Business Improvement Lead

Job Introduction

An opportunity is available for a Business Improvement Lead role within the Business Improvement team for a period of up to 12 months. You will preferably be based at the Leicester depot but any East Midlands depot would be acceptable.

The role will develop and pilot new ways of working, addressing the improvement opportunities identified by NGED colleagues. The Business Improvement Lead will lead and manage a number of key projects across operational regions and business functions within NGED, designed to help deliver against our business plan for ED2 and to ensure affordability for our customers, implementing and embedding sustainable change to deliver improvements that ensure unit cost targets are achieved and our performance is as required. This work will also be contributing to preparation for ED3 to ensure a positive outcome from Ofgem in 2028.

While much of the programme is focused on our front-line delivery and operational field force, it also includes working with and managing projects for other areas of the business, including Connections, Customer Excellence, Asset Management, NGED support functions and Procurement and so great stakeholder and project management is key.

As part of our hybrid working approach this role offers a mix of office and home working. Hybrid working can only be considered once your initial training is complete and subject to business need.

Degree level education or equivalent business experience is essential for the role.

Main Responsibilities

• Identify and implement business improvements and initiatives. Lead and manage the initiatives as projects, to deliver efficient and sustainable improvements to ways of working.
• Create business plans and define the impact business decisions have on performance, people, processes, systems and budgets.
• Build comprehensive implementation project plans ensuring that there are clearly defined milestones linked to value delivery, business cases and clear business led ownership of initiatives including resource profiles.
• Manage a small team of Business Improvement Specialists, whose primary role is to deploy and embed operational efficiency across all areas of the organisation.
• Work closely with the business leadership teams to assess the change impact across NGEDs transformation, identify key interventions required, deliver training and coaching on change management and process improvement techniques.
• Work independently and across the business stakeholders to implement business improvement that leads to sustained change through our people and processes, ensuring change is embraced, adopted, and embedded.
• Measure and monitor the ongoing effectiveness of plans, analysing results and running change readiness surveys across NGED.
• Support the leadership teams with programme management and process improvement initiatives.
• Accountable for the production of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) at all levels within NGED ensuring cascade of KPIs and alignment to the business objectives.

Ideal Candidate

A strong understanding of best practice in Business Improvement and Change Management and knowledge in project management and programme management experience is essential. You will also need to have a knowledge of Lean principles, process efficiency and rework.

The successful candidate should have excellent stakeholder engagement skills, working across all levels of the organisation with good facilitation skills for workshop delivery and Practical experience of training, development, and coaching others in the practical application of quality techniques, for example developing best practice and knowledge sharing initiatives.

You ideally should have a broad understanding of the NGED business, its financial strategy or have the ability to grasp this quickly as well as have an understanding of business and customer needs with foresight and action planning.

Be Able To Consistently Live Our Company Values – Do The Right Thing, Find a Better Way And Make It Happen. As a Leader, You Are Expected To Strongly Demonstrate Our Manager Essentials

• Create belonging: Build a trusting team environment, where all are equally welcomed and diversity is valued. Be open and genuine. Care for yourself and others. Meet regularly and meet well.
• Set direction: Be clear on what needs to be done, why, when and by whom. Clearly communicate your team’s part to play and how it fits into the big picture. Cut through complexity.
• Drive change: Make change happen. Shape, own and land change. Align with other leaders, build commitment to the change.
• Deliver results: Make sure that you and the team take ownership to deliver as promised, in line with our values and behaviours. Inspire and motivate others, build momentum, create energy for action.
• Develop others: Support, challenge and develop every member of the team so they can perform at peak and reach their potential. Pay attention to your own development.

National Grid Electricity Distribution is committed to safeguarding the interests of the Company, colleagues and customers. This role is subject to a satisfactory Barring Service, (DBS) check, depending on the role different levels of screening and vetting are required. Some roles require a triannual check.

About Us

We’re National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED), the owner and operator behind the electricity distribution systems for the Midlands, the Southwest of England and South Wales. Serving communities of more than 8 million people, our expert teams deliver heat, light and power for homes and businesses.

National Grid employs over 29,000 people worldwide. We are building an inclusive workplace, a place to actively celebrate the cultures, personalities and preferences of our colleagues – who in turn help to build the success of our business and reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. Our vision is to be at the heart of a clean, fair and affordable energy future and we are doing this in a fast-moving industry with an increasing focus on tackling climate change, exploring new energy sources that are renewable, low carbon, and improve efficiency to meet demand.