Head of Partnerships

Key information

• Permanent role, full-time

• Deadline for applications, Sunday 28th January, 2024

• Salary band £45,000-£55,000 (dependant on experience)

About Renaisi

We are on a mission to challenge the root causes of economic and social exclusion to strengthen communities across the UK.

Renaisi is a social enterprise that has helped people and places to thrive since 1998.

We are leaders in place-based change and experts in using learning to drive change and understand the intersecting and complex nature of social challenges.

Why join us?

Renaisi has a clear social purpose and we're proud of the impact and change we have fostered, locally and nationally, since 1998.

In 2023 we are pushing boldly into a new strategic direction, that will challenge us and our stakeholders. If you believe, like we do, that despite incredible effort and commitment from so many we’re not seeing the depth of change needed to turn things around, and that we must do something different, re-think how we work, who we work with and what we expect of each other; it’s an exciting time to join us.

We support change by:

·       Helping people experiencing economic and social exclusion

·       Enabling organisations – from community groups and charities to local authorities – to understand and improve their impact.

·       Supporting funders to learn about the value and role of their investments.

·       Working with businesses to be more inclusive employers

·       Encouraging place-based organisations and practitioners to strengthen their approaches.

We aim to:

·       Empower people facing economic and social exclusion.

·       Enable social and private sector organisations to tackle socio-economic exclusion.

·       Challenge the systems that perpetuate and entrench socio-economic exclusion and marginalisation.

·       Interrogate our own role in preventing change and perpetuating harmful systems.

As a social enterprise we reinvest any profits back into our programmes and services to forward our mission. Our values reflect how we behave and our work. We value strengths rather than picking at weaknesses, and we make time to understand and hear people. When it comes to taking responsibility for our work and our mission, we own it, and we are curious about people, learning, and the issues we work on.

Renaisi does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, gender, age, disability, or any other protected characteristic. We support workplace diversity and are working hard to increase diversity in our team and encourage you to be part of it. We are committed to making our roles and culture inclusive. We can make reasonable adjustments throughout the application process and on the job.

If you have particular access needs, please get in touch and let us know any requirements you may have.

Find out more at www.renaisi.com . Follow us on LinkedIn

Are you interested in joining our team?

What we do

We have a unique model that combines social sector consultancy and direct work in communities. We support people in London to get into good work, train, and connect with their community and help organisations to understand and evaluate their impact on communities across the UK.

We have a track record of being a provider of employability programmes across London. Over the last decade we have successfully delivered employment and related services and programmes in 14 boroughs across London. Our most recent work supports long-term unemployed, older workers (50+), Refugees & Asylum Seekers, Lone parents, digital inclusion, those with long-term health conditions and other marginalised groups.

We have particular interest in practical solutions to problems of social and economic exclusion, and are looking to explore this in how we support specific groups in London including:

·       Helping refugees and migrant job seekers to positively engage in the labour market.

·       Enabling those who have been out of the labour market for health or caring reasons to return.

·       Supporting specific places to think about new approaches to employment in deprived places.

Our approach

We have learned through our extensive experience that when we structure our delivery around addressing the core issues and barriers faced by participants - housing, insecure immigration status, mental health, financial pressure etc. there is a significant knock-on effect. By addressing these challenges holistically, people we work with are better equipped to not only improve their socio-economic prospects, but also thrive within their communities.

Between 2018-2022 we have supported older workers, refugees, displaced peoples and the long-term unemployed through several in-house designed employment and support programmes achieving the following since 2018:

·       c.4,000 people supported through our Employment & Advice services

·       95% of Transitions placements become permanent hires.

We currently deliver employment and skills programmes in Hackney, Southwark and Lambeth and a specialist employment initiative for refugees - Transitions. In addition to our direct delivery, we have expanded our practice to include working with others to explore entrenched challenges in specific London boroughs:

·       We are part of the No Wrong Door Collaborative in Lambeth, a partnership created by Black Thrive and comprised of specialists in race, disability, and employment, aimed at driving systemic change for Black residents in Lambeth.

·       In Southwark, we are working in a facilitative capacity on the Southwark Local Access Partnership funded by Access and Southwark Council. The partnership aims to contribute to long-term change in the local social economy by creating access to investment and support for Global Majority-led and/or women-led enterprises in the borough.

·       We are supporting the City and Hackney Anchor Collaborative where the central idea is that the area’s biggest institutions can collaborate to use their resources to tackle inequalities and build and an inclusive local economy.

