About the job

Job summary

The uniformed civilians of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) are professional qualified seafarers, trained and educated to recognised international maritime standards and deliver worldwide logistic and operational support to Royal Navy military operations. Fully integrated into front-line warships, the RFA is an essential element of how the Royal Navy operates with freedom around the globe. The RFA supports a wide spectrum of operations from high-tempo war-fighting to counter-piracy, disaster relief, counter-narcotics, law enforcement and evacuation operations.

 The RFA People team is based within Navy Command Headquarters; the nerve centre of the Royal Navy providing the ships, people, aircraft and equipment to deliver the UK’s defence policy. Civil Servants and Armed Forces personnel work together across a wide range of interesting and challenging jobs in different disciplines.

 The People and Training Directorate within Navy Command Headquarters is responsible for attracting, recruiting, training, sustaining and retaining inspired, capable and motivated people in an agile and flexible Whole Force to enable the Royal Navy to succeed on operations by putting our people capability first.  Our modern approach to the future workplace and our singular focus on improving the lived experience presents a unique opportunity to support, enable and empower the people of the Royal Navy to thrive, and unlock their potential as valued and respected individuals who operate to fight and win. 

 It's important we proactively support, manage and administer the myriad of events, circumstances and occurrences that influence, change and affect the professional and private lives of our international Seafarers. At the heart of this we need both robust policy and process in place to set and maintain professional standards and personal behaviour, and we need accurate and complete digital documentation/records, stored securely and accessed appropriately by the most appropriate team, worldwide.

Two of the most important elements of maintaining HR excellence and developing standards are accurate record keeping coupled with concise and clear communication.

This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.

Job description

It is an exciting time to join our expanding, empowered, valued and invested RFA People Delivery Team within the headquarters of the Royal Navy.

We are seeking a motivated, confident, autonomous leader with a meticulous eye for detail and exceptional self-organisation and time management skills to prioritise and multi-task in a busy, complex team to join us at an exciting time where you will have the opportunity to shape and develop an evolving new position, to:

• Utilise data and priorities identified by SEO HR Resource Compliance to research, create, direct and manage implementation of innovative HR solutions to resolve identified business issues.
• Lead and measure the trial and implementation of new ways of working including potential projects including but not limited to
  • Future Crewing Concept,
  • Flexible Terms and Conditions of Service 
  • Alignment to The Seafarer’s Charter
  • the delivery transition to a new HR Records System (HRSD/SCIO/Oneview)
  • An ‘evergreen’ induction programme reflective of current and future operational requirements.
• Ensure both new and established procedures and processes are fully in line with existing policy, or to make appropriate amendments where a need is identified
  • With a priority focus on identifying aligned output across People and Training and integrating those teams and functions
  • Leading the process to standardise the lived experience / policy / attendance / TACOS / standards and intervention outcomes within the Training environment for Cadets and Apprentices
  • Lead the People Delivery coordination of RFA 35 events, resource, projects and priorities.
• Lead and direct the process for administration of life changing events:
  • Direct, record, integrate and manage the Death in Service, Casualty Management, and interventions to care for those affected by operational events.
  • Develop, measure, monitor an integrated Safeguarding response and People Risk Management system, with a governance framework and a way to learn from experience.
  • Lead and integrate a new administrative and financial process to manage Legal proceeding and in-patient response and representation.
    • Devise and communicate training and process documentation/in person serials for the above
  • Build and maintain relationships with other teams across Defence and the Civil Service carrying out similar functions and seek out ways to improve, digitise, automate and integrate our operational capability processes within an agile Whole Force Royal Navy

Person specification

We are looking for someone who is enthused to work with a degree of ambiguity as the team develops and who is confident enough to speak up with ideas and challenges. This is a dynamic role within an environment where the people and capability priorities change regularly and so presents an excellent professional opportunity for a proactive, flexible problem solver.

This role entails speaking with our team members, police, legal team and partner agencies as they navigate challenging, uncertain and difficult personal circumstances (for which training and support will be provided) and therefore we ask that applicants consider and self-assess their resilience and suitability for the position.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £43,080, Ministry of Defence contributes £11,631 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

This is the assessment process we will be following for this role, and what will be tested at every stage:

Stage 1 - Application form including Behaviours and CV.

Stage 2 - Interview.

A CV will be required for this position, which you will submit using the CV template provided on the CS Jobs Dashboard in part two of your application, detailing job history, full qualifications, previous experience and skills.

At sift and interview , you will be assessed against the following Success Profiles Behaviours:

• Changing and improving
• Communicating and influencing
• Leadership
• Managing a quality service

Please note if there is a large number of applications, the recruiter reserves the right to conduct an initial sift against the mandatory behaviour of Leadership only

Applications are welcomed irrespective of gender or ethnic group and will be assessed on merit alone.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.  

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.  

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.   

Interviews will be held via Microsoft Teams in January 2024

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBSCivPers-Resourcingteam3@mod.gov.uk 

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical.

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.