• Job Title: Learning & Development Manager
• Level & Responsibility: This role is at a Manager level, but we'd also be open to candidates at a Senior Manager level. It will have responsibility over the newly formed practice area of Learning & Development.
• Salary: £53,000+, depending on experience - with a 10% discretionary bonus on top
• Location & Hybrid Working: London, 2-3 days a week in the office
  

The role

We are looking for a Learning & Development Manager to join our central People Team. In this role, you will create, nurture, and maintain a healthy culture of accessible, high-quality learning, supporting the business's future success by driving high performance across all teams. You’ll be responsible for driving change in our learning agenda forward, partnering with team leads to ensure we have clear learning and development programs and initiatives in place to support all levels and specialisms across the business.

Why SMG?

We are dedicated to supporting our employees to be the best version of themselves both inside and outside of work. We have an extraordinary culture built by exceptional people and it’s because of this that we’ve been recognised by Best Companies within the top 5 best Marketing & Media agencies to work for, with a World Class and Outstanding accreditation across the past 2 years. 

We are also dedicated to continuously reviewing and improving our benefits package to offer the best that we can for our people. We have a whole page dedicated to our benefits here, but here's some of our favourites...

💰 Generous discretionary bonus scheme

🧘‍♂️ £1,800 yearly wellbeing fund (on top of your salary!) towards your personal wellbeing and passions

🫶 4 additional Wellbeing Days - one to be taken each quarter, dedicated to focusing on your wellbeing

📚 £500 yearly “Uni Fund” towards learning and development

🎧 Free headspace subscription

🕐 4pm Friday finishes all year round

🥳 Two fully paid conferences a year at Summer & Winter, as well as a dedicated team that put on activities and celebrations throughout the year

Why you?

In line with our company values, within your role you'll want to stay honest, stay hungry, stay foolish, and most importantly, have fun! More specifically, you'll have / be:

• A strong learning and development background with a love for learning, teaching and professional development
• A strong external network that informs best practice and cutting-edge thinking
• An employee-centred and experience design approach
• Proven experience in L&D, with a focus on learning design, strategic learning approaches to capability gaps and learning needs analysis
• Proven success in using both in-house and out-sourced learning provision for impact and in support of wider business strategic objectives
• Proactivity and initiative, with a real passion to constantly improve what we do and offer a market-leading L&D offer and people experience
• Previous experience of working with a hybrid workforce globally is highly desirable
• Skill and experience in personally facilitating training sessions and workshops
• Experience of implementing platforms/leveraging technology so that learning events have greater reach and impact
• Experience of being data-driven and tracking metrics, creating MI packs and drawing narratives from data
• Future-focus and wanting to live at the cutting edge of L&D (especially embracing emergent best practices and tech).

P.s. we try really hard to make sure that we list only essential criteria here, BUT if you think you can do an amazing job, yet don't have every single thing on this list, we'd still love to hear from you.

What you'll be doing

We pride ourselves on creating challenging and exciting opportunities, meaning that no two days are the same. However, here's an idea of what your responsibilities will look like:

Strategic Leadership

• Devise an L&D strategy that aligns to the overall People Strategy and business goals.
• Update and revise the group learning offering into a clear roadmap in line with that strategy, which excites and engages people at all levels and in all parts of the business to foster our high-performing culture and encourage personal development.
• Working closely with our Talent Resource Manager, undertake internal and external research to understand the capabilities of the present and future workforce and devise solutions to ensure that SMG remains at the forefront of change and global expansion.
• Advise leaders and People Experience colleagues on how to address learning needs effectively and creatively, focusing on scalability and continuing to provide excellent results.
• Partner with business leaders across our agencies to identify skill gaps/development needs and design appropriate L&D programs to support.
• Mentor and coach junior People team practitioners to upskill them on all things Learning & Development, helping them identify learning needs.
• Lead our internal training champions (SMG University team) to deliver best-in-class internal programs throughout the year.

Learning Design/training / Programmes

• Design and deliver high quality training programmes, ensuring alignment to wider internal frameworks (career pathways, review systems) to personalise professional development & increase engagement.
• Create learning content which is contemporary and compelling, leveraging external suppliers and internal resources and work with wider SMG learning champions throughout the business to do the same.
• Manage our learning management platform (LMS) to ensure it’s an inspiring & user friendly system, finding creative ways to get engagement across the business to utilise as a learning tool.
• Design and collate resources which support learning programmes (e.g. templates, scripts, process documents, manuals, walk-through videos), and finding a “home” for all things learning.
• Support the work of the People Team in crafting and delivering (where appropriate) learning events which build employee and line manager capability.
• Ensure mandatory training across multiple areas such as compliance, data security and HR is effectively delivered and monitored, working with Next15 to create a learning map across the year for roll out.
• Devise and implement bespoke programmes for Talented Employees, High Potential Employees
• Assist in the design and delivery of Early Careers & Mentoring programmes ensuring that components are appropriate for the target audience, supporting the launch across all or some agencies through effective partnering with leads.
• Lead on the planning and execution of events which have a significant learning component (e.g. Learning Week) in collaboration with colleagues in Culture.
• Take ownership for the Onboarding Programmes globally (both structure and content) ensuring that new starters get up to speed with formidable time-to-effectiveness while enjoying the ride.
• Support the in-office and hybrid experience by devising and delivering learning events/programmes for team members (e.g. personal effectiveness, using video platforms and collaboration tools effectively).

Technology & Suppliers

• Establish and maintain a PSL of suppliers in the training and coaching space for deployment when appropriate.
• In collaboration with People Ops colleagues, administrate and curate the L&D tech stack.
• Continually evaluate opportunities for leveraging technology and AI in the pursuit of providing high quality, accessible and effective learning/training solutions.
• Facilitate learning events run by external suppliers or internal colleagues where required

Learning Effectiveness

• Maintain appropriate systems for measurement of L&D programs effectiveness, presenting back to the business to help shape future L&D initiatives.
• Monitoring the usage of our University Fund & create a library of external training for employees to consider.
• Evaluate all learning activity and assess its effectiveness, looping learnings back into strategy development.
• Continually review current content and structure of learning content to ensure that it is relevant and up-to-date.
• Report on metrics related to L&D activity to the People Director and EC.
• Support the monitoring of learning activity, leaning on colleagues in People Operations (updating the HRIS, attendance/cancellation records, completing learning logs etc.).

Other

• Work with colleagues in marketing to tell compelling stories about L&D activity and bring to life how L&D programmes contribute to our award-winning culture and individual career progression.
• Maintain a stock and supply of learning aids and materials (e.g. post-its, flashcards, workshop materials, flipcharts etc.).
• Leverage support and content offered from our parent company, Next15.
• Manage the L&D budget balancing quality with impact and reach., putting forward business cases where needed.
• Get to understand our SMGers and what they want through ongoing needs analysis, to ensure learning is relevant, engaging and focused on individual needs.

More information and resources to support you & your application...

• To find out more about our agencies and departments, click here.
• To find out more about our application & interview process and supporting you through this, click here.
• To find out more about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at SMG, click here.
• To take a look at our FAQ's, click here.

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