Director of Organisational Development and Inclusion

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust (UHS) recognise the importance of supporting and nurturing our people through a culture that values diversity, and builds knowledge and skills to provide rewarding career paths within empowered, compassionate and motivated teams. As a result, we are introducing a new role of Director of Organisational Development and Inclusion to lead on our activities in relation to this agenda.

UHS is a large teaching hospital, with a workforce of over 12,500 making us one of the area’s biggest employers. You would be joining us at a pivotal time when the opportunities to make a real difference for the future have never been greater.  The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenging time for the whole NHS.  It has highlighted that importance of many aspects of organisational development, particularly the need for compassionate leadership, for a real commitment to inclusion and diversity, and that supporting the health and wellbeing of our staff is critical.   We have taken this opportunity to work together to think differently and adapt the way we are working to support our people and those we serve.

Throughout this time of rapid change, we have adapted our approach to support all that we do and remained focused on our absolute priority of delivering safe, high quality patient care. The publication of the national People Plan and People Promise has enhanced our thinking and level of ambition around how we recognise and value our staff moving forward.

We want everyone at UHS to enjoy working here and thrive in their roles. Our staff will be the strongest advocates of the experience they receive and this will act as a beacon of attraction to others. We are currently in the process of developing a new People Strategy, which will be based on three key themes - Right Workforce Capacity; Great Employment Experience; Inclusive and Compassionate Culture.

These themes will underpin the way we engage and support our people. They will ensure we have the right number of people with the right skills and attitudes. They will allow us to build on the work we started, making us a more diverse and inclusive organisation, enabling us to nurture, develop and unlock talent across all areas of the Trust.    We want to create an organisation where everyone feels they can truly belong.

Through this approach we will ensure that everyone feels empowered to create ideas and action to improve patient care. We will create new, innovative and flexible working options that fit better with peoples’ needs and lifestyles and we will create improved leadership development programmes based on leading edge thinking.

These themes will be aligned to our ‘Always Improving - Quality Improvement’ programme and will strengthen the UHS brand so that we are recognised as the employer of choice both regionally and nationally.

It is with this complex but exciting backdrop that we now embark on the process to appoint our Director of OD and Inclusion. We are looking for an exceptional individual who will live our values and vision. If you are looking for a position which will provide an opportunity to play an important and influential role, both within our organisation and the wider health and care system, a role that will stretch your leadership and enhance your learning in a supportive environment, then we would love to hear from you and look forward to meeting you in due course.

We would particularly encourage applications from those with protected characteristics and from under-represented groups, as we are committed to improving diversity within our organisation.

Recruitment Timetable:

Applications close:                                 Sunday, 28 February 2021

Shortlisting Interviews:                           w/c 8 March 2021

Final Interviews:                                    w/c 29 March 2021

To discuss this post further, or to request a copy of the information pack, please contact our recruitment partner, Joe Joyce of The Finegreen Group on enquiries@finegreen.co.uk