Head of Internal Communications and Colleague Engagement

Join Barclays as Head of Internal Communications and Colleague Engagement within Corporate and Payments COO. Based in London, this high-profile role will shape the voice of senior leadership and translate strategic priorities into clear, engaging communications for internal colleagues.

Leading a team, you will provide trusted counsel to senior leaders and ensure messaging is consistent, timely and aligned across the organisation.

The role includes developing internal and external communications, speaker notes, briefings and presentations, including content for town halls that brings the bank's strategic initiatives to life for colleagues, such as operations and technology-enabled transformation.

Across Barclays colleague channels, including Viva Engage, you will create and publish content that strengthens senior leadership visibility and colleague engagement.

To be successful as a Head of Internal Communications and Colleague Engagement, you should have:

• Ability to translate employee sentiment into actionable insight that informs leadership decisions and communication priorities.
• Proven experience driving understanding and adoption of strategic priorities across a complex organisation.
• Experience embedding change through compelling storytelling and colleague engagement.
• Strong capability in insight-driven communication planning, using data and feedback to shape effective approaches.

Other highly valued skills include:

• Experience working within financial services or another large, highly regulated organisation.
• Experience advising senior leaders and developing executive-level communications, including speeches, briefings and presentations.
• Strong leadership skills, with experience managing and developing a geographically dispersed team.
• Ability to build trusted relationships and influence senior stakeholders across a complex organisation.

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in role, such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen, strategic thinking, digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills.

This role is based in London, and applicants must be able to work from the London office a minimum of 3 days per week. This location and office attendance requirement is essential for the role.

Purpose of the role

To build strong and effective partnerships with the senior leadership of the organisation, advising on how to engage and influence employees to achieve the business’s goals, through an insight-based employee communications strategy, backed up with outstanding execution capability.

Accountabilities

• Leadership communication, using detailed, systematic insight research to help senior leaders understand employee sentiment, and empower them to communicate empathetically with their people.
• Business strategy alignment, building belief in the strategy of the organisation, and the progress being made, with a strong focus on the impact employees have on the client experience.
• Culture and employee proposition communication, designing and implementing communication interventions that influence individual behaviour to create a culture built on the Barclays Mindset; demonstrate why the organisation is a great place to work.
• Change delivery, creating communication interventions that build employee commitment and capability through organisational change.
• Crisis and issues management, working closely with the senior team as part of the management response, focused on the role of employees in engaging clients.
• Capability building, leading and developing a high-performing team, building individual skills and team capabilities.

Vice President Expectations

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..
• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others..
• OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
• Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
• Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.