Creative Director

Closing date: 4 April 2010
Interview date: 15 April 2010

Introduction
Role profile
Background
How to apply
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Introduction

Starting salary up to £38,150 - 35 hours - London

Friends of the Earth inspires solutions to environmental problems, which makes life better for people.

We are looking for a motivated and creative individual to lead an award winning team charged with driving forward our creative communications. This is a hands-on role in an exciting environment.

If you have a proven track record of leading on an organisation's creative strategy, are passionate about creative communications and would like to use your skills to help us win campaigns, this is the job for you.

Supplementary information:

The Creative Communications Team is responsible for the development, production and promotion of Friends of the Earth's messages through the most effective creative media, including stills photos, video work, printed items, merchandise, campaign banners and placards, exhibition and display material, props for actions and Fundraising and PR events. The team also has a role as the guardian of the organisation's visual identity and is responsible for its implementation and development.

This award winning team brings together expertise in creative design and in promotional events and we are looking for an experienced creative who can help integrate these disciplines to maximise the impact of both to help build Friends of the Earth's brand and to support our campaigns, fundraising and activism work.

The Creative Communications team consists of the Creative Director who is the team leader and responsible for managing the following staff:

Promotion and Events Manager

Two Events Officers (managed by the Events and Promotions Manager)
Photo Library Officer
Print & Production Manager
Two Designers

The Creative Communications team works closely with the Publishing and New Media team and the Communications and Media team to deliver impactful communications for the organisation as a whole.

We are looking for someone who has a track record in leading an organisation's creative strategy and can inspire the Creative Communications team and staff across Friends of the Earth about new creative approaches. You will be required to work with all channels to produce innovative, brave and conceptually driven ideas and have a hands-on role in realising them.

You will have the exciting challenge of leading the development of Friends of the Earth's visual identity as part of our brand positioning, defining the look and feel of the brand through our all our creative communications.

You will be a strong and confident line manager of staff who can guide, coach, manage performance and set realistic development targets for the team, helping them to deliver outstanding creative communications to support Friends of the Earth's goals.

Role profile

Role: Creative Director	Home team : Creative Communications
Purpose of role: To strategically develop Friends of the Earth's creative communications and maximise their effectiveness as an integrated package to help deliver Friends of the Earth's strategic aims.	Reports to: Head of Communications
Required to perform a combination of the following, depending on team/unit and experience: Deliver outcomes: Ensure that Friends of the Earth's agreed positioning and visual identity is developed and implemented consistently across our creative communications. Lead on the research and development of new creative media for campaigning, communications and fundraising. Ensure the production of effective and innovative creative resources to meet Friends of the Earth's strategic objectives. Manage the financial resources of the team/programme/project/area of work; preparing regular financial forecasts for the activities; managing expenditure to obtain best value for money for Friends of the Earth and in accordance with Friends of the Earth 's financial policies and procedures. Lead and scope substantial projects that may involve a project team acting as manager to the members of the project team with respect to project work and ensuring planning, budgeting (if needed), monitoring, internal communications and reporting on the project in accordance with Project Management Guidelines. Develop others: Lead, manage and motivate staff in line with our best practice management standards, supervise regularly, monitor and appraise, coach and support individual development. Provide advice and information to inform internal strategic planning; advise senior Friends of the Earth staff on the implications of visual communications developments for Friends of the Earth's strategic objectives, and promote creative communications throughout Friends of the Earth. Advise on creative communications training needs for Friends of the Earth staff, local groups and volunteers Build relationships: Work with others across Friends of the Earth to promote and implement the visual identity and high creative standards. Build relationships in the creative services industry to support the development of our creative communications. Attend and/or represent Friends of the Earth at internal and external conferences relevant to creative communications. Ideas and solutions: Proactively research the market for new ideas, technical innovations and opportunities for Friends of the Earth to develop its creative communications. Use creative skills to develop and implement effective creative communications for Friends of the Earth's needs, both with and through others. Demonstrate problem solving capabilities in order to come up with solutions to technical and non-technical problems, and to managing the team's and own workload. Ongoing input into the development of team knowledge and team ways of working.	Expertise: Needs to have: Demonstrable experience of leadership, development and guardianship for an organisation's visual identity. Demonstrable experience of creativity and sense of what makes good creative communications. Demonstrable experience of applying creative skills to: print, stills, moving images, new media, exhibition and events design. Proven experience of managing a creative services team. Experience of team development and leadership including effective participative project working. Experience of producing a range of creative resources, for a range of audiences. Excellent interpersonal skills, including diplomacy and negotiation skills. Excellent communication skills (written, verbal and listening), including excellent visual awareness. Experience of budgeting and monitoring expenditure. Focus of expertise: Apply specialist expertise and planning, coordination and project management skills to deliver a creative service to Friends of the Earth. Focus of development: Keeping abreast of new techniques that increase the appeal and cost effectiveness of Friends of the Earth's creative materials. Maximise the impact of Friends of the Earth's creative communications by using innovative creative technology/mechanisms. Knowledge and understanding of environmental issues.
Career stage: Guiding	Levels: 1 - 5, reference at 3
Other essential requirements for the role-holder: N/A Role specific requirements: N/A

Background information

Salary
The starting salary if you are based in London is in a range from £33,400 to £38,150 a year.

