Job description

We are looking for highly motivated and organised individual to coordinate our accreditation scheme. The role will work with our network of employers, and support new organisations through the accreditation process.

The Programme Officer will support our Managers to grow and deepen engagement with Living Wage Employers through our associated schemes. You will help to ensure our resources and publicity materials are well written and up-to-date, and to coordinate events to grow our employer network.

Citizens UK

Citizens UK is a people power alliance of diverse local communities working together for the common good. Our mission is to develop leaders, strengthen civic organisations and make change. Our 550 member communities are deeply rooted in their local areas and connect every day to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Through the method of community organising we enable people experiencing powerlessness to develop their leadership and come together with the power and strategy to make change.

This leads to hundreds of neighbourhood improvements – from zebra crossings outside primary schools to renovated public toilets in cemeteries. And it leads to some of the biggest campaign impacts in the UK, such as winning over £2 billion of wages through the UK Living Wage campaign, securing a legal cap on the cost of credit to control exploitative lending, and ending the detention of children for immigration purposes. We enable local campaigns to grow into large-scale social change projects such as the Living Wage Foundation, Parent Action and Sponsor Refugees, that form an integral part of our theory of change. The most prominent of these is the rapidly growing Living Wage Foundation with a network of over 13,000 accredited Living Wage Employers across the UK.

At Citizens UK, our organisers and project staff work within communities and ‘organise across difference’. There are various project roles and management, operational, communication, finance and HR roles that support the organisation and project staff and organisers to deliver on this mission and work. This work is rewarding and can be challenging; it requires a personal commitment to inclusion, a willingness to listen and disagree respectfully, and an interest in working in an organisation where our staff, member institutions and leaders will come from a diversity of backgrounds and often hold views that may be very different from our own. More information about how we operate within this context, and build trusted relationships across difference can be found on our website and is covered in induction. Onboarding and navigating this relational culture, and type of work, is supported by line managers and further training.

Living Wage Foundation

The Living Wage Foundation was launched in 2011 by Citizens UK to tackle in-work poverty and ensure that workers earn enough to live on and participate in family and community life. Citizens UK is the home of community organising with diverse civil society alliances set up to develop leaders to work on the issues that matter to them, such as the Living Wage. Other projects include Parent Action and Sponsor Refugees to add depth to the impact of Citizens UK’s work.

The Living Wage is a movement of businesses, organisations and people who believe that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. The real Living Wage is an independently-calculated hourly rate based on the cost of living and announced each November during Living Wage Week, our annual celebration of a growing network of over 14,000 Living Wage Employers.

The Living Wage Foundation celebrates employers that voluntarily choose to pay the real Living Wage through an accreditation scheme that recognises a long-term commitment to fair pay and has secured pay rises for over 460,000 low paid workers.

Main Responsibilities

This role reports into a Programme Manager. Working as a Programme Officer for Citizens UK (CUK) your main responsibilities will include:

Contribute towards the achievement of CUK and LWF’s strategic objectives

• Understand how the role contributes to LWF’s purpose and the core mission of CUK
• Reliably implement CUK’s and LWF’s policies, procedures, and values in own work
• Work with CUK community organisers and leaders to promote civic engagement with and ownership of the Living Wage campaign
• Feed into the LWF strategy and objectives development
• Responsibility for delivering agreed areas of the Living Wage Foundation’s work plan and leading on agenda items to report into team meetings.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues to share learnings and experience and ensure that we are meeting the expectations of our network and stakeholders.
• Support key contacts at potential LW Employers through the accreditation process, from dealing with initial enquiries to guiding them through the employer journey, to checking and processing their accreditation
• Develop rewarding relationships with key employers, industry, and campaign partners within our networks to build interest in the Living Wage and deliver a high-quality experience to our accredited employers
• With support from the wider team, develop plans and strategies to grow the number of accreditations in specific regions or industries
• Collate and disseminate Living Wage criteria and policy issues through both internal and external facing guidance, whilst reviewing and monitoring its suitability
• Support the development and implementation of projects to promote and grow Living Wage accreditations and develop the quality of service offered

Build and manage projects and achieve work targets effectively

• Successfully progress projects and tasks incl. tracking performance and expenditure
• Deliver agreed areas of the LWF’s work plan and leading on agenda items to report into team meetings.
• Support the growth and development of new and existing Living Wage schemes incl. Recognised Service Providers, LW Funders, LW Places, Living Hours, Global Living Wage and Living Work Consultancy

Deliver personal work targets on time and to standard:

• Respond to telephone and web-based enquiries by providing advice and support to employers and supporters
• Provide administrative support for all aspects of the accreditation journey, incl. processing accreditations, recognitions, and renewals
• Maintain LWF data on systems, incl. Salesforce employer database
• Support the maintenance of our systems to ensure efficient processes and develop reporting mechanisms for effective monitoring and evaluation of our impact and progress against plans
• Coordinate and administrate Steering, Advisory or Leadership Groups as required, incl. coordinating agendas, sending out timely papers, taking minutes and following up on actions

