Area Engagement Lead - Warrington, United Kingdom - United Utilities

United Utilities

Verified Company

Warrington, United Kingdom

1 week ago

Posted by:

Tom O´Connor

beBee Recruiter

Description

We have a brilliant opportunity to lead our engagement with key organisations across Cumbria.

Called Area Engagement Lead, the successful applicant will develop effective working relationships with the likes of local authorities, councillors, community groups and others to help the company deliver its business plan and to find collaborative opportunities to work with partners across the county.

The Area Engagement Lead will provide specialist advice to company directors to inform future business plans and work with fellow senior leaders to build relationships and tackle issues.

The Area Engagement Lead will lead, design and implement an effective engagement plan for a specific area / set of stakeholders in the UU region.

You will be expected to develop a proactive engagement plan encompassing stakeholders such as local authorities, councillors, community groups, environmental organisations and other third parties.

Owning the stakeholder management approach and plan across a dedicated area of the region, you will build and develop effective working relationships with key internal and external stakeholders and opinion formers to protect and enhance UU's reputation and support the business objectives.

You will play a lead role in the county delivery hubs, working closely with the County Business Leads.

You will reduce reputational risk through effective engagement, developing trusted partner relationships and championing UU's strategy, securing local stakeholder support for its delivery.

Job Accountabilities:

Planning

Lead, own and deliver a clear proactive stakeholder engagement strategy and plan appropriate to a given area within the region, working closely with County Business Leads and other members of the county hubs.
Work across the business to create and deliver stakeholder identification, mapping and relationship analysis for a specific area of the region.
Proactively work with other engagement leads to ensure a joined up plan, consistent approach and aligned messaging.
Provide timely, high quality intelligence and insight from stakeholders to help inform future UU plans and decision making

Engagement

Enhance UU reputation and positive influence in a specific area of the region by developing and implementing plans that develop strong trusted relationships, following best practice principles of effective stakeholder management
Play a lead role in the successful implementation of the "5 counties approach", working closely with County Business Leads and other members of the county hubs
Ensure proactive and reactive visits to key stakeholders to understand issues and develop relationships to support delivery of company objectives and protect the UU brand
Translate UU's messages to stakeholders in an engaging way which builds trust, influences change and drives brand appreciation.
Work to resolve issues arising with local stakeholders, seeking agreement on areas of contention and escalating and prioritising when appropriate.
Develop and manage major project and programme stakeholder communications, engagements and consultation strategies from planning through to implementation.
Ensure appropriate community interventions are implemented to mitigate the effect UU's work has and to build relationships / enhance reputation where appropriate. Work with colleagues to ensure funding for such interventions
Seeking collaborative opportunities with regional stakeholders to enable delivery of business objectives
Support incident management with focus on key stakeholder engagement and management.

Reporting

Align and report into the appropriate governance and reporting frameworks to support and demonstrate the stakeholder management contribution to delivery of our business plan and outcome delivery incentives (ODIs) and the management of reputational risk.
Provide updates to senior managers on progress and key issues.
Ensure tracking and recording of all stakeholder engagement activity and status of stakeholder relationships, including monitoring delivery against plan and timelines.

Knowledge and Skills:

To be successful in this role you'll need a degree or post graduate qualification in a relevant discipline

You'll also need:

Relevant experience in communications and stakeholder engagement at a senior level, in particular successfully developing, leading and driving stakeholder intelligence and its translation into business strategy in a complex organisation
Technical background/ knowledge with the ability to converse with a variety of stakeholders on a multitude of issues related to our business and the North West region.
Proven experience of managing multiple stakeholders at senior levels, including to Chief Executive and Executive team level.
Experience of operating at a commerciallyfocused strategic level.
Experience and awareness of progressive communication approaches, ability to embed industry best practice and new ways of working to im