RBGE Strategic workforce review (plan, design and undertake)

Description

In the future, RBGE will be operating in a vastly different landscape, and as a result we will need to adapt and learn how to: successfully navigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in ensuring business recovery through to resilience operations; adopt changes in working practices as we embed a permanent hybrid physical and digital (phygital) working model as the nature of our work becomes increasingly fluid and “work from anywhere” practices for knowledge-based workers increases in popularity; drive forward our ambitions articulated in our new 5-year Corporate and 9-year Science and Biodiversity strategies to respond to the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change; shape the future of skills and expertise needed in plant research, education, and horticulture to remain at the forefront of Botanical Science and Learning, especially with the growth and disruption of digital learning models on conventional educational provision, and our plans to launch a virtual biodiversity skills centre; deliver our GBP 70m Edinburgh Biomes 7-year capital project, the most significant project in the Garden’s 351 years history to protect RBGE’s unique and globally important plant collections for the future; and increase financial resilience through income diversification and growth, effective cost management, and potentially become less reliant on public funds. To be successful this will require identification of what workforce structure, skills, capabilities, and mindsets will be essential to RBGE in the future; we see this as being achieved through a strategic workforce review followed by a strategic workforce development plan and linked to our new people strategy. The review will include a clear understanding of the purpose and direction of RBGE: how each division contributes to the organisation’s purpose; and the relationships between divisions. The review will assess strengths and opportunities unique to RBGE, and will determine how the organisation is currently designed to achieve its purpose and strategic aims through assessing the current workforce design against eight guiding principles; and provide specific outputs around future requirements to ensure the appropriate talent, skills, capacity and knowledge are available within our workforce over the next 5 – 10 years. We are looking for an experienced business partner to advise and assist us in undertaking the strategic workforce review to produce the following outputs: 1 An assessment of the current workforce against the following guiding principles and suggestions for the optimum scenario(s) for all eight principles to ensure a high-quality experience for customers and employees. No. Principle Rationale a Strategy led To ensure our workforce is aligned to support achievement of RBGE corporate and science and biodiversity strategic objectives b Customer focussed To support high quality delivery to customers, clients, and stakeholders through all channels c Appropriate leadership and management capabilities To ensure people’s capability (people leadership and technical leadership and management) support the delivery of RBGE’s strategic priorities. d Relevant skills To identify any skills gaps and ensure our skills areas are sufficiently connected to enable delivery of exceptional customer and/or organisational services e Organisational capacity To ensure the capacity within the workforce is available to deliver RBGE’s priorities and enabled by strong back-office/corporate functions. To establish appropriate spans of influence to perform effectively and reduce the burden of management f Strong culture To ensure a collaborative, learning and performance focused culture and a more confident approach to change g Aligned functions and teams To ensure services and operations are aligned/integrated to support high quality delivery to appropriate internal or external audiences h Promotes agility and innovation To shape and respond to changing customer/market needs, support collective leadership and employee-led change, encourage experimentation and facilitate phygital working practices 2 A roadmap outlining steps that will help RBGE move from its current state to its future state, considering succession planning, and ensuring delivery of the strategic priorities of RBGE (including Edinburgh Biomes) and its affiliated organisations, the Botanics Foundation and Botanics Trading Company. Additional support to commission the report’s output may be required from the winning supplier. Expectation would be less than 75 hours optional additional time may be required over the duration of the contract. This would be subject to further funding becoming available and at the discretion of RBGE.