Learning & expertise

• Keep abreast of new developments in the accreditation space
• Apply new learning to work and respond effectively to feedback
• Work collaboratively with the LWF and franchise teams to share learnings and experience and ensure that we are meeting the expectations of our network and stakeholders

Develop and manage external relationships

• Effectively develop and support a range of external relationships
• Respond effectively to queries or requests from stakeholders
• Engage with a diverse range of external stakeholders to support and develop projects as required

Communications

• Communicate effectively within the LWF; ensuring that messages are reliably passed to those who need to know
• Represent the LWF coherently in writing and verbally
• Plan and organise events to celebrate and grow our network of Living Wage Employers, including playing an active role in the delivery of Living Wage Week and assisting other members of the team with event logistics.
• Represent and speak on behalf of the Living Wage Foundation at internal and external meetings and events.
• Develop or feed into employer resources including marketing materials, blogs, reports, templates and guides.

Develop and manage internal relationships

• Work effectively with colleagues across Citizens UK
• Work collaboratively within the LWF team and actively participate in the team to ensure we meet the expectations of our network and stakeholders

Generate income and resources

• Contribute to plans and proposals to grow sources of income/resource.
• Take personal responsibility for the careful stewardship of LWF’s resources

Administration

• Respond to telephone and web-based enquiries by providing advice and guidance to employers and supporters.
• Provide administrative support for all aspects of the accreditation journey.
• Manage and keep information up to date on our administrative systems, including the Salesforce database of employers.
• Support the maintenance of our systems to ensure efficient processes
• Develop reports to enable effective monitoring and evaluation of our impact and progress against plans.
• Coordinate and administrate steering, advisory or leadership groups as required, including coordinating agendas, sending out timely papers, taking minutes and following up on actions.

Project Support

• Provide support to projects which grow Living Wage accreditations and improve the quality of service offered.
• Engage with a diverse range of internal and external stakeholders to further project goals.
• Support the growth and development of new and existing Living Wage schemes such as Living Wage Funders, Living Wage Places, Living Hours, Global Living Wage.

Personal Specification

(D) Desirable, (E) Essential

EXPERIENCE:

• A minimum of 2 years proven, comprehensive experience in an administrative role (E)

• Experience of managing and updating Salesforce or similar databases (D)

• Experience of delivering a range of high quality communications materials, including websites, reports, newsletters (D)

KEY SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE

• Excellent time management skills with the ability to juggle a wide range of competing demands (E)

• Understanding of database and systems management (E)

• Ability to take in and interpret information and present in a succinct manner (E)

• Excellent communication skills, both verbally and written, combined with the ability to liaise with senior stakeholders (E)

• Ability to act on own initiative to introduce and develop new systems as appropriate (E)

• Strong attention to detail (E)

• Strong IT skills to include MS Office and database software (E)

• Understanding of the policy and campaign landscape in the UK (D)

PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

• A proactive approach to all areas of work with a ‘can do’ attitude and a flexible approach to work demands (E)

• A strong commitment to the Living Wage campaign and principles of Citizens UK (E)

About the Application Process

The Living Wage Foundation is committed to being an inclusive employer. We would love to see applications from LGBTQIA+ people, people from racialised communities, people living with disabilities and people of faith. We want our employees to be themselves and thrive doing so, and we have employee networks to support staff. Even if you don’t quite meet all the required criteria still consider applying, as we invest in our employees and support them to develop the skills and knowledge required to deliver their role.  It’s important that our team represents the communities we serve, therefore we are particularly interested to hear from candidates who have experience of low pay.

At Citizens UK, we use Applied, an applicant-tracking recruitment system. Applied aims to overcome unconscious bias in recruiting. The responses are anonymised and reviewed by the panel. The Applied platform also asks some demographic questions before you start your application. Citizens UK cannot see individual demographic responses, only summary statistics to monitor our candidate pool for balance. Applied aims to give an equal chance to be hired irrespective of background. Candidates can opt out of answering the demographic questions.

We welcome applicants from different backgrounds and will do our best to meet reasonable adjustments and access needs for disabilities during and after the recruitment process.

Applicants must have the right to work in the UK as Citizens UK is unable to sponsor visa applications. Our community organisers work in the community and their employment is subject to satisfactory standard/enhanced DBS checks.

For questions and reasonable adjustments regarding your application including information in a different format, or our recruitment process, please contact us.

Got any more questions?

If you would like further information on the role, the organisation, or our commitment to addressing under-representation and the development and progression of all colleagues, please contact us.

Interviews to be held 13-15th January.