AVP, Employee Engagement Partner
Location: City of London
Salary: £60,000 – £70,000 per annum
Job Type: Full-time
Department: Human Resources / Employee Experience
Level: Assistant Vice President (AVP)
About the Role:
We are seeking an experienced and commercially minded AVP, Employee Engagement Partner to lead the execution and continuous improvement of our enterprise employee experience, engagement and inclusion strategy.
This is a high-impact role that sits at the intersection of employee experience, engagement, inclusion, communications, culture and organisational effectiveness. You will translate employee listening, lifecycle insights, external market trends and business priorities into practical programmes, communications, governance and measurable actions.
Working closely with HR, Local Advisory Committees (LACs), Sustainability, Internal Communications and senior business leaders, you will help create consistent and meaningful “moments that matter” throughout the employee lifecycle. You will also play a key role in strengthening manager effectiveness and embedding an inclusive, accessible and high-performing culture across our global organisation.
The successful candidate will be comfortable operating in a complex, matrixed environment and will combine strategic thinking with strong programme delivery, stakeholder management and analytical capability.
Key Responsibilities:
Employee Experience Strategy & Journey Design
- Lead the execution and ongoing evolution of the enterprise employee experience strategy and roadmap, ensuring priorities align with business objectives, culture ambitions and employee insights.
- Design and continuously improve key employee lifecycle moments, including onboarding, offboarding, manager interactions and other experiences that influence engagement, inclusion and retention.
- Partner with HR and business stakeholders to deliver consistent, inclusive, accessible and psychologically safe employee experiences across teams and geographies.
- Identify opportunities to simplify and enhance the employee journey through data, feedback and best-practice approaches.
- Translate strategic employee experience priorities into practical programmes, tools and actions that can be implemented across the organisation.
Employee Listening, Insights & Measurement
- Own the employee listening strategy and engagement cadence, including engagement surveys, pulse surveys, focus groups and other employee feedback channels.
- Analyse employee listening and lifecycle data to identify key themes, trends, pain points and areas of opportunity.
- Translate insights into clear priorities, recommendations and action plans that enable leaders and HR partners to address employee needs and business risks.
- Establish effective action-planning and accountability processes to ensure employee feedback leads to visible and measurable follow-through.
- Lead and optimise employee listening and recognition platforms, including vendor management, budgets, analytics, adoption and impact measurement.
- Develop meaningful measures and reporting to demonstrate the effectiveness and business impact of employee engagement and experience initiatives.
- Use employee feedback and lifecycle data to identify targeted interventions and strengthen accountability for improvements across the employee journey.
Local Advisory Committees
- Establish governance, operating standards and engagement practices for Local Advisory Committees (LACs), ensuring consistency, sustainability and measurable impact across geographies.
- Coordinate global LAC activity, ensuring local programmes and events align with enterprise priorities, culture objectives and employee experience goals.
- Maintain a global LAC calendar to improve visibility, minimise duplication and encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing across offices.
- Support LACs with appropriate frameworks, resources, guidance and best-practice approaches to maximise their impact.
Employee Communications
- Partner closely with Internal Communications to develop clear, timely and engaging communications relating to employee experience, engagement initiatives, inclusion priorities and enterprise-wide events.
- Equip HR Business Partners with relevant engagement insights, talking points and guidance to support conversations with business leaders and employees.
- Help translate complex employee experience and inclusion topics into accessible, practical and engaging communications for different audiences.
- In partnership with Communications, identify and leverage external recognition, industry awards and PR opportunities relating to employee experience, inclusion and culture, including the Women in Insurance Awards and other relevant industry forums.
Education, Training & Capability Building
- Lead or support the development and delivery of learning experiences focused on inclusive leadership, unconscious bias, cultural intelligence, accessibility and other areas that strengthen inclusive capability.
- Partner with HR and Learning & Development to ensure education and training programmes are practical, relevant and aligned with business needs.
- Build HR capability to consistently reinforce inclusive behaviours, manager expectations and employee experience practices throughout the employee lifecycle.
