Internal Communications and Engagement Business Partner

Are you passionate about driving employee engagement and encouraging effective communication within a business? Internal communication plays a crucial role in driving employee engagement and culture, that's why we are seeking a talented Internal Communications & Engagement Business Partner to join our People team in either Salford Quays, Manchester or Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

As a trusted subject matter expert, you'll be responsible for supporting our Internal Communications and Engagement Manager, strategically partnering with business pillars in the delivery of our internal communications, wider engagement and culture plans. You'll ultimately be making colleagues feel informed, heard, seen, engaged and motivated by supercharging communication to maximise our colleague experience.

You'll also take charge of the day-to-day ownership of our internal communications function and support the ever-evolving colleague experience, whilst enabling and leading a team to collectively deliver benefits to help us reach our ambitious goals.

Alongside this, you'll be a credible advisor across several groups, driving strategic communications to high-priority and targeted demographics.

You'll be a great fit for the role if you have these skills:

Effective Writing: Craft clear and compelling messages for various internal communication channels

Listening: Actively receive and respond to spoken messages, ensuring employees feel heard and included in conversations

Strategic Thinking: A creative mindset for problem-solving and shaping positive change within the company

Confidence: Building trusted working relationships with stakeholders at all levels

We're big on working flexibly - you'll spend most of your time working from home with a day in the office each week. But of course, it's your choice - if you prefer to be in the office more - that's good with us too. We've offices located in Haywards Heath, West Sussex and Salford Quays, Manchester it's your choice.

Interested to hear more? Ready to embark on this exciting journey? Let's find out more on the day to day duties…,

• Deputise for the Internal Communications and Engagement Manager, ensuring that business goals and initiatives are met in line with our Strategy on a Page and our values.


• Lead a team of Internal Communication and Engagement colleagues to meet the team and company objectives. Managing their day-to-day colleague experience and support them with development and career coaching.


• Support the creation and on-going implementation of the overall communication and engagement strategies, including partnering with key areas of the organisation, building effective relationships with senior stakeholders, working groups and committees to help drive engagement, educate and inspire colleagues.


• Build a network across the Group and externally to influence and advise (proactively and reactively) to help maximise the team's successes whilst planning and prioritising resource.


• Lead, create and deliver comprehensive and dynamic engagement plans by supporting core communications with digital and physical collateral; giving a broad and considered approach to engage several different communications styles.


• Support wider team to help deliver key deliverables and support absence.


• Lead and strategically manage business programmes that support business goals, with the ability to translate complex business materials into compelling content for a range of internal channels.


• Oversee and manage the overall communications and engagement calendar; ensuring there's a clear strategy for your business areas and the SLAs and quality metrics are met.


• Write, edit and proof copy across all channels, including but not limited to email, intranet and our weekly newsletter, ensuring that it's appropriate for the channel and in line with our brand and tone of voice.


• When required, design graphics, film/edit content, etc to support with communications plans.


• Lead and support with planning and managing internal events, including both company-wide and regional events that support the overall communication plans and product launches. This could also include ordering merchandise, supporting collateral, etc.


• You will also deliver on a range of projects and initiatives, both in a lead role and supporting other teams, ranging from colleague programmes, culture and ESG initiatives through to IT/regulatory/business change projects.


• Adapt and evolve processes that reflect the culture, protect the company in terms of insurance/health and safety/PR and report back on all ROI.


• Collect and review data on a regular basis to inform the team's approach including but not limited to send times, look and feel, targeting, strategic positioning, tone of voice, etc.


• Manage relationships with local community partners across all our business locations.


• Any other reasonable duties as required.
  
  Extensive experience in an internal communication role with a proven track record of business partnering.


• Leadership experience.


• Significant experience of working with Senior Leadership Teams, to establish and build relationships with key stakeholders at all levels - including ExCom, SLT, and key managers and colleagues.


• Proven experience in creating and delivering engagement plans.


• Knowledge of the Financial Services Industry is desirable.


• Substantial experience of working in an internal communications function.


• Proven experience delivering events.


• Educated to degree level, qualifications in English, business or communications preferable.


• Good understanding of Adobe Creative Suite and working knowledge of SharePoint., Excellent creative written and spoken skills and feel confident writing for a variety of audiences.


• You will have first-class drafting, proof-reading and editing skills, and be able to write and produce compelling and engaging content under pressure and at short notice, while maintaining strong attention to detail.


• Ability to influence and challenge at all levels.


• Highly organised and proactive - able to juggle and prioritise a busy workload.


• Professional and calm under pressure.


• Good administration skills.


• Strong attention to detail.


• Solid experience of co-ordinating projects.


• Strong analytical skills.


• Creative thinker and problem solver.


Behaviours:

• Enthusiasm, can-do attitude and willingness to take on new challenges.


• Collaborative approach, working as one team with the wider internal communications team.


• Able to anticipate next steps and proactive in taking actions to address them.


• A strong relationship builder who can manage partnerships at all levels.


• Able to work on own initiative and as part of a team.


• Strives to drive business improvements to contribute to the success of the business.


What can we do for you?

People first. Always. We're passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so that's what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic, inspirational, supportive. To get a taste of the advantages you'll enjoy, take a look at all our perks in full here.

We're First Central Insurance & Technology Group (First Central for short), an innovative, market-leading insurance company. We protect the things customers love so they can get on with what matters to them in life.

Data drives us. It fuels our outstanding distribution, finance, technology and legal services. Our underwriting skills are built on data expertise; it creates the insights we need to give the right cover to the right customers at the right price. But, it's the people inside and outside our business that power us. They make us stand out, help us succeed. We're ambitious. We're growing. We've won awards.