Colleague Experience and Engagement Lead

Are you passionate about supporting a positive workplace culture? Do you get excited about creating environments where colleagues feel heard, valued, and inspired? If so, this could be your next role

We're looking for a passionate and proactive Colleague Experience & Engagement Lead to join our Workforce team at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. You'll help bring our People & Culture Plan and Inclusive Culture Strategy to life, improving colleague experience and engagement across the organisation.

We're looking for someone curious and enthusiastic, someone who can build relationships and make work feel better for everyone. You don't need prior NHS experience, you might be someone who's looking for the next stage in your career. This is a managerial role so experience in managing people would be a bonus but it's not essential, so if you think you meet the other criteria, we'd love to hear from you

The role: is full-time, Band hours/week) and is a hybrid role based at our Withington site and home working.

Interviews will take place during week commencing 10th November 2025

In this role, you'll:

• Lead projects and events that promote wellbeing, recognition, and inclusivity
• Support colleagues to feel valued and heard throughout their time with us
• Listen to feedback and help turn it into real improvements at work
• Coordinate engagement, wellbeing, and reward initiatives, including staff networks and annual events
• Manage communications, intranet content, and feedback channels
• Support inclusive culture projects and facilitate listening events
• Analyse data, contribute to reports, and support training
• Manage a small team and deputise for the Colleague Experience & Engagement Manager when needed
• Be a role model for our Trust values and behaviours
• Be flexible, resilient, and effective when priorities change

The Christie is one of Europe's leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 15% patients are referred to us from other parts of the country.

We provide radiotherapy through one of the largest radiotherapy departments in the world; chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancer; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services.

We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years. We run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year. Cancer research in Manchester, most of which is undertaken on the Christie site, has been officially ranked the best in the UK.

You'll join a friendly and collaborative team who work together on projects. We value creativity, compassion, and continuous development. We're looking for someone who is good at organising events and activities and is focused on building relationships to positively influence others, someone who will bring in new ideas and work across boundaries to achieve them. We need a good listener and problem solver who will anticipate issues and develop solutions.

If you're someone who thrives on connecting with people and working together to making things better, we can't wait to meet you

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Staff experience & engagement, health & wellbeing, reward and benefits

1. To support improvements in staff engagement and health & wellbeing by contributing to and coordinating identified projects.

2. To support implementation of staff reward, recognition and benefits projects and events to improve job satisfaction, acknowledge success and support retention within the workforce.

3. To support implementation of activities which enhance understanding and development of workplace culture, including the delivery and analysis of staff surveys and audits

4. To develop effective communications relating to all engagement and health & wellbeing activity, to promote wider awareness and engagement across the Trust, including maintaining intranet and online content.

5. To plan and manage annual staff engagement events, for example the annual health and wellbeing day, staff garden party, rounders tournament and Christmas quiz.

6. Develop and deliver an annual calendar of events linked to staff networks and health and wellbeing. Activities should enhance staff experience and wellbeing, create opportunities for connection and listening, support self-care and manager improvement, improve knowledge of self and others, and celebrate diversity.

7. Be the Trust connection point for staff networks and provide guidance for these to run these effectively. Ensure these groups provide a safe, positive space for staff with specific needs or protected characteristics enabling them to have a positive experience at work. Act on feedback to improve staff experience.

8. Proactively seek opportunities to develop, enhance or refine the staff network offer and increase membership. Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of staff network groups and put improvements in place as required. Includes managing intranet and online content.

9. With the support of the Engagement & OD Assistant, provide support to staff network members to enable them to coordinate, promote and run staff network events that enhance staff experience and celebrate diversity. Ensure effective and timely promotion of events.

10. Manage a delegated budget to support wellbeing and staff network events.

11. Work in conjunction with the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian to recruit, support and maintain an effective network of champions/ambassadors within Trust divisions, to enable a local support mechanism for culture, speaking up and equitable staff experiences. Provide development to champions as required.

Organisational Development and embedding an inclusive culture

1. Lead and coordinate identified projects to contribute to the achievement of the ambitions, themes and workstreams within the Trust's Inclusive Culture Strategy and People & Culture Plan.

2. Contribute to the community of practice groups within the Trust for all types of staff, including leaders and managers. Adopt a facilitative, group-centred and interactive learning approach to support inclusive culture initiatives.

3. Collaborate with internal and regional stakeholders as required to support a joined-up NHS approach to the delivery of work across the team.

4. Collate, monitor and analyse data to enable the development of reports, presentations and training events, and to support evaluation of interventions, in order to facilitate ongoing improvement.

5. Contribute to the development of policies, guidance and reports and deliver

presentations and training.

Leadership

1. Lead and manage the Engagement & OD Assistant in line with Trust process, adopting compassionate leadership and flexible working approaches to foster engagement, enjoyment, health and morale at work. Undertake regular 1:1s and an annual PDR, attend to reasonable adjustments and proactively support their personal and professional development.

2. Adopt a continuous development mindset to personal leadership development, enhancing your competencies in line with the expectations outlined in the Trust's Leadership and Management Competency Framework.

3. Attend development, training and networking events as required to support your personal and professional leadership practice and role-specific specialist knowledge.

4. To deputise for the Colleague Experience and Engagement Manager as required.

5. To act as a role model for The Christie Values and Behaviours framework.

6. Any other duties as may be required from time to time and which are commensurate with the grade of the post.