What will it be like working in this role?

As a leader in this team, you will:

·       Help grow our employer-based income (through developing our Transitions model) and you will build our more strategic partnerships.

·       Lead on building our partnerships across what we do, with employers, local partners, referral partners and local government.

·       Work closely with other senior colleagues to ensure that our work is financially viable, impactful, and cutting edge.

·       Collaborative and engage across other areas of Renaisi, ensuring that we are one organisation with a shared vision and approach to social change.

About you

·       We’re looking for someone with the relevant skills, knowledge and experience who wants to take on a key leadership role to make a difference to communities, organisations, and places. 

·       Most of all we are looking for driven individuals who can be experts in their areas of knowledge and experience for our team and clients, with the credibility and networks to develop our business and impact through that area of knowledge.

·       You will be collaborative, well networked, and creative in developing new ideas and approaches.

·       It is essential that you are a team player and can work collaboratively with other Leaders in the organisation on your shared responsibilities.

Job description – what the role involves

Function of the post

-     To expand and maintain strategic partnerships with national employers to get more skilled refugees and marginalised people into good work.

-     To develop a long-term strategy to drive up refugee employment and inclusive recruitment practice with major UK employers.

-     Engaging with and building a network with the wider refugee support sector to identify opportunities and collaborate for greater impact

-     To maximise the social impact and profitability of strategic private sector partnerships.

-     Lead, coach and develop a high-performing and effective team.

-           Contribute to the overall success of Renaisi as an effective senior leader.

Duties and responsibilities

This is a key leadership role for the team and the wider organisation.

·       Lead on developing and delivering Renaisi’s Transitions initiative as key pillar of our work with employers. This will include partnership development, leading the Transitions Team, and commissioning impact evaluations and other learning support, to help us understand what works and how to scale that impact.

·       Responsible for ensuring we are growing our income and build a sustainable business model for our work with refugees and employers.

·       Lead on developing acquisition and growth strategies to expand employer partnerships beyond current sectors and industries.

·       Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing, collaborative and entrepreneurial team to deliver on our impact goals for marginalised and under-represented groups.

·       Work across teams and disciplines to ensure that the pathway into and out of our support is high quality and impactful, and to strengthen the case for change in the public domain, across industries, and the social sector.

·       Represent Renaisi in cross-industry coalitions and networks, maximising the potential of these networks to achieve shared impact goals.

Leading and/or collaborating with internal teams on business development for other impact areas across Renaisi’s portfolio (includes bid writing, pitching, and development)

Account Management

•                 To establish long term employer accounts and support their inclusive recruitment needs, with a focus on the engineering, construction, financial services, Tech and growth sectors

•                 To sales canvass employers using a variety of techniques to broker vacancies suitable to our candidate base and in line with the Transitions recruitment model

•                 To provide a professional brokerage service to employers and candidates ensuring that they are given correct information relating to the service.

•                 To work collaboratively with Renaisi colleagues to plan and manage events to promote Transitions/Renaisi’s employment-related work

•                 Promote the ethos of the projects, challenge employer bias, and encourage employers to look positively on our candidate base as potential applicants where they might not have previously considered them eligible employees.

•                 Provide employers with ongoing support during the placement, including setting mutual objectives, reporting and monthly collaborative review meetings[HB1] 

Liaise with employers throughout placement ensuring successful candidates have access to professional development and further learning opportunities where appropriate, with the aim of 70% becoming a permanent hire once the placement has been completed

Strategic development

•                 Contribute directly to achieving Renaisi’s overall strategy and sustainability

•                 Develop and support a communication strategy – presenting at public events, producing/managing the team to produce content, updating content on the website, writing blogs, attending comms meetings, building a social media presence for the team and as individuals 

Ensure a shared understanding of our market, with strategies to respond to that, including by understanding partner priorities, new areas we could grow/ develop, competitor analysis, keeping track of wider trends and changes; identifying potential new funding streams, identifying trends in Renaisi’s successes/ failures in bidding

Business development work

•                 Work with colleagues to identify and build new business opportunities through the partnerships

•                 Support the design and writing of new bids to funders and grants makers or contracts as necessary

Management administration

·       Regularly provide progress reports and updates to senior management.

·       To liaise with senior management to continuously review targets for the programme(s).

·       To undertake all administrative duties associated with this post including telephone work, correspondence, filing, and completing evidence stencils for monitoring and tracking purposes.

·       Keep detailed records of interactions/meetings with employers and candidates and update files as required.

