View Vacancy - Internal Communications Officer, UKREP (BEL18.225)

The UK Permanent Representation to the EU (UKRep) works within the EU and its member states to maximise British influence on issues such as trade, the single market and economic growth and is now looking for a highly motivated Internal Communications Officer.

On 29 March 2019, the UK will leave the EU and UKRep will become a Third Country Mission to the EU.  While the nature of UKRep’s work will change, it will remain a significant and busy UK overseas Mission as we work to establish a close future partnership with the EU.  Given this evolving context, we are looking for an individual who is prepared to be flexible and adjust their responsibilities as required.

 The jobholder will lead on internal communications within the organisation to: i. maintain staff engagement with work to prepare UKRep for the future as the UK leaves the EU; ii. keep staff informed of key developments and lines to take across a range of policy issues; and iii. strengthen the sense of community at UKREP through increasing awareness of what other teams are working on, building cross-team groups, and ensuring everyone is aware of wellbeing and social events.

This will involve advising and supporting the senior team on their communications to staff. The jobholder will need to work quickly to establish and then manage a new intranet that will provide staff with a quick and effective way to keep track of developments and for teams to push out new information of interest. And they will need to work closely with the DEXEU and FCO teams to ensure that content is aligned, where appropriate, and that messages across the three comms channels are coherent. Similarly they will need to work closely with UKDEL NATO, BE Belgium and Corporate Services Benelux to ensure communications are aligned where necessary across the 3 Missions.

The jobholder will also lead on cross cutting HMG visits to UKREP (typically around two a month), advising on the design of the programme and taking care of practical arrangements.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

- Advising and supporting senior team on internal comms:

• Providing evidence based recommendations to the senior UKREP team on their messaging to staff and supporting them with additional mechanisms to do this;
• Providing a written report to all staff of the each of the main corporate meetings in UKREP, including a formal minute of each Management Board;
• Leading internal comms in UKREP related to the Future UKREP project, aligning these with comms to Whitehall staff and ensuring coherence with external comms.

- Designing and managing an UKREP intranet:

• Working with teams to design and populate a new UKREP intranet;
• Liaising with DEXEU and FCO internal comms teams to align certain content;
• Managing the intranet as it reaches steady state, including liaising with teams to encourage new content and using the intranet to run new staff outreach initiatives.

- Lead on cross cutting visits:

• Advising on programmes for senior HMG cross cutting visits and taking care of practical arrangements.
   

• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English;
• Excellent interpersonal and network building skills;
• 2/3 years of experience in working in an internal comms role, ideally in a large organisation;
• Strong IT skills, including website design. This would ideally include experience of using WordPress or a similar content management system;
• Ability to manage conflicting deadlines under pressure and demonstrate resilience;
• A self-starter able to show initiative and operate with autonomy.