Organisational Development Lead

Do you have significant experience applying organisational development (OD) methodologies within a complex organisation and supporting organisational change and transformation activity? Could you provide specialist OD expertise across the Society helping leaders and People Partners understand complex organisational challenges, diagnose root causes and identify practical, evidence informed responses? 

We are recruiting for an Organisational Development Lead to join on a permanent contract, working full-time, 35 hours per week. This is a home-based role with occasional travel required for in-person meetings.

As Organisational Development Lead, you will provide specialist organisational development (OD) expertise across the Society, helping leaders and People Partners understand complex organisational challenges, diagnose root causes and identify practical, evidence informed responses.

This is a whole system role, working across organisational boundaries rather than being aligned to one directorate. It brings deep technical OD expertise to people issues such as organisational design, ways of working, team effectiveness, leadership dynamics, change readiness and organisational culture where these are impacting performance, collaboration or delivery.

Working closely with People Partners and senior leaders, you will act as an internal consultant and trusted adviser: providing diagnosis, challenge, facilitation and expert recommendations that help others design effective interventions and lead change well ensuring that we are learning as an organisation and embedding and sustaining change.

You will shape thinking, strengthen capability and influence the quality of organisational decision making. You won’t own the delivery of programmes, transformation initiatives or directorate specific change plans, but you will provide the specialist insight and OD practice that enables those activities to be better targeted, more inclusive and more sustainable.

Interviews for this role have been provisionally scheduled to take place on Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th November October via MS Teams.

About you
For this role you’ll have significant experience applying organisational development (OD) methodologies within a complex organisation, in addition to experience of working in partnership with HR, People Partners or business partnering teams and supporting organisational change and transformation activity.

Crucially, you’ll have experience in organisational diagnosis and root cause analysis and developing and implementing organisational strategies, frameworks and interventions aligned to organisational priorities. You’ll also have experience of using OD tools e.g. McKinsey 7S, Galbraith’s Star Model and/or Weisbord’s Six-Box.

To be successful in this role you’ll be able to utilise your advanced understanding and application of change management methodologies and frameworks, in combination with your good consultancy, facilitation and stakeholder engagement skills and your ability to influence senior leaders through evidence, expertise and professional credibility.

What you’ll focus on:

• Leading and shaping organisational diagnosis activity to understand the root causes of complex organisational challenges, rather than focusing only on presenting symptoms.
• Applying a range of OD methodologies, models and evidence-based approaches to explore organisational dynamics, team effectiveness, ways of working, change readiness and barriers to performance.
• Drawing together organisational data, stakeholder insight, colleague voice and other evidence to identify patterns, risks, opportunities and recommendations.
• Translating complex organisational issues into clear, practical recommendations that inform leader decision making and intervention design.
• Working in close partnership with People Partners, bringing specialist OD expertise to organisational challenges, structural considerations and change activity across the Society.
• Building OD capability within the People Partner community by developing practical tools, frameworks, questions and resources that support consistent, evidence informed practice.
• Providing expert consultancy, facilitation and challenge to help teams and leaders work through ambiguity, complexity and competing perspectives.
• Supporting the evaluation of organisational interventions and change approaches, identifying lessons learned and opportunities to strengthen future practice.

Dementia is the UK's biggest killer. One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime.

At Alzheimer's Society, we're the UK's leading dementia charity and the only one to tackle all aspects of dementia by giving help and hope to people living with dementia today and in the future. We give vital support to people facing the most frightening times of their lives, while also funding groundbreaking research and campaigning to make dementia the priority it should be.

Together with our supporters, we're working towards a world where dementia no longer devastates lives.

Our values make sure that our focus is clear for the challenges and opportunities ahead and remind us of what we all stand for.

Our commitment to Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We need to ensure the voices around our table better reflect and understand the communities we exist to serve. We strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Alzheimer's Society.  

We want everyone we work with, as a colleague, volunteer, supporter, or someone we support, to feel included and that they belong at Alzheimer's Society. 

Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee forum and Employee Lived Experience network groups help us promote inclusion and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people. 

Our hiring process

During your recruitment process we want to make sure that you bring your whole self and can be at your best. We are working hard to ensure our recruitment process is as inclusive as possible, so please do inform us of your experience and anything you think we could do better by completing our candidate survey when you apply.  Please also contact Alzheimer's Society Talent Acquisition Team via [email protected] for application support or any adjustments you might need.

To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed. We recognise the benefits of AI, but if you're considering using it to submit your application, we encourage you to reflect on the value it truly adds. AI tools often lack the personal touch and authenticity that set candidates apart. We want to hear your unique perspective, experiences, and skills, so we encourage you to showcase them in your own voice.

We try to avoid closing roles early where possible, however if we receive a high volume of applications, we may close earlier than the advertised closing date. Should this occur, we will aim to provide you with at least 48 hours' notice.

We are committed to safer recruitment and ensuring the welfare of those we work with, due to the nature of some of our roles, we might need to carry out a Criminal Record Check at the relevant level. You can read more information via our Website.

Giving back to you

Our employees work hard every day to make a true difference in people's lives. We are proud to support them with a range of benefits, recognition and many options for working agilely, all contributing to a strong work life balance. We also have various learning programmes to support you in your development and help you grow to realise your potential and shape a career with Alzheimer's Society. 

You can also visit our Working for Us pages, which give you more information about what it's like to be an employee at the Society.

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