Purpose :

Our objective is that in five years, Pearson will be one of the major players in the workforce development market, reaching tens of millions of enterprise and individual learners globally, generating more than £1bn in revenue and growing rapidly, with the potential to reach many multiples of that revenue in the years to come. The Workforce Skills business division will be the driving force in realizing this ambition.

Role details

We are looking for an experienced Operations Performance Director for our Workforce Skills business division. This critical role provides a compelling opportunity to be part of a team focused on the portfolio that will drive the process, governance, prioritisation, effectiveness and efficiencies of our Division to support our growth strategies, transformation, and WFS offerings. Our vision, strategy, innovation and outcomes will fundamentally improve the value and currency of skills and learning for individual learners and employees, and partnerships and institutions, all contributing towards a wider ecosystem with employers and consumers.

Primary responsibilities

The Operations Performance Director reports to the Vice President of Transformation, Portfolio and planning, and is accountable for the business planning, governing processes, operational reporting, and management of performance enablers including finance, resourcing and procurement. This is an exciting opportunity for someone with skills in driving efficiency and effectiveness into the division and proven experience in setting up this type of discipline.

• Divisional Services - Establish governance that provides transparency into our pipeline of work, and enables prioritisation and decisions to be made on investment, resourcing and strategy alignment
• Business Planning- Establish QBR's across WFS, driving consistency into the division and transparency across the zones to win, feeding any key elements into the change agenda or back into strategy for exploration
• Targets and Measures - Facilitate the set up and maintenance of divisional level KPIs and OKRs, in line with our strategy and annual goals - setting standards and best practices for definition, and supporting leaders in the definition and target setting
• Governance- set up a governance and reporting around the divisions' OKR and KPI status, including financial, resource approval, to operate with agility and devolved decision making where possible. Establish investment and change boards.
• Continuous improvement - define a maturity roadmap for processes, working towards automated and optimised ways of working, with the right tools, people, processes and data. Achieve continuous improvement targets across processes including procurement, resource management; measured by quarter and reported against a baseline.
• Data insights - Effectively use metrics and data visualization to report progress and support data-driven decision-making at the team or organization level
• Reporting - own all the preparation and executive summaries for each reporting cycle required across the portfolio
• Operating Plans - partner with finance to create operating plans as required by the CFO and lead quarterly planning sessions as required with LT.
• Control - implement any required policy and controls to ensure transparency on the portfolio enablers, such as supplier statements of work, purchase orders
• Risk Management - lead on audit and risk management assessment of the Division, working with the corporate teams in Pearson
• Knowledge Management - support all resources in the Division with the skills and knowledge needed to manage their project and components of the portfolio (e.g. Oracle setup and reporting)

Required knowledge and experience

Related work experience

• Proven experience of setting up and operating a divisional performance teams
• Experience in establishing transparency and business planning for organisations
• Extensive knowledge of processes and systems needed to deliver portfolio capabilities and services
• Demonstratable knowledge of agile and working in a start up environment, and transforming processes to agile ways of working (e.g. changing investment approvals from a business case approach to a start up approach
• Experience of analysis and application of external research impacting portfolios and business performance metrics
• Proven ability in managing third-party suppliers in an operational environment, and their impact on the value chain
• Experience of continuous improvement driving efficiencies through teams in their performance and operating model components such as tooling and ways of working
• Strong skills in process mapping to outline AS-IS/ TO-BE states
• Experience in risk management and dependencies
• Proven track record of successfully establishing new processes and governance
• Good business acumen and understanding of organizational issues and challenges.
• Excellent planner, process and financially focused
• Ability to work with ambiguity
• Have a practical and pragmatic approach to get things done, and drive value
• Exceptional communication skills to work with virtual teams and leader

Formal education or equivalent

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
• Strong academic grounding coupled with sound technical capabilities.
• PRINCE Practitioner, PMI or equivalent preferable

Benefits and rewards

We know you'll do great work, so we give a lot back with some of the best benefits in the business. We know that one size doesn't fit all, so our workplace programs meet the different needs of our diverse teams, and their families too. There is a range of options, see some of them shared here:

• A competitive salary
• 25 Days annual leave, this increases by 1 day each year up to 30 days with the option to buy and sell up to 5 days per year on top of this.
• A fantastic pension plan, where Pearson double what you contribute.
• Pearson's other benefits also include private dental care, private medical insurance, digital GP service, season ticket loan, eye tests, cycle to work scheme, volunteering days, employee wellbeing assistance discounted retail and leisure products and services from leading companies and much more.

Learning is the most powerful force for change in the world. More than 20,000 Pearson employees deliver our products and services in nearly 200 countries, all working towards a common purpose - to help everyone achieve their potential through learning. We do that by providing high quality, digital content and learning experiences, as well as assessments and qualifications that help people build their skills and grow with the world around them. We are the world's leading learning company. Learn more at pearsonplc.com.

Job: GENERAL BUSINESS OPERATIONS

Organization: Workforce Skills

Schedule: FULL_TIME

Req ID: 5251