Operational Excellence Lead

Step into a pivotal leadership role at M&S where you'll drive the transformation of our People Hub and Colleague Services. As our Operational Excellence Lead, you'll work hand-in-hand with Retail Leaders, Centers of Expertise, and People Partners to shape the future of our operations. We're searching for someone with a steadfast passion for people, change, and delivery. In this role, you’ll define the strategy for operational excellence, spearheading a dynamic team to test new concepts, refine solutions, and bring innovative ideas to life—exploring groundbreaking opportunities in both process and technology. To stay close to customers, our support teams are in the office four days a week as we believe that skills are developed through collaboration, and that spending time together makes us more creative and connected.What’s in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that – playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special…

After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household. Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days! Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business. A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance. A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills. Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing. Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family. Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family. A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work What you’ll do

Your key accountabilities will include:

Spearhead continuous improvement across the People Hub by evaluating HR processes, standardising work, improving systems, and developing a maturity framework to boost efficiency and colleague satisfaction. Drive quality assurance and manage complaints for the People Hub by using metrics for an experience-led service and integrating insights from complaint analyses into process improvements. Lead People Hub transformation initiatives by managing change, ensuring smooth transitions and effective adoption of new tools, and monitoring implementation to deliver on the business case. Collaborate with the Tech team to stay ahead of updates and fully use our systems. Identify and recommend automation and improvements across HR platforms to improve colleague experience, data management, and decision-making, ensuring our technology solutions align with HR needs and enhance service delivery. Leverage HR data to monitor critical metrics, identify trends, and drive improvements, supporting a data-driven decision-making approach. Partner with HR and business leaders to align operations with strategy, and mentor teams in achieving operational excellence. Ensure HR operations adhere to legal and regulatory requirements, mitigating risks and maintaining compliance. Who you are

Your skills and experience will include:

Understanding of Continuous Improvement techniques and their application in a shared service & HR environment The ability to simplify complex problems/messages – adjusting the approach as necessary Ability to coach colleagues to use CI methodology and toolkit Data curious – experienced in understanding data and comfortable analysing and interpreting data Strong verbal and written communication skills; evidenced with a range of business partners. Able to be both collaborative & assertive Able to story tell and present information to engage business partners, customers and peers Experienced in managing change/transformation and leading teams through this Everyone’s welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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