Anonymous

Skills

Level 7 MCIPD
Level 7 Leadership and Management (currently finishing the assignment)
Level 7 EDI Strategy course through INPD

About

I hope that my application provides you will all the information you require on my skills and experience, however, I would like to expand on some of the areas that you have suggested are important for the role, please find further details below.
I have had a lot of experience in creating newly formed HR departments and successfully integrating the department into the organisation, to ensure that we partner with the company to help achieve strategic targets. This has included auditing and action planning for improvement, recruiting, training and upskilling team members and creating and delivering a people plan to support the organisation.
I have been responsible for instilling a values led culture within Cogent Skills and worked with the CEO and wider business over the last five years to successfully create an inclusive environment that led to us being a Times Best Employer for the last two years, a culmination of hard work and a culture change that has been greatly received by Cogent employees. This work involved taking key people data and translating this data into insights and a people plan to ensure we continued to improve our employee proposition. As part of reviewing the employee value proposition, I have also embedded a talent programme, inclusive twice-yearly company away events, Job families and trees to ensure parity and openness on roles and packages and led on large scale organisational change initiatives working with my HR team to ensure successful delivery.
In the last two roles that I have undertaken, I have been tasked with leading on the people and culture strategy, to ensure that the business plan and strategic objectives could be achieved. This work was completed in partnership with the wider senior leadership team, my own team and ensuring that employee data and information was taken into account. As part of this process I also embarked on a communication piece with the wider organisation to help ensure that we were all working together to achieve the same goals, team work is highly important to me and the most effective way to communicate and gain understanding to change is by creating a compelling reason and creating buy-in. I always take time to ensure this is part of the process.
I have led on complex and important organisational change throughout my career.
Reasons for change projects have included embedding new technology, introducing agile working, ensuring the right skills and competencies are embedded into our teams and ensuring for financial reasons to ensure businesses had a viable future. I take great pride in the approach to change and my approach has meant a process where employees are treated fairly, there is minimal business risk and managers feel trained and supported. Again, ensuring there is a compelling reason that is understood and communicating well with people, keeping them at the centre of everything you do is the approach I adopt to get the best results.
Working at both Cogent Skills and SafeLives, I have worked closely with the CEO to lead on values and competency framework introductions from the board of Trustees level down through leadership and management, with all employees being involved in the values project that we embedded at Cogent Skills on the back of a new CEO joining the business. More recently at SafeLives, I introduced a Values audit throughout the employee life-cycle to identify areas we can improve on, which has supported several positive changes being introduced.
The work completed on the culture and values at Cogent Skills resulted in a more open and inclusive environment and led to us being a Times Best Employer for the last two years, a culmination of hard work and a culture change that has been greatly received by Cogent employees. This work involved taking key people data and translating this data into insights and a people plan to ensure we continued to improve our employee proposition.
I have also led on EVP (employee value proposition) reviews embedded a talent programme, and implemented a highly successful engagement plan at Cogent Skills, ensuring there is always a way for cogent employees to have a voice and have a say in how we took the charity forward.
Finally, one of the achievements I am most proud of, is the introduction of an EDI strategy and committee that led to us being nominated for best EDI Strategy at the 2024 People Management Awards. Cogent was against Aldi and another large employer, and whilst we sadly lost, the fact that a small charity was recognised for the work, progress and belief in the importance of EDI was a great achievement.
I hope this provides you with details of some of my skills and experience, I would be happy to provide further details if this would support my application.
Yours sincerely
Angela Webster