About the job

Summary

Join the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and have a future that matters: Be proud; Be challenged; Be unique.

Job description

The Challenge

The Corporate Communications team is at the heart of DIO, sharing news and information about the crucial role that DIO plays within the Ministry of Defence.

Made up of four key disciplines; Strategy and Planning, Internal Communications, External Communications and Campaigns and Marketing, we inform, engage and influence a diverse range of audiences.

We are looking for creative communications professionals to join our growing team, who will help us to continue to transform and modernise our approaches and channels.

The DIO External Affairs team has a key part in communicating with thousands of Service families and good stakeholder relations are at the heart of our work.

We are looking to recruit an experienced and enthusiastic External Affairs Officer to join our busy and vibrant team. This is an exciting post in a small, highly motivated External Affairs team within the wider Corporate Communications department.

The team is responsible for building and maintaining relationships with influential stakeholders and organisations to increase advocacy for DIO.

You will take a lead role in seeking out opportunities to build and maintain stakeholder relationships, write compelling content, and disseminate messages through stakeholder channels about DIO’s work to support the UK Armed Forces.

You will be expected to have a good understanding of a range corporate communications channels and be able to provide advice to stakeholders across the department on how to effectively use those channels to achieve their objectives.

This role would suit someone with experience in stakeholder engagement looking to work within the Government communications profession. Experience of customer account management and CRM processes to support strategic stakeholder activity is desirable.

We employ approximately 4,900 staff from a very diverse range of professions, and we work across the world; in Germany, Cyprus and the Falkland Islands, Norway, Poland, Kenya, Belize, Nepal and Oman.

Responsibilities

Main Responsibilities

The External Affairs Officer will:

• Build and maintain strong relationships with customers, suppliers, and external partners to increase advocacy for DIO.

• Manage the development of a Senior Stakeholder Management process to proactively manage and influence our reputation with a targeted list of senior stakeholders.

• Provide communications advice across the business including the Accommodation and Commercial teams to identify opportunities to cascade key messages and align activity with our key stakeholders.

• Have a good understanding of a range corporate communications channels and be able to provide advice to stakeholders across the department on how to effectively use those channels to achieve their objectives.

• Draft high quality written outputs including regular stakeholder briefings and newsletters.

• Gather customer and stakeholder insights from a range of sources including tracking social media channels

• Use insight to increase the understanding amongst DIO senior leaders and staff of customer and stakeholder perceptions of the organisation.

• Support the development of engaging communications outputs using a range of digital applications.

• Champion the continuous development of External Affairs as outlined in the GCS Modern Operating Model to establish common engagement principles and best practice to improve the quality of stakeholder engagement across DIO.

• Occasional travel to support communications activity across the Defence estate will be required.

Desirable Experience & Skills

Previous public sector experience

Professional qualification (NCTJ/CIPR/PRCA)

Membership of CIPR, CIM or PRCA

Location

Flexible.

The DIO corporate communications team is primarily based at Whittington Barracks in Lichfield (WS14 9TJ). We offer a flexible base location for this role and for candidates who wish to work more remotely, we will look to assign an alternative MOD establishment as their duty station. Some key Defence locations are listed but others will be considered.

Regular travel to the DIO HQ in Lichfield will be required, as well as visits to other Defence locations in the UK and occasionally overseas

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Government-Communications-Professional-Competency-Framework, Ideas - IOs (Civil Service Level 1&2)
• Government-Communications-Professional-Competency-Framework, Implementation - IOs (Civil Service Level 1&2)