All Things Urban

We are a not-for-profit we believes that the public sector has a key role in improving the quality, equality and sustainability or everyday places and we work to build a greater understanding across the built environment sector of its potential.

As our new L&D Manager, you will be passionate about supporting built environment practitioners transition and flourish in public sector placemaking careers through the delivery of our Associate course, management of our online platform, as well as coordinating and supporting our growing community of practice and peer support network.

Now over 5 years old as a company, we are growing our core service - our Associate mid-career job placement programme - across England, as well as developing other new services into 2023 and beyond. Having an engaged community of practice supported by a learning and mentoring programme will be crucial to this next phase of our organisation. The key responsibilities of this role will be to:

• DELIVER OUR ASSOCIATE COURSE (25%)

You will be responsible for organising and delivering our Associate course for built environment practitioners, most of whom will be working in the public sector for the first time. You will be responsible for ensuring the learning objectives are achieved and the quality of the learning experience is high and consistent for all Associates.

This will involve managing and briefing any external speakers, supporting Associates in organising site tours with their Authority host, chairing discussions, and running workshop sessions to ensure the learning objectives are achieved. In parallel, you will also be coordinating and directing Associates in their preparation for a public Talk series they will deliver at the end of the 12 months on our programme, discussing and sharing topical issues facing the industry.

• COORDINATE & SUPPORT A MENTORING SERVICE (25%)

You will be responsible for delivering and testing a new pilot service for our public sector officer network, creating a mentoring and career support network. If the pilot is successful, you will then be the leader in its expansion and service improvements the following year.

Day to day this will include working with our programme and operational team to set up and manage the service, as well as creatively using your facilitation skills to provide additional online facilitated events (like Action Learning Sets) to support and connect practitioners together, helping build peer-2-peer career support.

• MANAGE OUR ALUMNI & ONLINE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE (20%)

You will mobilise and develop our predominantly online community of placemaking officers and Alumni community connecting practice, resources and people and supporting the sharing across working boundaries. Responsible for ensuring active and regular engagement on the platform and ensuring event and written opportunities are shared and promoted.

Currently managed via Slack, a new platform will be launched and you will be required to manage and maintain this online community. This will involve monitoring community access and behaviours, as well as encouraging the sharing of content, questions, and connections among our members by regularly posting up interesting and current industry resources.

• PROMOTE THE WORK OF PUBLIC SECTOR PLACEMAKERS (15%)

As a confident presenter and facilitator, and with a unique insight gained through close community access, you will be an important figure externally for the organisation, presenting at candidate-targeted events, and working with our Communications colleagues to help capture and direct key case studies and practical stories for our channels and website.

In practice, this will involve attending and speaking at industry and career events, explaining the work and importance of public sector placemaking. You will also regularly update our practice stories database with links, references and summaries of live case studies and projects that our community members are involved in and suggest topics for features and impact stories to our Communications team.

The other 10–15% of your time will be covered by core, team and professional development activities throughout the year and the full scope of the role can be adjusted depending on whether the role is a 4 or 5 day a week post.

YOUR FIRST SIX MONTHS IN THE ROLE

Within the first six months as our L&D Manager, you will have:

• Coordinated and delivered your first Associate career transition course and produced an internal report reflecting on its success, developing new workshops or facilitation formats where needed.
• You will have helped to launch a new community platform and become the key contact in the company for practice-based news, stories and resources.
• Been involved in our Assessment Days and helped interview candidates looking to transition into public sector placemaking jobs.
• Working with operational colleagues, you will have helped design and set up a mentoring programme that will be ready to launch later in the year.
• You will take on the full responsibility of managing our Alumni community, including ways of engaging and sharing relevant content with them, as well as how to encourage and support them to take up advocacy opportunities.
• Developed individual coaching and facilitation practice as part of the delivery of our learning and community content.
• Represented Public Practice at a public speaking opportunity or industry conference.

We are open to applicants with a wide range of skills and backgrounds, but for this role, we will be looking for the following:

• Excellent facilitation skills: with the ability to design and deliver different formats of workshops and learning support, online and in-person.

