Business Change Manager (12-month FTC)

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Are you passionate about driving transformational change?

We are seeking a dedicated and experienced Business Change Manager to join our Strategic Projects team on a 12-month FTC to cover a period of parental leave. Our Strategic Projects team are a vital component of our Operations team here at Penguin Random House UK.

Our Strategic Projects team plays a crucial role in delivering initiatives aligned with our strategic priorities and supporting essential updates to core processes and systems. As a Business Change Manager, you will collaborate closely with the Senior Training & Change Manager and Head of Business Change to build and sustain change capability within the department. You will leverage your expertise in change management and continuous improvement methodologies to guide and coach others, ensuring consistency across change initiatives. Your responsibilities will include coordinating change activities, conducting impact assessments, developing mitigation plans, engaging stakeholders, and providing go-live support for projects.

The Role

As our Business Change Manager, you will play a pivotal role in supporting the business with readiness preparation within projects and programmes, ensuring smooth transitions to new ways of working. You will also assist with designing and rolling out communications about changes and any necessary workarounds for teams.

Additionally, you will collaborate with other Business Change Managers to ensure cohesive change delivery across projects, managing dependencies and preventing change saturation or confusion within Departments. Routine interaction with Business Owners and Leads will be essential to support organisation-wide updates about upcoming changes.

Key responsibilities:

• Using our Continuous Improvement Methodology to review processes and workflows across Penguin Random House to design improvements and co-create solutions to the everyday problems.
• Promote a culture of curiosity across Penguin Random House by encouraging teams to identify and suggest process enhancements as part of moving toward every day continuous improvement
• Conducting business impact assessments and maintaining an impact assessment register, .
• Creating and maintaining change mitigation plans and evaluating the effectiveness of these activities.
• Building and nurturing strong stakeholder relationships, and developing, delivering, recording, and assessing stakeholder engagement plans.
• Collaborating with the Communications Team to understand business communication needs, develop communication plans, produce communication materials, and effectively communicate with stakeholders.
• Working with Training Teams to understand and meet business training needs, ensuring that business change impacts are appropriately addressed.
• Implementing strategies for sustainable user adoption in collaboration with business partners.
• Assessing risks associated with proposed changes to minimise their impact on services.
• Evaluating the business's readiness for change and advising on transition activities to ensure changes are successfully embedded.
• Supporting testing by ensuring key business use cases are covered, documenting and communicating defect workarounds, and managing these workarounds throughout the project lifecycle.
• Coordinating with the wider Business Change team to ensure holistic planning and consideration of net impacts of changes.
• Representing business needs at Project Steering Groups and Working Sessions to ensure the customer's voice is heard and factored into decision-making processes.

What you will bring

Essential criteria:

• Ability to quickly adapt and work effectively during periods of ambiguity.
• Consistently aims for high performance and assumes accountability for own role.
• Uses open questions and active listening to ensure clear understanding.
• Builds rapport, keeps others informed, and collaborates effectively.
• Utilises empathy to consider stakeholder views, plan engagement, and tailor communication materials.
• Thinks creatively to generate innovative ideas and solutions, challenging assumptions.
• Analyses complex problems systematically to identify root causes.
• Collaborates with team members and stakeholders to gather insights and validate findings.
• Engages sceptical colleagues in analysis and synthesis effectively.
• Weighs different options and makes informed decisions based on analysis.
• Presents clear findings that are understandable and usable by colleagues.
• Facilitates group discussions to generate ideas and potential solutions.
• Actively listens to stakeholders' needs and concerns to capture accurate process information.
• Proficient in using visual aids to capture and organize process maps in real-time during workshops.

Preferred criteria:

• Ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather process-related information, validate process maps, and ensure alignment.
• Proficiency with process mapping tools such as Lucid Chart, Visio, ARIS, etc.

Application instructions

Please apply with your CV and cover letter outlining why you are the right candidate for the role by 11:59pm on Thursday 20th March 2025.

• Please ensure you include a cover letter, as it is a crucial part of our assessment process. The cover letter offers an opportunity to show how your experience and interests align with the role requirements. Typically, we expect the cover letter to be no more than one or two pages in length.
• Please note we are looking for someone to join the team as soon as possible, but we are also happy to accommodate a reasonable notice period for the right candidate.
• We anticipate a two-stage interview process which will include a virtual first-stage interview and in-person second stage interview. We are happy to discuss this further with you throughout the recruitment process.

Salary

Circa £50,000 dependent on how your skills and experience align to the role, plus bonus and benefits.

What you can expect from us

Our people are the heart of our business, and we work hard to support a culture of responsibility and recognition.

Our benefits include:

• Financial - income protection, life assurance, childcare allowance
• Wellbeing - healthcare cash plan, critical illness cover, health checks
• Lifestyle - enhanced parental leave, tech scheme, free and discounted books

For our full benefits list please visit: https://www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/what-we-offer/

Hybrid working

While our offices across the UK are places to connect, collaborate and celebrate with colleagues, we recognise that flexibility around where you work is just as important.

Hybrid working is our current practise with time spent working from home and in our London office. Time required in the office will vary depending on projects and collaborative working sessions, and we are happy to discuss this during the interview process.

About Penguin

We're the UK's largest publisher; made up of some 2,000 people and publishing over 1,500 books each year. Our doors are open to all kinds of talent. In a constantly evolving industry, we work hard to stretch the definition of the word publisher. Here, you'll work with a breadth of talent who all play their part to make each of our books a success. Together, we make books for everyone because a book can change anyone.

The recruitment process

You can read about our recruitment process at https://www.penguinrandomhousecareers.co.uk/how-we-hire/

As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we offer interviews to candidates with a disability who meet the essential criteria for the role, and opt-in on their application form. The essential criteria for this role are listed as part of the 'What you will bring' section. There may be times when the volume of applications means we cannot take all eligible candidates to interview.

We encourage you to tell us about any reasonable adjustments you may need by emailing PRHCareersUK@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk. Remember, you only need to share what you are comfortable to for us to support your request.

Please note, we are not able to accept agency CVs for this role. Any CVs sent speculatively will not be eligible for a fee.

Company: Penguin Books Limited

Country: United Kingdom

State/Region: London

City: London

Postal Code: SW11 7BW

Job ID: 278228

Date: 6 Mar 2025

Location: