Deputy Director, Workplace Services Portfolio Management

The Government Property Agency is changing the way the Civil Service works and is at the forefront of Governments transformation agenda; reshaping the relationship civil servants have with their place of work. The Agency is central to the delivery of key Government policies including moving 22,000 Civil Service roles out of London by 2030 and tackling climate change by contributing to the Net Zero agenda. To do this we are delivering a major change programme across the UK and consolidating our portfolio in order to save £1.4 Bn over 10 years.

Beyond the bricks and mortar, the GPA is about providing great workplaces for our people. Through programmes like Hubs, Whitehall Campus and Smart Working you will be in the vanguard of creating model working environments and promoting flexible working practices. This is an ambitious and exciting task, for which we need innovative people, with strong commercial acumen, who are passionate about visualising and implementing customer needs. Launched as an Executive Agency of the Cabinet Office in 2018, we’re a relatively new department and we are growing fast so we also need people who thrive in ambiguity, can adapt quickly to change and are comfortable stepping outside of their remit to drive outcomes.

The Workplace Services Portfolio Management Deputy Director is a key leadership role ensuring the GPA’s Workplace Services meet client and customer needs and reflect best practice across government and industry. This role is critical to supporting Workplace Services to anticipate and plan future Workplace Services solutions and to lead the change needed to ensure that the directorate is continually improving.

Responsibilities:

• Ensure alignment of Workplace Services teams’ work on realising GPA’s strategy and business plan (including all KPIs, with a focus on client satisfaction). Provide linkages across Workplace Services and wider GPA teams to support decision-making at the directorate level.
• Develop and implement a portfolio management approach to activities across Workplace Services, promoting accountability, planning and prioritisation. Ensure alignment of team’s work to strategy and implementation plans and budget; continuously refine management dashboards, data, metrics, and models.
• Responsible for the success of two or three high-priority, cross-team initiatives at any given time (e.g. significant asset transfers, contract demobilisation / mobilisation, consultancy proposals).
• Articulate key insights from operational delivery, industry developments and vision to inform medium- and long-term goals; Identify opportunities to improve business efficiency and make changes to improve the business.
• Be the business owner for the Workplace Services Performance Partner contract, driving value from the contract and ensuring excellent service for clients and customers.
• Promote a learning culture across Workplace Services, including through development of a research agenda and other methodologies to cultivate medium and long-term learning; Oversee divisional measurement, learning and evaluation activities.
• Oversee team-specific and directorate-wide change management activities; Drive Workplace Services change initiatives, including succession planning, team performance, and employee support and development.

Objectives:

• Ensure Workplace Services supports delivery of the GPA strategy by providing workplace expertise and industry best practice to contribute to its development. Assure that performance across Workplace Services is achieving what’s required by the GPA strategy.
• Lead the strategic partner relationship with JLL. Secure best value as Senior Business Owner from the Workplace Services Performance Partner contract to deliver specified services and outcomes and deliver value to GPA and its clients, delivering high quality service to GPA’s customers.
• Lead strategic and resource planning to meet or exceed the Workplace Services KPIs and objectives in the GPA Business Plan.
• Plan and deliver commercial delivery routes to Integrate new assets or services effectively in the Workplace Services service offer.
• Lead Workplace Services business change activities to improve capability, diversity, equality, inclusion and belonging. Implement changes well, to time and within budget; realising benefits defined at initiation.
• Oversee measurement, learning and evaluation activities which:
  • a) Defines and captures the data needed to support effective business and contract management, ensuring data accuracy and completeness.
  • b) Builds the capability needed to realise the benefits of the transformation of Workplace Services.

The GPA is committed to representing the communities we serve by making Diversity, Equality and Inclusion part of everything we do. To ensure that we are always recruiting and retaining a diverse mix of talent, we are particularly inviting applications from candidates who are disabled, ethnically or gender diverse, and people who identify as being part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Essential Criteria:

• Functional expertise in one or more fields related to Workplace Services, including workplace experience, security and facilities management, contract management, project management and data analytics. 
• Track record of leadership independent of role; ability to work collaboratively and drive results with senior customers and leaders across the GPA and wider Civil Service.
• Industry experience and proven ability to make data-driven decisions. 
• Excellent communications skills, including writing, editing, and verbal communication. Strong skills and experience advocating and communicating with a broad and diverse audience.
• Able to manage multiple tasks with competing timelines and deliverables; Proven effectiveness and interest in leading and coordinating colleagues from across various subject areas in a complex organisation.
• Experience with monitoring, learning and evaluation and using learning to inform decisions and strategy.

Desirable Criteria:

• Degree level or equivalent qualification in property related discipline.
• Membership of a professional body such as RICS or IWFM.
• Holds or prepared to work towards a GPA Gold Standard.

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service
• Communicating and Influencing
• Seeing the Big Picture

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Customer Perspective
• Commercial Acumen
• Property Market Knowledge
• Innovation

Whatever your role, we take your career and development seriously, and want to enable you to build a really successful career within the Department and wider Civil Service.

It is crucial that our employees have the right skills to develop their careers and meet the challenges ahead, and you’ll benefit from regular performance and development reviews to ensure this development is ongoing. As a Civil Service employee, you’ll be entitled to a large range of benefits.

This includes:

• 25 days annual leave on entry, increasing on a sliding scale to 30 days after 5 years’ service. This is in addition to 8 public holidays.
• This will be complimented by one further day paid privilege entitlement to mark the Kings’s Birthday;
• A competitive contributory pension scheme that you can enter as soon as you join where we will make a significant contribution to the cost of your pension; where your contributions come out of your salary before any tax is taken; and where your pension will continue to provide valuable benefits for you and your family if you are too ill to continue to work or die before you retire;
• Generous paid maternity and paternity leave which is notably more than the statutory minimum offered by many other employers;
• Childcare benefits (policy for new employees as of 5 April 2018): The government has introduced the Tax- Free Childcare (TFC) scheme. Working parents can open an online childcare account and for every £8 they pay in, the government adds £2, up to a maximum of £2000 a year for each child or £4000 for a disabled child. Parents then use the funds to pay for registered childcare. Existing employees may be able to continue to claim childcare vouchers, so please check how the policy would work for you here;
• Interest-free loans allowing you to spread the cost of an annual travel season ticket or a new bicycle;
• The opportunity to use onsite facilities including fitness centres and staff canteens (where applicable); and occupational sick pay.

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above.
This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions.
Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and
conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your
personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any
absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you
to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Job contact :

• Name : Devon Coates, Gatenby Sanderson.
• Email : devon.coates@gatenbysanderson.com

Recruitment team

• Email : devon.coates@gatenbysanderson.com