• Highly organised: the ability to prioritise, plan and manage short, medium, to long-term activities with high attention to detail.

• Knowledge & understanding of the placemaking industry and working in the public sector.

• Network & community builder: able to spot, connect and build relationships with groups and communities to support their own sharing and development

• Strong verbal communication: Ability to communicate with a range of stakeholders, interpreting questions and comments and knowing how best to respond, as well as being comfortable presenting in the spotlight.

• Active listening & customer support: a desire to help others and are driven by ensuring they receive a quality service with patience and excellent listening skills.

Please note only applicants who have the right to work in the UK can be considered for this role. As a micro business, we are not able to support visa sponsorship at this time.

WORKING AT PUBLIC PRACTICE

We are a small company but work hard to ensure we provide and continue to develop inclusive and progressive policies and benefits. Currently, we provide all employees with the following:

• 2 days of office access per week at the co-working office Better Space, Farringdon, of which we currently require a minimum of one day in the office per week (on Wednesdays) by all staff.
• Regular team away days and team lunches.
• 30 days of holiday per year (excluding bank holidays).
• A flexible and remote working policy that allows employees to work their own hours beyond agreed core office hours, and to work from abroad for 2 months of the year (in August and December).
• Provide a 4% employer’s pension contribution.
• Enhanced sick, maternity, paternity and adoption leave.
• £600 annual training budget and up to four professional development days a year.
• Employee perks budget provided by With Juno monthly.
• We are also piloting a 9-Day-Fortnight and will launch a transparent progression framework, salary review and bonus policy process by the end of June 2023.

THE HIRING PROCESS

We remove as much bias as possible during our hiring process, and candidates remain anonymous to all assessors until Stage Two. We also aim to collect and provide as much feedback as possible to all applicants at each stage of the process.

• Online Application (9 - 27 February): Submit an online application answering short written questions that are then anonymously assessed. Those scoring above a minimum threshold are then invited to:

• Online Interview (7 March): A competency-based, structured online interview with the CEO + COO lasting approximately 30 minutes. Selected candidates will then be asked to:

• Presentation & Interview (13 March): Present a prepared exercise at a second stage interview and meet other colleagues in the team, this can be in-person or online (at the candidate's choice).

• Offer Made (15 March): We aim that all candidates will have been communicated with an update on their application, and the selected candidate will receive an offer of appointment.

We hope to see the candidate in the post in April 2023, but we are flexible for either earlier or later start dates, depending on the candidate's situation and notice period.

HOW TO APPLY

The first stage application process asks candidates to complete just five questions which will then be scored anonymously by three Public Practice colleagues. The online form also asks some questions about you. This data will not be shared with those assessing your application.

The five questions are:

• Why do you want to work for Public Practice?
• Why are you applying for the L&D Manager at Public Practice?
• Please provide an example of a time when you demonstrated your ability to connect placemaking practitioners together from different backgrounds. What were the results?
• Please provide an example of a time when you have utilised your active listening skills to support someone overcome a career or work challenge.
• Can you describe ONE of the key challenges of working in public sector? What has informed your answer?

NOTE: All answers are to be 150 words maximum - any words beyond this limit will be lost when taken for anonymous assessment!

Complete and submit the online form by 13:00 on Monday 27 February 2023.

Please note we do not accept applications outside of this system.

Use the link below to submit your online application

WANT TO KNOW MORE OR HAVE A QUESTION?

If you would like to speak to the COO (the hiring lead) about this role and whether it could be the right fit for you, or if you have any specific access adjustment needs we haven’t addressed:

There are several 10-minute call slots available during the advert period, it’s first come-first serve basis.
If you would prefer to email your questions directly, email us via the email address work@publicpractice.org.uk and we will aim to respond within 24 hours.

If you have a question about this role but want to remain anonymous:

We’ve created an anonymous question form, open till 20 February, with our answers being shared openly across our social channels soon after.

We’re not fully sure whether this role is open to international candidates. If you would need visa sponsorship or work authorisation, we recommend checking directly with the employer before applying.