Change Manager

Howden Group Holdings; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Travel opportunities

Job summary

Howden Group Holdings is seeking a Change Manager to drive business change for the Workday Financials programme from its Central London office with a hybrid pattern. The role requires proactive change leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and travel to support implementation across Europe.

The candidate will plan change activities, manage stakeholders at all levels, assess readiness, and coordinate communications and training. A 12-month fixed-term contract is involved."

Qualifications

• Experience delivering change for complex global programmes.
• Excellent relationship management and interpersonal skills with senior stakeholders.
• Strong communication skills, able to craft clear content for diverse audiences.
• Certification in change management is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deliver the change strategy and interventions for the Workday Financials programme.
• Undertake stakeholder mapping, analyse resistance, and mitigates risk to adoption.
• Conduct change impact assessments and determine readiness criteria with key stakeholders.
• Coordinate communications plans and ensure timely, aligned messaging across teams.
• Collaborate with training specialists to design and deploy user-focused training.
• Measure adoption using KPIs and adapt tactics to improve outcomes.
• Maintain an integrated delivery plan with PMO and workstream leads.
• Lead hyper-care comms and post go-live engagement efforts.

Skills

Change management

Stakeholder management

Communication skills

Workday Financials experience

Tools

Workday Financials

Job description

Who are we?

Howden is a global insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mindset, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 24,000 employees spanning over 56 countries. People join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It’s what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down headhunters for years. Whatever your priorities – work / life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering – you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.

About the role

Howden is embarking on an exciting global digital transformation which is a key strategic enabler of the 30:30 vision. We are seeking a Change Manager who will play a pivotal role in driving business change activities across our Workday Financials programme. To support the implementation, we are looking for a proactive individual who can drive the day to day change management activities forward, working through the impacts of the changes and supporting the business with adoption.

Please note this role is initially a 12 month FTC. You will be based out of our Central London office and follow a hybrid work pattern. There will be some travel requirements with the role to support the implementation, particularly in Europe.

Role responsibilities

• Change Planning and Delivery: Work to plan and implement the change strategy, developing appropriate change management interventions to local business and country requirements (such as change impact assessment) in collaboration with the Programme Team and other Change Managers.
• Stakeholder Management: Undertake stakeholder mapping and analysis, identify potential sources of resistance to change and drive the development of strategies to mitigate resistance, ensuring a smooth transition to the new technology. Build strong relationships with stakeholders at all levels, including leadership, project teams, and end‑users, to foster engagement to the new system. Provide regular updates and reports on change progress to keep stakeholders and project governance informed and engaged throughout the implementation.
• Change Impact Assessment and Business Readiness: Using prescribed change methodology conduct thorough analysis with the Programme Team to identify and understand the impact of the change on business stakeholders and readiness. Collaborate with key stakeholders to identify and prioritise areas of impact, ensuring an understanding of the change landscape. Identify key readiness criteria with stakeholders which will underpin the Go/ No Go Decision and drive business readiness forward to ensure successful implementation.
• Communications Management: Co‑ordinate the delivery of the communication plan, ensuring timely execution at both programme and local business levels, working with our Group Communications Team, Local Communications Teams, and other Change Managers to ensure aligned messaging. Produce and maintain effective communication channels and materials. Build a network of people within the programme and business who understand and can communicate the changes to ensure teams are aware of progress and impacts throughout the project.
• Training & Development: Collaborate with training specialists to co‑ordinate the development and delivery of training programmes tailored to the needs of different user / stakeholder groups. Own and maintain the training deployment schedule through to delivery, adapting the approach in response to learner feedback, programme changes and evolving business needs.
• Metrics & Evaluation: Support the measurement of change initiatives through key performance indicators (KPIs) and regularly evaluate progress against established metrics. Use feedback and data to continuously improve change management and develop strategies as the business adopts the new collaboration and communication ecosystem.
• Adoption Reporting: Support the successful delivery of programme outcomes through adoption reporting, integrated into benefits realisation, outlining activities required to achieve successful outcomes and ensuring that outcomes are clear and reflective of the phased delivery.
• Programme / PMO: Work with PMO and workstream leads to maintain an integrated delivery plan, aligning change activities with design, testing, data migration, cutover and deployment milestones. Identifying / managing change‑related dependencies and elevate readiness risks and decisions through project/ programme governance.
• Post Go live: Accountable for hyper‑care communications and engagement, post go‑live adoption monitoring and supporting transition into go‑live and into business as usual operations.

Requirements

Previous experience in a similar change management role where you would have gained extensive experience in delivering change for complex global change programmes. Strong change management skills, with a focus on timely delivery. Experience working with teams and individuals impacted by organisational changes. Excellent relationship management and interpersonal skills and an ability to work with a variety of stakeholders and senior managers within a complex, fast paced organisation. You must have strong communication skills, with the ability to craft clear, engaging content for diverse, global audiences. Experience with Workday Financials or other finance system would be beneficial. A certification in change management is desirable.

What do we offer in return?

A career that you define. At Howden, we value diversity – there is no one Howden type. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us: Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new. We support each other in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges. We are determined to make a positive difference at work and beyond.

Reasonable adjustments

We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*. *Not all positions can accommodate changes to working hours or locations. Reach out to your Recruitment Partner if you want to know more.

Fixed Term Contract (Fixed Term)

Howden began in 1994, as just three people and a dog. Now there are 23,000 of us, and we're a leading global insurance group, managing $37bn of premiums for our clients. Our largest shareholder group is us – the people who work in the business – supported by three long‑term, minority growth‑equity partners who share our vision to build a business to last, one that will never be sold. The owner's mindset is something that's embedded in our culture; our people readily take ownership of their decisions, their actions, and their outputs. They’re invested in every sense. And we all know that by working together to drive the business forward, everyone will benefit from the extraordinary results we can achieve.