Home → Jobs
Culture and Engagement Partner
England Rugby
The Rugby Football Union is the national governing body for grassroots and elite rugby in England. Its purpose is to encourage rugby, and its values, to flourish across England.
Job Posted- 5 Jan 2025
Status- Contract - Fixed Term
- Full Time
Location- England
Closing date- 16 Jan 2025
Job Description
Working at the RFU means being part of the ‘bigger picture’ at England Rugby: to be rooted in our purpose, which is to enrich lives, introduce more people to rugby union & develop the sport for future generations. If our purpose resonates with you, and you recognise the value that sport can bring to people’s lives, we’d love to work with you. An opportunity has arisen for a Culture and Engagement Partner to join our People Team on a temporary basis.
Job Title : Culture and Engagement Partner
Department: People Team
Reports to : People Director
Direct report(s) : None
Salary Banding : c. £60,000
Job Level : Guide
Location : HQ - This role is contractually based at Allianz Stadium, offering some flexibility to work from home
Employment Type : 13-month Fixed Term Contract until end April 2026 (maternity cover)
Working Hours : This is a full-time role, covering 35hrs per week
Application Information:
- Please submit an anonymised CV (i.e. please exclude personal details).
- The closing date for applications is January 16th at 5pm.
- The RFU reserves the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications.
- Applications may be considered whilst this vacancy is advertised.
The Role:
- Working in close partnership with the People Director to develop and deliver the RFU’s culture strategy and to own the internal communications and engagement strategy, with continual review to monitor impact and engagement.
- Driving and embedding key culture and engagement initiatives in line with our strategic targets and partnering with key stakeholders across the organisation to ensure our cultural aspirations are aligned with the RFU strategy.
- Deliver high quality information and corporate communications to all RFU employees – whether in the office or field based. Work with key stakeholders across the organisation to plan, manage, create and deliver key messages to keep employees informed, engaged and motivated.
- React, adapt and drive our internal narrative to highlight, embed and engage employees with our key strategic and core activity and plans.
- Ownership of the intranet and associated platforms to ensure they provide employees with the tools they need.
What will you be doing?
Some key responsibilities include:
- Day to day running of the internal communications and engagement strategy and outputs.
- Ownership of internal communications plans including emails, intranet and events such as festive celebrations, summer parties, All Hands calls and RFU Main Events.
- Own management and development of Be Connected and other internal platforms such as Viva Engage.
- Working with relevant stakeholders to ensure an effective, inclusive and engaging approach to our communications activity, evolving our offer to ensure that outputs are meeting the needs of our employees.
- Lead the development, communication and implementation of the culture strategy.
- Develop and implement innovative engagement initiatives to help drive employee engagement, in line with our strategic target.
- Engage and influence key stakeholder groups including the executive and leaders to role model our behaviours and promote our ways of working.
- Work closely with the wider People team to identify opportunities to align our culture with our employee lifecycle and daily life at the RFU.
- Responsible for the delivery and analysis of our annual Engagement Survey and partnering with leaders to drive the delivery of the survey action plan.
- Management of the culture and engagement budget.
- Actively collaborate with colleagues to contribute to the development and delivery of the current strategic, business and operational plans.
- Act as an ambassador for, and promote the best interests of the RFU, including the promotion of our culture and core values – This Rose Means Everyone: Put The Team First, Shape The Future, Respect Each Other.
- Undertake other duties as may be required from time to time as are consistent with the responsibilities of the post and the needs of the organisation.
QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE
The skills and attributes outlined in this description are not exhaustive and we welcome candidates who can bring different relevant experiences to the role.
Essential:
- Proven experience of managing internal communications, processes and plans and operational delivery
- Experience or working knowledge of implementing plans to improve organisational culture and committed to contributing to and role modelling our target culture.
- Experience managing or working on an intranet platform and/or digital platforms
- Effective communicator; confident, clear and able to concisely deliver written and verbal messages of a varied nature.
- Effective interpersonal and communication skills, relationship management and proven stakeholder management skills
- Proactive self-starter with the perseverance and ability to manage competing priorities.
- Strong collaboration, influencing and partner management skills with the ability to challenge constructively.