·       To attend delivery and team meetings as appropriate.

·       Contribute to ongoing development of marketing/information materials (in collaboration with our External Comms lead)

Company-wide learning and development

•                 Help drive organisational learning, for example through internal initiatives such as sustainability and equal opportunities, internal evaluation or equitable evaluation

•                 Promote the image of Renaisi, which may include attending conferences, training, exhibitions and other events and preparing publicity material.

•                 Actively promote equal opportunities and our company ambitions around diversity, equity and inclusion, with all duties carried out in accordance with Renaisi’s Equal Opportunities Policy

Notes
1. In addition to the above, you may be required to carry out any other duties required to ensure the implementation of the programmes and projects or other areas of work for which the company is responsible.
2. This list is not to be regarded as exclusive or exhaustive. Any additions or alterations will be put in writing by the Chief Executive or a Company Director.

Person Specification – your skills, knowledge and experience

(E) - Essential

(D) - Desirable

1. Values and equalities
Proven and demonstrable commitment to the principles and practice of equity in all areas, especially employment and employment support. (E)

Demonstrable understanding of how systemic inequality operates and how it can be challenged.(E)

Identify with the values and ethos of Renaisi (E)

2. Experience
Income generation, meeting financial targets, strategic partnership development and management. (E)

Experience in recruitment, employability, or similar sector preferably in roles associated with engineering, architecture, construction, and business services and/or significant experience of responsible employer caseload management (D)

Experience of fair and transparent selection of candidates for potential roles and support of weak candidates by employers (eg coaching, mock interviews (E)

Demonstrating tenacity, determination, and creativity for responsibly addressing the evidenced, deep set un/conscious biases and other barriers to diversity and inclusion in the UK labour market (D)

Building long-term relationships and maintaining best-practice professional boundaries within recruitment activities (E)

Managing partnership relationships from beginning to end including developing service level agreements, induction and inception meetings, agreeing mutual objectives, problem solving and risk management, holding review and exit meetings and responding appropriately to feedback (E)

Business development activities, including contributing to bid writing (D)

3. Knowledge, skills and aptitude
Knowledge of the asylum and refugee settlement process and associated implications and processes relating to placing oversees candidates into UK roles (E)

Understanding of the changing, post Covid UK labour market and employment related initiatives, particularly in relation to diverse professional groups, including global majority & Refugee jobseekers (E)

Knowledge of the systemic and personal barriers unemployed and economically inactive people can face which prevent them from returning to the workplace, across a range of client groups and keeping up to date with a changing environment (E)

Able to lead by example, support colleagues to develop and challenge them if they need to improve their own work (E)

Excellent communication, presentation and sales pitch skills, a persuasive negotiator and has the ability to overcome rejection (E)

Financial forecasting and budget management skills and experience (E)

Confident in adapting to fit with changing conditions, tasks, responsibilities or people. (E)

Demonstrable knowledge and expertise of integrating business services to achieve added value, meeting of joint objectives and creating innovative pathways for customers (E)

Excellent organisation skills enabling you to prioritise tasks and manage time effectively (E)

Strong commercial business acumen (E)

4. Qualifications
Either a professional qualification in relation to employability, human resources, marketing or similar sector OR relevant experience and transferable skills in a similar area

Our employee benefits

• We offer 25 days of annual leave per year, plus statutory and public holidays. After each year of service, you accrue an additional day of annual leave, up to a maximum of five,

• 5x SCR (social corporate responsibility) days,

• Cycle to work scheme,

• We support your family with our enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay offer,

• NEST pension scheme,

• Hybrid working pattern,

• We help you grow by offering a range of learning and development opportunities,

• We support your wellbeing through resources and information in our Wellbeing Pack, leading initiatives through our internal Wellbeing Team, and support from our internal Mental Health First Aiders,

• We offer additional benefits of a free annual eye test, and free fruit, coffee and tea in all of our offices.

How to apply:

Please apply by completing the application form. Please attach a CV and answer all sift questions to outline your skills and experience against the Head of Partnerships Job Description - Person Specification. For questions or queries about the role please contact Marie Nichols at m.nichols@renaisi.com or n.rejc@renaisi.com.

CLOSING DATE: Sunday 28th of January 2024 at 12:00 pm. Applications received after this time will not be considered.

We encourage applicants to submit their applications as soon as they can.

Renaisi is an equal opportunities employer. If you require any adjustments as part of your application please contact us to discuss.

No agencies please.