Strategy Lead England
Job description
Citizens Advice offers confidential advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. Through our national network of charities, we give people the knowledge and the confidence they need to find their way forward – whoever they are, and whatever their problem.
Do you want to work for an organisation that makes a difference, every single day, to people from all walks of life? The people that turn to Citizens Advice need help overcoming an obstacle in their lives – from debt to evictions to trouble at work – and you can be key to them getting the support they need in the quickest, easiest, and most effective way.
We’re looking to build our team of Strategy Leads in our newly forming Strategy and Transformation directorate. We’re looking for a mixed-discipline team but below describe the sorts of skills we think would be a perfect fit.
We’re open to discussions about hours, permanent/secondment/fixed term arrangements and working patterns - we want to build the best team so please do reach out to have an informal chat about how the role could work for you.
This role sits at the heart of a newly forming team to help answer our big strategic questions and keep us grounded in the context within which we’re operating (past, current and potential future). In order to respond to current and future challenges, we need to make difficult, well-informed choices about where we’ll focus our efforts and resources. This includes understanding ourselves better.
You’ll be working right across the system to help enable our ongoing adaptive strategy to answer the big questions. This is a facilitative and participatory process, where we’ll need to draw on insights and expertise from across Citizens Advice, as well as other organisations. It will involve owning “problems”, writing provocations and helping to facilitate big conversations. It could also involve supporting “horizon scanning” and helping us develop our radar and response; bringing intelligence from across the organisation together to help us focus our attention where it will have the greatest impact.
This role would be perfect for you if you have experience of any of the following, and they excite you!
- Being a relational and curious person, with a knack for generating and evaluating options, taking in complex and nuanced information and helping distil it into insights and clear pathways forward
- Strategy development, whether that’s in an explicit strategy role or in a leadership role where strategy and execution have been a core part of your responsibilities
- Engaging people in change in complex organisations.
- Operating within complex environments and ideally within systems or networks.
Above all, you’ll be passionate about the people we help, and comfortable working through knotty problems and ambiguity to deliver better outcomes for them.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is of strategic importance within the organisation and recognised as integral to all we do as a service.
Central to pursuing our EDI mission is building diverse and inclusive teams in which everyone has a sense of belonging. We believe inclusion is a social justice issue - a principle that underpins all our EDI work. To that end, we particularly welcome applications from people we would like to see better represented in our organisation and sector - people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and disabled people. If you are disabled and meet our minimum criteria you will be guaranteed an interview for this role and we will provide reasonable adjustments as needed. We follow the social model of disability.
We’re a flexible employer, so this role may suit anyone who’d prefer a flexible arrangement to help their work/life balance. We’re usually flexible on location too, however some roles may require you to be based in a certain location, many of our colleagues spend most of their time working remotely.
The National Citizens Advice operates from offices in England and Wales, with 4 regional offices based in Cardiff, London, Birmingham and Leeds, therefore all successful applicants must be based within England or Wales.
Our commitment to colleague wellbeing is reflected in us being awarded Gold in the Health & Wellbeing category, as well as Overall Winners, at the Employee Experience Awards 2022.
Please be aware that Citizens Advice is not a sponsoring organisation. Therefore the successful applicant must already possess the right to work in the UK or be able to secure the right to work in the UK independently.
In the event of a high number of applications, we reserve the right to close the application early.
This vacancy closes at 23.59 on the closing date.