- Promote knowledge sharing across global engagement and inclusion initiatives, enabling HR partners and stakeholders to leverage consistent practices, tools and resources.
- Support managers and leaders in understanding their role in creating an engaging, inclusive and high-performing employee experience.
Cross-Functional Partnerships, Governance & Compliance
- Partner with Legal, Compliance, Sustainability and Community Impact teams to ensure employee experience and inclusion practices align with regulatory requirements, ethical standards and enterprise guidelines.
- Provide workforce, engagement and inclusion data to the Sustainability team to support external sustainability disclosures and workforce reporting, ensuring information is accurate and aligned with required definitions, evidence standards and reporting timetables.
- Manage external consultants, vendors and specialist partners supporting employee experience and inclusion projects, ensuring clear scope, deliverables, budgets, timelines and outcomes.
- Maintain effective project governance across global initiatives, ensuring programmes remain on track through clear planning, milestones, stakeholder accountability and regular follow-up.
- Partner with the DEI Council and Local Advisory Committees to plan and deliver major annual employee experience and inclusion campaigns.
- Coordinate enterprise activity around key global observances and campaigns, including International Women’s Day, Black History Month, Pride, Dive In Festival and other relevant events.
- Ensure annual programmes are delivered consistently, effectively and in a way that supports broader business and culture priorities.
About You:
We are looking for an experienced employee experience, engagement, culture or inclusion professional who combines strategic thinking with strong execution skills.
You will be an effective influencer who can build trusted relationships across HR, business leadership and specialist functions, while confidently managing multiple priorities in a global, matrixed environment.
You will ideally bring:
- A Bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification. An advanced degree or professional certification in HR, organisational development, DEI, change management or a related discipline would be advantageous.
- 5–7+ years’ progressive experience in employee experience, employee engagement, organisational development, culture, DEI, HR or a related field.
- Experience working within a global, international or matrixed organisation, ideally within a complex professional services or financial services environment.
- Demonstrable experience leading employee listening programmes, engagement surveys, pulse surveys, action planning, recognition platforms or other data-led culture initiatives.
- Strong analytical capability and the ability to translate employee feedback, lifecycle data and external market insights into practical recommendations and measurable outcomes.
- Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders, facilitate decision-making and build alignment across HR, business leaders, committees, vendors and cross-functional teams.
- Strong programme and project management skills, including experience managing budgets, vendors, communications, governance processes, timelines and competing priorities.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate complex topics into clear and practical guidance.
- Strong facilitation and presentation skills, with confidence engaging audiences at different levels of an organisation.
- Demonstrable change leadership capability and an ability to turn strategy into practical, sustainable action.
- Sound judgement, discretion and professionalism when dealing with sensitive employee experience, inclusion, accessibility and employee relations matters.
- A proactive, collaborative and solutions-focused approach, with the ability to operate effectively both independently and as part of a global team.
What Success Looks Like:
In this role, success will be measured by your ability to:
- Improve the consistency and quality of key employee experiences across the organisation.
- Turn employee listening data into clear priorities and demonstrable action.
- Increase stakeholder and manager engagement with employee experience initiatives.
- Strengthen the effectiveness and governance of Local Advisory Committees.
- Build greater organisational capability around inclusive leadership and employee experience.
- Deliver high-quality global campaigns and programmes that create meaningful employee impact.
- Establish robust measurement and reporting that demonstrates progress and business value.
- Build strong, trusted partnerships across HR, Communications, Sustainability, Legal, Compliance and the wider business.
Why Join them?
This is an opportunity to play a visible role in shaping the employee experience and culture of a global organisation from our City of London location.
You will have the opportunity to influence enterprise-wide priorities, work with senior stakeholders across multiple geographies and directly shape programmes that affect employee engagement, inclusion, development and organisational effectiveness.
If you are passionate about creating better employee experiences and are motivated by the opportunity to turn insight into meaningful organisational change, we would love to hear from you.
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