Change and Benefits Manager

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.

Change Directorate

We are seeking a Change and Benefits Manager to join the Change Directorate. We have a strong appetite to ensure that as an organisation we deliver policy and services, enable the department to modernise and change ways of working, live within our means, become high performing, and be valued by our customers.

This is a central Change Directorate aimed at bringing about critical organisational change to deliver Defras priority Outcomes Framework and shape the future of the organisation. You will be working on a high profile, fast paced area of work across areas of Defra including its Arm's Length Bodies.

We work in a programmatic way, prioritising work to ensure were focusing on the right things at the right time. This means that our teams can pivot onto new projects and programmes when these conclude, or if circumstances change and they are reprioritised.

Encouraging diverse applicants

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups.

Location

This role can be based at any Main Defra Policy Hub or in Crewe. You will be expected to attend the office 60% of the time

Currently, the Geospatial Enabling Programme is a key priority for Defra Group and will be the first Programme that the Change and Benefits Manager will support.

Decisions we make now and over the next 25 years about land use in England will materially impact our ability to manage biosecurity risks, support growth to the economy, enhance our food security and allow nature to thrive.  We deliver these in partnership with farmers, land managers and other key stakeholders, and our decisions on how and where to make interventions and fund schemes make significant differences to economic growth and the environment. Spatial (land) data is a critical asset for Defra as it provides insight into land use to inform policy decisions that can be distributed effectively to maximize economic growth whilst supporting nature recovery. The Geospatial (Land) programme can enable delivery of better policy making and better use of our limited budgets to deliver our priorities, by resolving issues within the geospatial data landscape and developing the spatial targeting capability.  

The vision of the Geospatial (Land) Programme is: To unlock the power of geospatial capability by creating a clear single access point for authoritative, up-to-date foundational land data across England - putting easily accessible insights into the hands of new downstream business users across Defra and its Arms Length Bodies. This will:

• Deliver an authoritative source of land data for England through the Defra Land Model, generated from Defras insights and other 3rd parties' datasets and underpinned by a Basemap (master reference layer) of land. 

• Development and delivery of a common geospatial data standard framework and data model in collaboration with DDTS and Chief Data Officer (CDO) to enable sharing of data across Defra Group and externally. This will underpin the Defra Land Model and basemap:   

• Will establish a Centre of Excellence to equip teams with the skills to exploit the Defra Land Model and support the use of geospatial capability to solve operational needs and policy

Job Description

As a Change and Benefits Manager you will proactively prepare the business for the impact of organisational change while ensuring the benefits justify investment are identified, quantified, tracked and realised across Defra and its Arms Length bodies. You will act as a bridge between your Programme Team teams and business users, supporting effective implementation, stakeholder engagement and sustainable change adoption.

You will work with the delivery partner and provide leadership, guidance and assurance across the programme and ALBs to ensure that intended outcomes are achieved and embedded successfully.

Key responsibilities

• Lead business change and benefits management activity by working with the Defra/ ALBs, project managers and external delivery partner change and benefits subject matter experts, to ensure successful delivery and realisation of outcomes.

• Work with programme delivery leads and project managers to ensure business cases include robust change and benefits management approaches.

• Work with Business Analysts to ensure requirements, processes, user journeys and operating impacts are understood and reflected in change activity.

• Assess and understand the impact of change on stakeholders and users to improve adoption and implementation success.

• Lead stakeholder engagement activities, building strong collaborative relationships internally and externally, including acting as a key contact for senior stakeholders

• Develop and maintain business change plans, readiness assessments and benefits realisation plans, with the ALBs ensuring alignment to wider programme delivery.

• Support the ALBs/Defra to define, baseline, quantify and track benefits.

• Develop systems and reporting approaches to monitor benefits realisation across the ALBs/Defra

• Facilitate workshops to identify benefits, map impacts, challenge assumptions and gain stakeholder agreement.

• Work closely with communications teams to deliver clear and engaging messaging relating to business change activities.

• Identify and manage business readiness criteria ahead of implementation and provide recommendations regarding go-live readiness.

• Support governance, assurance, change control, risk management and reporting requirements across the portfolio.

• Champion consistent business change standards, tools, products and good practice across Defra.

Essential criteria

1. Significant experience leading business change, implementation, transformation or organisational change activity in a project, programme or operational environment.
2. Experience assessing change impacts and translating them into practical readiness, adoption, transition and stakeholder engagement activity.
3. Strong understanding of benefits identification, baselining, tracking and realisation methodologies.
4. Experience of business case development, governance, planning, scheduling, risk management and change control.
5. Strong stakeholder engagement skills with the ability to influence, challenge and build effective relationships at senior levels.
6. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to tailor communications to different audiences.
7. Experience facilitating workshops and leading collaborative engagement sessions.
8. Experience using Microsoft Office applications including Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Technical skills

Knowledge and experience of Project Management methodology supported by professional qualifications such as:

1. APMG Change Management Practitioner
2. APMG Managing Benefits Practitioner
3. Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) Practitioner
4. Agile Project Management Practitioner  
5. PRINCE2 Practitioner
6. APM Project Management Qualification
7. APM Chartered Project Professional
8. PMI Project Management Professional