- Strong project management skills, with the ability to work on several projects at once, prioritising and communicating priorities.
- Ability to work independently and with high levels of autonomy.
- Building trust and close working relationships with a range of stakeholders including senior leadership.
Desirable:
- Proven experience of managing implementation of culture and engagement plans
- Experience in communication and/or leading end to end employee engagement survey process
- Innovative – will generate and try new ideas to keep employees engaged.
- Ability to deliver administration and coordination, alongside strategic thinking and influence.
- An effective team member, with sufficient flexibility and willingness to take on roles outside their normal functional responsibility when required.
- Aware of and interested in digital and engagement trends and developments
- Excellent judgement, a can-do, problem-solving attitude and ability to think creatively to reach desired goals.
- Committed to embodying the ethos our culture by using our three core values – Put The Team First, Shape The Future, Respect Each Other – to guide your day-to-day decisions, actions and interactions.
Additional Information:
- We want you to have every opportunity to demonstrate your skills, ability and potential. If there is anything we could do to support you through your application or to provide the best environment for your interviews, including assistance or adjustment, please reach out to [email protected].
- During your application, we will ask questions about your identity. This information is considered highly confidential and will not be seen by hiring managers. You can find out more about why we ask these questions here.
Please download the job description here for full details of this role.*
* We recommend keeping a copy of the JD to hand as you may wish to revisit the role requirements in the event you are invited to interview.
About Us
About England Rugby
England Rugby or Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the national governing body for rugby in England. We deliver three core activities, and our purpose is to enrich lives, introduce more people to rugby union and develop the sport for future generations.
Our core activities are:
At England Rugby, one of our core objectives is to drive rugby union to better reflect the diversity of society. We are aware that rugby, and sports in general, has not always been as welcoming an environment for everyone as we would like, and we are working hard to make rugby a more inclusive space for all identities.
We believe hiring people from underrepresented groups into positions at all levels is vital to creating spaces and initiatives that better support those identities. We would love to see applications from disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, people from ethnically diverse communities, people of faith, people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and women and non-binary people.
We know that representation is more than just getting people through the door, it’s about keeping people by responding to structural barriers relating to identities and valuing the insights that different lived experiences bring. We have network groups that provide peer-to-peer support and drive forward change internally. We support colleagues to develop, and each colleague has access to a personal coaching platform that can provide same-day one-to-one coaching. We are pushing ourselves to create a more inclusive culture every day through role modelling our BACK behaviours which stand for Brave, Accountable, Collaborative and Keep improving.
We know that flexible working is important to our colleagues, so our guiding principles are designed to support everyone to work in the way that suits them, their teams, and the organization in the best way.
We want you to have every opportunity to demonstrate your skills, ability and potential. If there is anything we could do to support you through your application or to provide the best environment for your interviews, including assistance or adjustment, please reach out to [email protected].
What we can offer you
We are proud of the range of benefits we can provide:
- A variety of corporate discounts.
- Priority access to purchase match tickets
- 25% discount in Rugby Store and EnglandRugby.com
- 25 days of annual leave and your birthday day off
- Free access to the stadium gym
- Life assurance of 4x your basic salary, income protection scheme and Employee Assistance Programme that offers anonymous and confidential, emotional and practical support 24/7
- After 3 months, you will be enrolled in our Aviva pension scheme and we will match and double your contribution up to 10%
- Ride-to-work scheme, eyecare vouchers and season ticket loans
About Our Team
At England Rugby, we want to hear our employees’ thoughts, ideas and feedback on our strategies, new initiatives and our work environment. That’s why we have quarterly meetings called ‘the Voice’ where various topics are discussed, in addition to regular surveys, including our annual D&I survey. We are always striving to create the best environment for our colleagues, and we are proud to present some of our most recent feedback from Feb 2022:
- 85% feel motivated to perform their role to the best of their ability
- 83% feel supported by their Manager
- 90% agree or strongly agree that their Manager empowers and trusts them to deliver while working from home
- 83% feel informed and connected with the organisation
If you would like to find out more about our diversity and inclusion work or the culture at England Rugby, please visit our website here: https://www.englandrugby.com/about-rfu/rfu-policies/diversity-and-inclusion/our-approach