Senior User Researcher

Role: Senior User Researcher

Hours: 35 hours/ week

Salary: Paying up to £53, 761. Any offer made above this will be made up with a market supplement allowance

This role will be open for closing on the Tuesday 23^rd May 2023.

Summary

Royal Greenwich is a vibrant borough, with a rich history and diverse community. We're proud of the work we do to serve our residents.

We have a vision of a happier, healthier and more connected borough. To achieve this, we're investing heavily in our digital services and we've published our first ever digital strategy. It's what shapes what we're working on for the next four years and beyond.

It's an exciting time to join us. We're searching for people-focused digital and data experts to join our new team. We're focused on improving services for our residents and making our borough truly digital. There's plenty of opportunity for you to have your say and help shape our work.

Read our blog to find out more about who we are and what we're working on.

The Role

The Senior User Researcher will lead research activities focused on a specific user journey, project, or workstream for the borough. They will be responsible for ensuring all of our work is rooted in a deep understanding of users and what they need. Our users pool at Royal Greenwich is complex, you could be working with staff, residents, businesses, landlords and front-line staff (to name a few).

We're looking for somebody who is happy to work in a complex, and also political setting to help services at Royal Greenwich make better decisions and solve real problems for people based on your research. The work will see you getting out there, speaking to staff or community groups, or attending local coffee mornings, and then turning conversations into actionable, and impressive insights.

You'll be expected to ensure quality, innovation and creativity in how we approach all aspects of user research and how we then play those back. You'll be an advocate for user-centered design and support challenges on the impact and need for good user research. Outside of your day to day project work, you'll be experienced in helping others learn best practice user researcher to help them get started. You'll also be expected to grown our User Research Community of Practice by expanding knowledge, upskilling team members, and challening our ways of working. You will also have the opportunity to line manage mid-weight members of staff.

What You'll Do

• Identify and build strong relationships with stakeholders across the council, influencing and collaborating with them to improve their understanding of user centred design.


• Mostly design qualitative research to maximise insight in fast paced, agile environments (we tend to work more qualitatively but want to hear from those who have quantitative experience too)


• Create and improve user-centred research practices based on the type of projects we do


• Manage relationships between your team and others to ensure consistency and share good research practice and skills


• Engage in meaningful interactions and collaborative relationships with other councils to ensure we're sharing our knowledge and learning from others too (given we share the same problems)


• Synthesise research findings rapidly using appropriate tools and techniques to create user needs, user stories, and user journeys


• Bring insights and learnings to life for colleagues in the most appropriate way(s), including through presentations and printed or online artefacts, but also through quick-fire feedback more informal sessions

Who You Are

We want to hear from people who have experience of the following:

• Getting out there and running workshops, interviews, shadowing, guerrilla research (and facilitating other team members to do the same)


• Understanding ethical and best practice research, with the ability to get stakeholders (not familiar with user research) on board


• Inclusive research - thinking about who you are talking to, the impact this may have on their lives and power dynamics in our practice


• Being able to do both qualitative and quanititative research based on the problem you're trying to solve


• Making complex research learnings simple and easy to understand, ensuring stakeholders can use your research to make a well evidenced decision


• Giving direction on which tools or methods to use to solve a particular problem.

You Should Be

• Somebody who can get out to do research by looking at a problem and providing the team with 'just enough' and the right information to move forward in a project (not somebody who thrives for perfection)


• Naturally curious - you keep on top of your own learning and development and are up to date with the latest techniques and trends in your field


• An advocate for user-centered practices, and able to embed research into agile delivery


• Able to explain complex technical concepts in plain language to facilitate other people to do their own research


• Committed to improving residents' lives


• Able to demonstrate respect and fairness


• Taking ownership or projects


• Take on feedback in a constructive way to enhance practice


• Able to let go of ego, and be up for the challenge of working in a complex environment, working closely with a team (not in a silo)


• Willing to collaborate with services in the council, and local community organisations

These values are important to us, as is building an environment that promotes knowledge, equality, and skill sharing.

Please keep reading:

At Royal Borough of Greenwich we want our staff to thrive professionally. We are a business that recognises and supports transferable skills and ambition.

If you think you have what it takes, but don't necessarily meet every single point on the job description please still get in touch. We'd love to have a chat.

We create a diverse workforce and positively encourage applications from under-represented communities. We embrace equality of opportunity irrespective of disability, neurodivergence, ethnic origin, colour, nationality, gender and gender presentation, marital status, sexual orientation, culture, and religion.

As a Disability Confident employer, we will ensure that disabled applicants that meet the minimum criteria for this position will be offered an interview.

What we offer

• 28 days' annual leave,


• Flexible and hybrid working arrangements


• Mental health support, including an external counselling service


• Pension scheme


• Long service awards


• Learning and development opportunities, including apprenticeships


• Staff networks for mental health, LGBTQ+ support, racial equality and more


• Vouchers for free eye tests


• Annual season ticket loans


• Childcare voucher scheme


• Reduced-rate gym membership


• Cycle to work scheme


• Greenwich One Card which entitles you to discounts at local businesses

If you'd like an informal chat about the role, you can email Sarah Carter ( ) or book a chat via Calendly

Apply for this role.

To apply for this role, you must:

• Upload a CV


• Upload a cover letter

Things to consider when making your application.

We want to give you the best opportunity to show off your career and skills in the best way possible. Please consider the following:

• Your cover letter is a great way to help bring your CV to life. Think of it like a trail of breadcrumbs to lead us to want to interview you. It is unlikely that we'll shortlist you for an interview without a cover letter. This is your first opportunity to show us why you're right for this role, and your letter can show us how you fit the personal specification

• Your CV should be up to date, be readable and in an accessible format and pertinent to the role.


• Use your cover letter to talk about work that you are proud of, your values and your expectations of your next career move.


• If you are called for interview (see below), look at the presentation and interview questions within the context of what you've already shared about yourself and think about how you can build on that foundation.

To apply, select the "Apply for this job" button.

Hiring process

Step 1 - Upload your CV and cover letter

Step 2 - If we invite you to an interview, we will:

• Send details of the 5-10 minute presentation we'd like you to do (think of this as a bit of a pre-task to work on before the interview)

• We are keen to ensure the video interview process doesn't interfere with your ability to present your work to its best effect. Your presentation can be talking direct to camera, slides, a PDF, or similar, and could include visual examples of your work. The panel will then ask you follow up questions.

• Send you the interview questions in advance

• This will give you the chance to think about your answers in depth and be able to talk with confidence. The questions will give you an opportunity to show how you meet the essential criteria of the job description.

• Check with you if you need any further accommodations for the interview.

Step 3 - Attend the interview. This will usually be a 1-hour video call (via Microsoft Teams) with up to 3 people like the hiring manager (who is also our Lead User Researcher), and other team members you could work with.

At the end you'll have the opportunity to ask the panel questions in return.

Royal Borough of Greenwich reserves the right to close any vacancy earlier than the advertised closing date should there be a high volume of applications received.