Project and Role Description – The Humanitarian and Stabilisation Operations Team (HSOT), contracted by Palladium International Ltd as part of the HEROS contract, provides the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) with humanitarian services and the UK Government’s Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation (OCSM) with stabilisation support. HSOT provides support to FCDO for the UK Government’s response to humanitarian disasters and protracted crises in cooperation with the United Nations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, non-governmental organisations, and governments of affected countries. We are committed to supporting FCDO to save lives, alleviate suffering and maintain dignity of people affected by crisis.

The position of Humanitarian Partnership & Response Manager (HPRM) is a member of the HSOT Humanitarian Emergency Response Team (HERT), comprised primarily of Humanitarian Advisors with a range of response specialisms and other technical cross-contract roles. This role manages strategic deployable expertise through coordination of international partner programmes and HEROS response capability. This includes playing a critical function in operationalising Humanitarian responses by translating FCDO requirements into actionable requests for HSOT’s deployment team.
The HRPM will contribute to readiness initiatives and support systems that promote quality expert deployments working closely with Humanitarian Response Department counterparts and other HSOT capabilities. This role, alongside the HA MEL, Humanitarian Response Lead and Deputy Director HERT, provides leadership that supports innovation, adaptation and evidenced improvement in HSOT humanitarian response for FCDO. It leads HSOT’s strategic engagement on FCDO’s engagement with United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) and the Standby Partnership (SBP) program ensuring HSOT can quickly resource the right expertise to meet FCDO humanitarian response objectives.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

Response Deployments Capabilities:
Serve as the HSOT lead on the establishment and implementation of partnership strategies with key international partners, with a focus on SBP and UNDAC, and support with IHP function requirements.
Maintain oversight of FUSE budget and convey recommendations on allocations.
Lead the implementation of the SBP Communications Strategy, once approved.
Provide strategic leadership to the UNDAC roster – conducting reviews of members, supporting DRM with the recruitment cycle when required, develop engagement strategy, etc.
Conduct trend analysis, horizon scanning and sector networking to anticipate future demand for capabilities, find efficiencies and ensure roster readiness.

Response Resource Strategies:
Design and oversee the implementation of strategies to ensure expertise required in response is resourced at pace and in alignment with key stakeholder requirements.
Ensure alignment between response and deployment trackers and extract required reporting content.
Together with Humanitarian Response Lead, manage use of HSOT No Regrets Response budget from point of approval through to spend.
Contribute to the design and delivery of readiness activities (e.g. exercises, briefings, etc) for HSOT core team and key client counterparts to promote understanding of deployable expertise in rapid onset response and protracted crisis.
Establish and manage an internal pool of HSOT core team able to provide additional cover to the Response Resource
Manager and the Response Coordinator functions in large responses.
Provide additional administrative and coordination support to the HSOT’s Response Leadership function during crisis response as appropriate.

Roster Engagement:
In coordination with Lead HAs, provide leadership across HERT to Roster Engagement strategy.
Coordinate the technical backstopping for contracted Roster HAs – maintain a register of pairings, collaborate with the Deployments and Roster Management Team (DRM) on the prioritisation of assignments, alert HERT/HSOT management to emerging risks and opportunities.
Serve as HERT lead for the design, promotion and organisation of key advisory engagement events.

General Duties:
Support HERT to establish and maintain a system for capturing core team HA tasking and delivery.
Actively contribute to continuity of HEROS service, support efforts to minimise gaps and disruption in advisory capability available to FCDO both deployed and from the UK.
Fulfil role of Duty Officer on rotation, providing week-long out of hours surveillance of emergencies.
Some travel as required to fulfil the key responsibilities and maintain key relationships across partners.
Undertake any other duties as appropriate to the position, as requested.

Required Qualifications:

• Masters degree or the equivalent level of academic and professional experience in a subject related to project management, human resource management, and/or humanitarian sector.
• Substantial senior level Project Management experience including the management of complex human and financial resources, design of and management of strategic planning initiatives, monitoring information systems and databases; accountability and performance feedback management; organisational learning methods.
• Significant People Management experience, and including experience of leading and managing teams, preferably in humanitarian sector.
• Experience of developing new procedures and systems and training stakeholders in their use.
• Knowledge and experience gained working on or in developing countries and/or in fragile and conflict affected environments, preferably including field-based experience in rapid onset disaster/complex emergency settings working with UN, Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement, INGOs and/or donors;
• Demonstrable success in internal advocacy and consultancy, and an understanding of organizational culture and change in large, public-sector organisations.
• Experience of working with multiple stakeholders at a senior level to achieve common ends.
• Excellent command of spoken and written English; fluency/working knowledge of another language desirable.
• Outstanding organisational skills in terms of planning, managing information, controlling timelines and meeting deadlines.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, and proven experience of building excellent working relationships, both internal and external.
• Proven ability to communicate complex procedures and situations to varied stakeholders/clients.
• Proven ability to deal with a varied, demanding, often conflicting and rapidly changing workload.
• A solution-focused, flexible and hands-on approach.
• Experience of working across HMG is desirable in terms of understanding how government departments work together to achieve joint and individual aims.
• Candidates must hold the Right to work in the UK for this post.
• The role is a fixed term employment contract till end of August to backfill for staff on maternity leave. The advert closing date is 7th March 2025.

How to Apply:

Please email your CV to yashu.fernandes@thepalladiumgroup.com