Employee Experience Consultant

About the role

Employee Experience Consultant

Fixed Term, Full Time

£44,469 - £52,316 per annum

Location: Chelmsford

Closing Date:14th September 2025

*This is a hybrid-working role, with attendance in the Chelmsford office expected to be 1-2 days per week on average, depending on business need.

Please note this role will be offered on a fixed-term contract or secondment basis for 6 months.

This is an exciting time of change at Essex County Council. We are progressing devolution and local government reorganisation (LGR), and this work will evolve at pace over the next few months towards a Mayoral election in May 2026. As an Employee Experience Consultant, you will play a pivotal role in this, working to ensure our people feel connected, supported, and heard throughout the journey. You’ll help foster a culture of community and belonging, using insight and sentiment to shape meaningful experiences and maintain strong levels of engagement across the organisation.

The Employee Experience Consultant helps enable the success of the organisational strategy by ensuring employee voice is integrated into all people interventions to enable the organisation to proactive respond to changing employee expectations and contribute towards creating a culture where employees can be their authentic self at work, fostering a sense of belonging and creating a connection which enables them to fulfil their potential and provide the best level of service to residents.

This role identifies, designs and executes a comprehensive range of holistic employee experience and engagement activities that provide insight to help inform and track progress against our employee engagement, talent management, wellbeing, reward, organisational development and equality, diversity and inclusion strategies, proactively contributing to the successful delivery of the people plan and underlying workforce strategy ensuring that interventions foster greater employee engagement, build a positive and inclusive work environment and positively contribute towards the council’s organisational culture, behaviours and people development goals.

The employee experience consultant supports delivery of the organisational strategy by leading focus groups, employee networks, workplace ambassadors and other workplace communities. This role will utilise their professional expertise to understand organisational priorities and reflect these in engagement and recognition activities in order to increase employee voice and develop the organisations culture and people priorities, building trusting relationships as well as collating and evaluating feedback, delivering persuasive arguments to help shape a working environment to meet future organisational needs and deliver the best possible employee experience.

As an employee experience consultant, you will lead on the delivery of communication plans to enhance awareness and active participation in employee programmes to ensure coverage across the whole organisation, proactively identifying ways to ensure representation from the diverse range of services across the council.

You will manage employee surveys and undertake the analysis of employee feedback from a broad range of technology sources and activities throughout the employee lifecycle in order to positively contribute to the delivery of the organisational strategy and underlying enabler plans.

This role requires effective collaboration across People and Organisation Development and the entire organisation, working closely with the People Business Partners and People Leads to ensure the successful development and delivery of the people plan, workforce strategy and associated people interventions, taking ownership for the implementation and evaluation of essential workforce initiatives across the council which benefit our employees, the organisation and positively impact on service users and our residents, demonstrating professional proficiency through the application of the consultancy model at a professional standard

Accountabilities

Influence and drive the design, implementation and evaluation of a range of people initiatives that amplify employee voice and improve the employee experience, increasing employee engagement, improving employee recognition and fostering collaboration in order to build greater connection to the organisation, applying the full consultancy cycle to provide a service which supports delivery, professionalism and productivity.

Build proactive relationships with employee networks and other workplace communities to support the delivery of the organisational development, wellbeing, EDI, reward, talent management and employee engagement strategies and associated initiatives to contribute towards organisational goals.

Manage highly complex and difficult conversations. Present, explain, motivate, engage, influence, persuade and challenge at all levels.

Take ownership for the procurement of employee research services and management of employee surveys and other means of listening to and engaging with Essex County Council (ECC) employees. Undertaking robust and detailed analysis, ensuring results are evaluated effectively and assessed against KPI’s to determine success and impact, successfully driving evidence-based practice and data driven decision making. Update People Leads and senior managers on the impact of change from a cultural perspective and preparing comprehensive reports highlighting results and signposting areas for improvement to continuously improve people interventions and meet the evolving needs of employees.

Partner with People and OD teams to integrate employee experience insight and professional expertise into leadership and management development, increasing capability and ensuring alignment with the overall people plan and workforce strategy including the EDI, wellbeing and reward agendas.

Execute a comprehensive events calendar, including employee roadshows, workshops, team-building activities, focus groups, awareness campaigns, employee recognition, training sessions, and large-scale learning and/or recruitments events (e.g., LearnFest), ensuring this is communicated effectively to build engagement and ensure participation from a diverse range of services across the organisation. Lead on the coordination of invitations and utilising social media and various communication channels to create awareness and excitement around upcoming events to positively impact on the employee experience and increase ECC’s ability to attract and retain the talent and skills required across the council.

Build relationships with People Leads, internal stakeholders, external speakers, and subject matter experts to ensure the success of employee activities and events, integrating organisational development principles into the design of each initiative, ensuring that activities contribute to employee skill development, team cohesion, and overall workplace satisfaction.

Ensure that people strategies are aligned to enhance employee engagement and the reputation of the Council, providing advice and guidance to facilitate and influence change programmes and people initiatives to help create a culture of understanding of employee engagement that develops the Council’s vision of a high performing organisation and improve employee experience.

Use professional expertise and high standards to promote how the People & Organisational Development service can add value to the business by recommending improvements in current policies and practices, to challenge current thinking and drive greater commitment to alternative approaches or solutions contributing to continuous improvement of people services.

Regularly updates knowledge and skills to meet the evolving standards set by the CIPD. Integrate the CIPD profession map and its framework into all actions, including participation in continuous professional development activities and ensuring that ECC’s HR practices and strategies are in accordance with the CIPD's ethical guidelines.

The Experience You Will Bring

Educated to degree level in a relevant professional field such as Human Resources, Psychology or equivalent by experience.
Professional membership of CIPD at Chartered level or working towards this. Evidence of continuing professional development and expert knowledge in relevant professional area.
Demonstrable experience of successfully planning, delivering, and evaluating employee engagement, organisational development, change management, event management and communications programmes and initiatives, with an understanding of organisational development principles and their application in a large, complex, matrix organisation
Strong organisational and project management skills, with attention to detail and the ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously to ensure successful execution.
Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to engage with a range of partners and stakeholders, clearly articulate messages to a range of audiences with differing levels of understanding.
Able to confidently manage multiple stakeholders’ expectations. Knowledge and expertise of research methodologies (including feedback and questioning techniques) to obtain meaningful responses and data, utilising quantitative or qualitative methodology in designing questionnaires or running focus groups with demonstrable experience of using this in a complex matrix management environment.
Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, including strong use of Office 365 tools with the ability to translate insights into actionable recommendations.
Strong working knowledge of current business technology with the ability to work with necessary presentation, communication and social media technologies

Further Information

In February 2025, Greater Essex was accepted onto the Government’s devolution priority programme, which will see local authorities in Essex work towards establishing a Mayoral Combined County Authority by May 2026. You can read more about devolution and local government reorganisation (LGR) on our careers site.

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our Recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process. We’re also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

Once you’ve secured your role within Essex County Council you will receive many great employee benefits, including support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.

At Essex County Council, we value integrity and ethical behaviour. We kindly ask that you embrace our code of conduct and the Nolan principles, including throughout the recruitment process. Your commitment to these standards helps us maintain a positive and respectful workplace for everyone.

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.

If you would like to be kept up to date on other relevant opportunities, blogs, news, events and industry related news at Essex County Council, please join The Essex Talent Community

If you have queries on this role or require anything further, please email resourcing.team@essex.gov.uk

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