The top of the salary range for this role is £43,050 a year. If you are employed to work less than a full time 35 hour week your pay will be based on the number of hours you work as a percentage of full time.

We have a competence based career stages pay structure. Each competence level relates to a pay level.

Based on what you demonstrate during the recruitment process, we gather evidence to assess the level of competence on our career stage structure that you already fully meet. We pay you at this level. Please note: we do not negotiate your pay level.

After you join, you can progress your pay by demonstrating increased competence at annual appraisal against the criteria for the career stages associated with your role profile.

Pension / Life Assurance
You can join our group personal pension scheme after three months service. You can choose from a range of socially responsible funds. We will match your contributions up to a maximum of seven per cent of salary but you may contribute more if you want to build your pension up.

Friends of the Earth also provides life assurance for all employees, to pay out 4 x your annual salary in the event of your death while you are employed by us.

Place of work
You will be based at our Head Office in Old Street

Hours of work
35 hours per week. Friends of the Earth operates a flexi time scheme with normal core office
hours of between 10.00-12.30 and 14.30-16.30, within a working time bandwidth of 07.00-20.00.
You are entitled to an unpaid lunch break of between 30 minutes and two hours.

If you need to work evenings and/or weekends, you should record it through the time recording system.

Holiday
The holiday year at Friends of the Earth runs from 1 January to 31 December each year. Holiday entitlement is initially 25 days paid holiday per year. You can accrue an extra day’s holiday entitlement, up to a maximum of 30 days, for every full year of continuous employment at the beginning of the holiday year (1 January). You are also entitled to paid time off for public holidays. There are some exceptions to this such as when you are on maternity / adoption leave or long term leave of absence.

Diversity and equal opportunities
We give all applications fair consideration. We have a Diversity Forum to drive us forward to being a more diverse organisation in all we do.

We regret that Friends of the Earth does not yet have full wheel chair access.

Working culture
Everything we do, from the day to day operational work to strategic planning, is done with a commitment to participation.

It works for us. We want you to feel involved in all that we do: able to contribute to decision making in ways that make sense and work for you. You can choose not to participate but if you don’t you still have to accept decisions that we take in this way.

It’s an opportunity and a responsibility. We all

accept responsibility with authority and accountability for their actions
act as leaders and visionaries
participate and contribute in an appropriate way at the appropriate times
actively follow through on decisions made through agreed processes, even if they do not agree with the outcome
are willing to be swayed by others
exert self-discipline
praise and challenge themselves and others, rather than waiting for feedback from on high
exhibit respect for others in the organisation
are transparent in the way they do things
show trust and confidence in each other
respect expertise
celebrate success and talk up their organisation internally as well as externally
provide constructive feedback
recognise the importance of communication and sharing information across teams

Loans
We offer interest free loans to all staff for the following:
Season ticket - up to £5,000
Bicycle - up to £5,000 to buy a pedal bicycle for travel to and from work
Personal Development - up to £2,000 to pay for courses, qualifications etc that we do not directly fund
Total of all loans cannot exceed £5,000, the current taxable limit.

Childcare vouchers
You can sacrifice some of your gross salary to buy vouchers for childcare. This can be worth doing as you don’t have to pay tax or National Insurance contributions on the value of the vouchers.

Removal expenses
If you have to move home to be able to take up employment with Friends of the Earth you can claim up to £3000 removal expenses, payable on submission of receipts. For further information and to find out if you qualify contact Human Resources.

Discount card
You can get a card which allows you discounts at local leisure centres.

Online Shop
Our online Shop stocks an extensive range of reading materials on environmental issues from the political to the practical. Staff and volunteers are entitled to 30% off ALL titles sold in the Shop. Log onto www.foe.co.uk/shop

Flexible Working
We consider applications for flexible working arrangements from staff with at least six months service. This can be:

Reduced hours: where we agree that you can work fewer contractual hours than in your current role.
Job Sharing: where we agree that two people can share the same role.
Changing Office Location: where we agree that you can work from a different Friends of the Earth office.

Background information
Friends of the Earth is making life better for people by inspiring solutions to environmental problems.

We are:

the UK's most influential national environmental campaigning organisation
the most extensive environmental network in the world, with almost one million supporters across five continents and over 70 national organisations worldwide
a unique network of campaigning local groups, working in over 220 communities throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland
dependent on individuals for over 90 % of its income.

Organisational structure
We employ about 150 paid staff, based mainly in our London Head Office. We also have a Supporter Care unit in Luton and smaller regional offices in major cities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Volunteers play a vital role in our success as an organisation and we currently have around 75 volunteers working in our national and regional offices.

