Head of Workspace

Based in Newcastle upon Tyne

Permanent Role, Full Time (37.5 hpw)

Salary c£60,000 pa, negotiable based on skills and experience. Car payment of c£5,000 per annum plus brilliant benefits!

Creating innovative and collaborative workspaces for the future. That?s when it hits home.

We have a brilliant opportunity for you to join us here at Home Group and take on a brand spanking exciting new job. We?ve recently given the go ahead to our Developer partners to start work on building our new Head Office in central Newcastle upon Tyne, and we?ve appointed our Interior Design Partner. Our new office is being built around (yes around) the famous Strawberry pub, just across the road from the shrine that is SJP!

As one of the oldest Housing Associations in the country, we're proud of our heritage, but even more proud of being innovators, pushing boundaries, as well as being disruptors in our sector! We're keen to continue innovating with the development of not just our new Head Office but also our regional hub offices and workspaces.

Our culture, achievements and brilliant people, have helped us achieve No. 10 in the UK?s Best Super Large Great Places to Work, 7th Best Place in the UK for Great Places for Women to Work, 18th in the Stonewall Top 100 and we recently secured the Investors in People Platinum Standard!

The challenge

Even before Covid we knew our new offices needed to be collaborative spaces not just work environments. Spaces not only for our colleagues, but also for our customers and the wider community, as well as a Third Space partners. We intend to build environments that promote the wellbeing, productivity and creativity of those who work or gather within it, and that?s where you come in!

Leading our workspace approach, you?ll scope, design, and implement the exciting evolution of our workspaces across the UK. You?ll lead the creation of a blank canvas that can be adapted in a multitude of ways, where we can facilitate all the users of that space in different unique, creative and quirky ways. We want you to help us fill in the blanks and show us what could be!

We?re keen to explore how we can continue to push boundaries, so you?ll review not just where we work, but also how we work. We know that Workspaces shape behaviour, and can help to communicate a strategy, brand and culture. Using your skills and insights you?ll help us maximise colleague engagement, wellbeing and productivity.

Reporting to our Chief Exec Mark, you're confident working with senior leaders, as well as influencing and negotiating up to board level. You'll quickly discover Mark is a direct talking and avid ?Toon? supporter who loves motorbike racing. Mark, who originally hails from Scotland, isn't just passionate about his beloved NUFC, he?s also passionate about building workplaces of the future.

About You

You?re an established ?workspace design? professional with an extensive and impressive portfolio of results. With relevant professional qualification or equivalent transferrable skills, you?re up to date on regulatory and legislative compliance for commercial buildings. You also understand current statutory compliance and accessibility requirements.

A fantastic collaborator, you?re comfortable operating at a senior level and building strong working relationships across different parts of a business. You're not just a great team player, you're also comfortable walking the fine line between challenging the status quo and your colleagues, without stepping on their toes (too much!). You know how to galvanise plans and groups of people to find solutions and to make things happen and you thrive on a challenge!

As an innovator, you appreciate there?s a time and place for using better-known or traditional approaches but thrive on finding new and exciting ways to work. You?re confident designing solutions that support the needs of colleagues, customers and third-party organisations or whoever uses our building.

It goes without saying that you are established at creating workspaces. Perhaps you have worked in the design field within an agency or been involved in setting up some of the cool co-working environments that are springing up around the country. You?re an established collaborator with the key players that make spaces like this work, such as Facilities, Technical, Design Teams and HR and external design partners.

We know this challenge will take around 2 years to deliver, so after that, we?ll review things together and look to evolve the role. 

Your base and travel

We have workspaces across the country from Scotland to Cornwall, key to those are our main regional hubs which lie between Southampton and Edinburgh and our Head Office in Newcastle upon Tyne. When we can again, you will travel regularly, with your base from our Head Office in Newcastle upon Tyne.  The great news is that until then we are comfortable with you working from home and we?ll give you the technology and kit to make that easy.

Working hours

It?s the team?s unwritten rule that you attend the important appointments in life, be it your child?s school play, your partner?s graduation, or to get your new fridge delivered. You can elect to fit these around your working day or use your flexi to take the time off. Our focus is on getting the job done, not your working hours!

Be yourself at Home Group

Home Group is committed to tackling prejudice and discrimination, not just for our customers, but for our colleagues too! We?re super proud of our Internal Diversity Networks (Multicultural, LGBTQIA+ and Disability) which support colleagues from different backgrounds to be their true selves. 

We?re especially keen to encourage your application, if you are from a Minority Ethnic or Multicultural background (BAME), Female, if you identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBTQ+) or if you are registered or consider yourself disabled. This is because these groups are currently underrepresented amongst our colleagues. 

We recognise and celebrate our differences, together we make Home Group a great place to work!

Want to know more?

If you?re not reading this advert on our jobs pages, press the APPLY NOW button to access lots of useful stuff! You can download the Head of Workspace Job Description, and find out more about Home Group. We?ve also got some short films that show you what it?s like to work here, and we know you?ll want to find out more about our award winning benefits and rewards package!

During Covid

We?re continuing to deliver services for our customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and our brilliant colleagues are at the very heart of making that happen. We?re doing things a little differently right now, so to keep everyone safe, we?ll engage with you digitally where possible. Check out our awesome video to find out more on how our colleagues have felt supported here during the outbreak.

To apply

Don?t delay applying for this brilliant job, as we may close it early if we get lots of applications! Just upload your CV and tell us in your covering letter how you have innovated and broken the mould in your designs to date! northeastjobs #newcastlejobs #designjobs #workplacedesignjobs #workplacedesign #officedesignjobs #flexibleworkspaces