Salary:      £53,000

Location: Hybrid with access to Bristol office for occasional meetings

Young Lives vs Cancer

When a child is diagnosed with cancer life becomes full of fear, for them and their family. Fear of treatment, but also of families being torn apart, overwhelming money worries, of having nowhere to turn, no one to talk to.

At Young Lives vs Cancer, we get that. We are the charity that helps children and young people (0-25) and their families find the strength to face whatever cancer throws at them. Powered by the kindness of our supporters, we’ll face it all together.

Join us and your skills will make a real difference to the lives of young cancer patients.

We want everyone under 25 with cancer, and their families, to get the support and help they need during their cancer treatment and beyond, including bereaved families living with emotional pain.

Purpose and Scope for the role 

To develop, along with the AD for Culture and Young Lives vs Cancer’s leadership team, a strategy for organisational engagement, communication, and collaboration, which aligns with Young Lives vs Cancer’s overall organisation strategic goals.

What you will be doing:

• Building on existing audience insight to map the organisational environment through a variety of means: this might include quantitative and qualitative research, listening groups, external benchmarking and more.
• Assessing and understanding Young Lives vs Cancer’s culture and organisational behaviours, with a view to making positive change through meaningful engagement.
• Refining and developing the existing programme of engagement activities to ensure they are inclusive, relevant, and engaging for internal audiences.
• Delivering the annual programme of engagement surveying, including one full workforce survey and shorter, pulse surveys.
• Developing, publishing and embedding an internal engagement strategy for Young Lives vs Cancer.
• Coaching, advising and challenging senior leaders within the organisation to model great communication and engagement.
• Model and lead anti-oppressive practice in terms of communication and engagement.
• Creating and leading the delivery of the annual programme of organisational engagement activities.
• Being the ‘owner’ of key digital communication platforms, including our Sharepoint based intranet.
• Being a key player in the organisational strategy development process, leading on the engagement internal audiences, and working closely with colleagues working on external messaging.
• Managing and collecting data, assessing policy and process and managing compliance.
• As a Head of department, you will be a key senior leader and manager, responsible for embedding and modelling the values and standards of behaviour and to provide visible and confident leadership.

We would like to hear from you if you have the following:    

• Evidence of continuing professional development and awareness of best practice relating to internal communication and engagement.
• Experience in internal communication and engagement related activities.
• Experience of developing and implementing an organisational engagement strategy.
• Understanding and knowledge of internal engagement best practice, including anti-oppressive methods of communication.
• Experience of challenging and removing the barriers that marginalised people face.
• Experience of managing change initiatives and a practical approach to culture change including through systems, policy and procedures.
• Experience of leading, inspiring and motivating staff and volunteers
• Demonstrable influencing skills and ability to develop networks both internally and externally.
• Events management experience – digital and in person events with experience of facilitating activities across geographically dispersed operations.  
• Experience of managing digital communications platforms, including intranet, virtual meeting and email systems.

With the ability to demonstrate the following experience, skills and capabilities:

• Previous experience of delivering an internal workforce strategy encompassing of a workforce lifestyle which is real and relevant to the people.
• Experience of facilitating internal engagement that promotes diversity equity and inclusion.
• The ability to influence senior leaders to change behaviour and create engagement based on data.
• Have previously been a facilitator of collaboration and connection.

A full candidate pack and details on how to apply can be accessed via this link:

Head of Internal Communications and Engagement - Candidate Pack

Closing Date: March 26th 2023 at 23.59hrs

Reasonable Adjustments

We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process and we’ll always endeavour to be as accommodating as possible.     

If you would like to discuss any specific requirements, please get in touch with sharon@diversifying.com  

This post is subject to a Criminal Records check. In the event of a successful application a Disclosure report will be sought.