We are led by an Organisational Management Team (OMT) of our Executive Director and other staff who bring the necessary strategic and operational expertise to ensure we achieve our Strategic Plan. We do this through activities and programmes of work, mostly in cross-functional teams. Members of the OMT have individual responsibilities to ensure the delivery of specific activities and collective responsibilities for ensuring the delivery of the whole plan.

All staff member are part of a ‘home team’, led by a team leader who provides professional support and development, coaching and other line management functions.

We are embarking on a new and exciting 5 year strategic plan to take us to 2013.

Here are the strategic aims we want to achieve over the next 5 years.

Biodiversity and ecosystem services
To halt biodiversity loss and reverse the loss of ecosystem services by 2030 at the global, regional and national levels, in ways that protect the rights of people who depend on ecosystem services and enhance the sustainable use of natural habitats.
Climate change
To get global concentrations of greenhouse gases on a trajectory to prevent average global temperatures exceeding 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels by promoting solutions, including the securing of legal and economic frameworks to reduce emissions in an equitable way and in a way that does not undermine biodiversity objectives
Sustainable Economies and Resource Use
Identify the major transformations that must be made to the UK economy and economic policy, and secure actions to achieve these - so that we respect global environmental limits, ensure fair access to resources and pollution capacities, and deliver well-being to all people; and help catalyse transformations to the global economy. And implement improvements to UK and EU resource use.
Rights
To secure a substantive right to a healthy environment in UK law; strengthen the Aarhus procedural rights; and empower people to use their environmental rights.
Delivering Sustainable Development in Nations and Regions
Make a significant shift towards sustainable development in regions and nations, and assist the move towards Sustainable Development in the UK, predominantly through the delivery of the low carbon communities campaign but also assisting in the delivery of resource use, biodiversity and rights solutions as identified in other Aims and, where necessary, responding to significant cases of environmental injustices affecting those campaign areas.
International
Through effective collaboration with others secure a strong and co-ordinated FOEI federation that wins international campaigns on mutually agreed programmes.
Reputation and Reach
Through the delivery of the Brand Strategy: ensure that Friends of the Earth’s prioritised audiences recognise Friends of the Earth as the leading organisation that involves people in campaigning for solutions to the global sustainability challenges and makes life better for people.
Supporter Development Aim
To maximise the value and commitment of all the people who support us.
Activism
In the UK, Friends of the Earth is supporting and empowering its expanded activist networks to act with sufficient force to achieve its campaign aims.
As a result, substantially more people in the UK feel empowered to take political action for environmental solutions.
Fundraising
To create a secure and stable income base for the organisation, sufficient to implement the strategic plan
Organisational Development
Friends of the Earth is fit for purpose to deliver the strategic plan.

How to apply

We want staff to share this vision and join in our success. We aim to recruit the best person for any vacancy. We communicate our vacancies widely and openly and are committed to giving all applicants fair consideration.

We use the information you give us in your application form to decide whether to invite you to interview. We want you to do the best application you can. Here's some guidance to help you.

First

Role profile first. This sets out what we are looking for under specific headings which we call the competencies of this role. You need to relate your experience to these same headings which appear on the application form.
Introduction (and supplementary information). This tells you about the work you will be doing if you are successful.
Background – the terms and conditions of this role and some of the benefits of working here

Applying

The headings in the application form match those in the role profile. Think about how well your knowledge, skills and abilities fit what we are looking for in the role profile and supplementary information. Don't just tell us that you have the skills listed in the role profile or say that you believe you can do the job. Under each of the headings please give us real examples of what you did, when and how you did it and what part you personally played.

Check you are free to come on the planned interview date. If not, please tell us on your application why you can't come and tell us when you are free to come.

Keep a copy of your application form before you submit it online or post it to us.

We send an automated email in response to online applications but can't acknowledge posted forms.

We encourage online applications but you can also download a copy of the application form as a PDF and post it to us.

Shortlisting

At least two people assess how closely your application matches what we are looking for and decide the interview shortlist. We contact shortlisted candidates by phone and ask them to come to interview.

Interviews

If we invite you for an interview we will ask you in more detail about what you have done so you might want to remind yourself what you wrote in your application and be able to talk to the interview panel about it. We often ask candidates to do a job-related exercise to help us assess their competence in particular areas; some are given unseen on the day of the interview, others you will be told about in advance of the interview so you can prepare. When we ask you to interview we will tell you if you will have to do an exercise. If we haven't contacted you by the interview date your application has not been successful.

Feedback

If we interview you, we will let you know the outcome and are happy to give feedback if you would like this. Many of our vacancies are very popular and unfortunately we don't have the resources to be able to offer feedback to you if you were not shortlisted.

Work History Please list below your working history starting with your current or most recent job and work backwards. Say where you have worked, start and end dates, your job title and if this was paid or voluntary work. If there are any significant gaps please explain these. You do not need to tell us in this section about your skills as you can do that later.
Employer	Start	End	Job title	Employee/Volunteer/Note