Group Director - People & Organisational Development

Group Director, People & Organisational Development

Location: Flexible/Hybrid
Contract: Permanent | Full-time (37.5 hours per week)
Salary: £140,000 to £180,000 plus £7,400 cash car allowance
Working pattern: Home-based with regular travel between London and Bradford

Shape culture. Develop leaders. Enable organisational success.

Anchor is seeking an exceptional people leader to join our Senior Leadership Team in this newly created role as Group Director, People & Organisational Development.

Reporting to the Executive Director, Resources, you will lead the strategic people, culture and organisational development agenda for one of England's largest not-for-profit providers of housing and care for people in later life, supporting a workforce of more than 10,000 colleagues.

This is a pivotal role, ensuring Anchor has the leadership capability, organisational culture and workforce strategy needed to deliver its long-term ambitions. Working closely with the Executive Team, Board and senior leaders, you will help shape decision-making, drive organisational effectiveness and create an environment where colleagues can thrive and deliver exceptional outcomes for customers.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the development and delivery of Anchor's People & Culture Strategy, ensuring it supports organisational priorities and future workforce needs.
• Act as the executive lead for organisational culture, colleague engagement, and experience.
• Provide strategic advice and challenge to the Executive Team and Board on workforce capability, succession, culture, and organisational effectiveness.
• Lead organisation-wide initiatives that strengthen leadership capability, talent development, and succession planning.
• Sponsor cultural and organisational transformation programmes that improve performance and support strategic change.
• Champion diversity, equity, inclusion, and colleague wellbeing as key drivers of organisational success.
• Use workforce insight and data to inform decision-making and drive measurable improvements in organisational performance.
• Build high-performing teams and foster a positive, inclusive and values-led culture.

About You

• Degree-level qualification or equivalent experience.
• Relevant senior-level professional qualification, e.g. CIPD, or demonstrable equivalent expertise
• Evidence of continuing professional development would be an advantage.
• Significant experience leading strategic people, culture or organisational development functions within a large, complex organisation.
• Experience influencing Executive Teams and Boards.
• Proven track record of leading large-scale culture and organisational transformation.
• Significant experience of employee engagement and organisational effectiveness.
• Experience of developing long-term workforce and succession strategies.
• Experience operating across regulated environments, ideally housing, care, health or public services.
• Deep understanding of organisation development, workforce strategy and employee engagement.
• Strong commercial and strategic acumen.
• Expertise in culture transformation and leadership effectiveness.

Why Anchor?

This is an opportunity to shape the culture, leadership and future workforce of an organisation with a strong social purpose and national reach. You'll play a key role in helping Anchor build an inclusive, high-performing organisation that delivers great outcomes for both colleagues and customers.

If you're a strategic and influential leader with a passion for culture, leadership and organisational performance, we'd love to hear from you.

Proof of the right to work in the UK will be required from the successful candidate in accordance with UK Home Office requirements before any offer of employment can be confirmed.

Where permission to work in the UK is required, applicants will need to hold and maintain the appropriate immigration status or visa for the duration of their employment.

Anchor – a great place to work

At Anchor, we're united by a shared purpose: helping people create a home where they love living in later life. As England's largest not-for-profit provider of housing and care for older people, every pound we make or save is reinvested into our residents, services, and colleagues.

Our values of being Accountable, Respectful, Courageous and Honest shape everything we do. They guide how we work together, support our residents and customers, and create an environment where everyone can thrive.

We're committed to helping our colleagues succeed both professionally and personally. Through our dedicated Being Well programme, you'll have access to a wide range of wellbeing, financial and lifestyle benefits designed to support you at every stage of your career and life.

What you can expect from us

• Health and wellbeing support, including free eye tests and flu jabs, access to a digital gym, virtual physiotherapy, a clinical advice line, and digital GP services, giving you practical support for your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
• Generous pension scheme, where you contribute between 4% and 8% and Anchor matches or exceeds your contribution, with employer contributions of up to 10%, plus a pension transfer service, retirement planning support and free life cover.
• The opportunity to buy or sell up to one week of annual leave each year, giving you greater flexibility to balance work and personal commitments.
• A free Blue Light Card giving you access to Shopping, travel, technology and lifestyle discounts.
• Electric car scheme, offering eligible colleagues access to a brand-new electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle through salary sacrifice, with insurance, servicing, maintenance and breakdown cover included. Subject to eligibility criteria.
• Ongoing learning and development, Leadership Pathways resources and opportunities to progress your career.

Celebrating diversity, celebrating you

Anchor is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We aim to celebrate diversity and inclusion in all that we do, as we know that the more diverse our colleagues are, the better care and support we can give to our residents and each other.  

We are proud to have an inclusion group for our residents, as well as colleague networks for disability, LGBTQ+, race and ethnicity, and unpaid carers. These work to celebrate diversity, address concerns, review policy and practice and empower their members.  We also have an Inclusive Ambassador network to allow all colleagues to be part of promoting diversity and to be an ally to others.

We are a Gold Standard Inclusive Employer, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, signatory to the Care Leaver Covenant, LGBTQ+ Housing Pledge Pioneers and members of the Age Friendly Employer Pledge.