group of junior Researchers

Skills and attributes for success

• Extensive applied knowledge of a diverse range of design research methods
• Demonstrable practical experience managing and supervising one or more simultaneous design research projects
• Evidence of integrating your work into wider new product and service design methods

• Strong problem-solving skills
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Experience in working collaboratively across teams and business functions
• Experience in managing senior stakeholders, both internally and externally
• Extensive experience in working with research in the business context of service organisations and transformational environments

To qualify for the role you must have

• Extensive work experience in relevant research field
• Experience with a variety of research methods: usability testing, ethnography, co-creation, contextual inquiry, cultural probes, foresight workshops, literature reviews, diary studies, multi criteria analysis, mindset / persona development
• Project knowledge of design thinking techniques and the ability to solve complex business problems with simple, industry-leading design solutions

• Background in design agency, management consulting or other client-facing professional services

Ideally, you’ll also have

• Experience managing more junior colleagues
• Experience working with behavioural science / economics

• Experience working with systems thinking / theory
• Experience in social listening methods
• Experience working within agile product development and SCRUM environments

What working at EY offers

We offer a generous remuneration package where you’ll be rewarded for your personal and team performance. Our comprehensive Total Rewards package includes support for flexible working and career development, and with FlexEY you can select benefits that suit your needs, covering holidays, health and well-being, insurance, savings and a wide range of discounts offers and promotions. Plus, we offer:

• Support, coaching and feedback from some of the most engaging colleagues around
• Opportunities to develop new skills and progress your career
• The freedom and flexibility to handle your role in a way that’s right for you

About EY
As a global expert in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services, we’re using the finance products, expertise and systems we’ve developed to build a better working world. That starts with a culture that believes in giving you the training, opportunities and creative freedom to make things better. Whenever you join, however long you stay, the exceptional EY experience lasts a lifetime.

If you can confidently demonstrate that you meet the criteria above, please contact us as soon as possible.

Make your mark.

Apply now.

Please note: Prior to finalizing your application, you will be asked to provide personal information across several dimensions of diversity and inclusiveness. The information you provide is kept entirely confidential and will not be used to evaluate your candidacy. We collect this data to help us analyse our recruitment process holistically and implement actions that promote diversity and inclusiveness. While optional, we encourage you to provide this information to hold us accountable towards our goal of building a better working world. We ask because it matters!