Change Management Specialist

Job Title: Change Management Specialist

Location: London, Hybrid

Full time, Permanent

About Springer Nature Group

Springer Nature opens the doors to discovery for researchers, educators, clinicians and other professionals. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms and technology solutions reach millions of people. For over 175 years our brands and imprints have been a trusted source of knowledge to these communities and today, more than ever, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that fundamental knowledge can be found, verified, understood and used by our communities – enabling them to improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow.

About the Journals Editorial Office

Springer Nature’s Journals Editorial Office (JEO) manages submit-to-accept business processes as well as internal and external Peer Review Systems (PRSs) for a large portion of Springer Nature’s journals portfolio. We work with different vendors in this space, producing 400K+ articles p.a. We have a workforce of 300+ people across multiple vendors and locations, overseen by ~40 SN staff across multiple locations.

About the Role

Springer Nature is iteratively developing a new inhouse platform, the Springer Nature Article Processing Platform (Snapp), to provide a submission and peer review experience that is fast, simple, convenient and rewarding for our authors, editors and reviewers.

Developing our own system in-house not only means we can take a fresh approach to engaging with our researchers; it is a competitive advantage for our business and moves us away from having to rely heavily on third party technologies.

The Change Management Specialist is a new role within the Transformation Initiatives team, part of the Journals Editorial Office. The team is currently focused upon the implementation of Snapp across our journals business (approximately 3,000 titles).

Reporting to the Manager, Transformation Initiatives, the Change Management Specialist will focus on the human side of change for the internal teams and external communities impacted by the transition to Snapp, particularly those where the need is greater due to the scale of change or long-embedded ways of working.

This is a role within a fast-paced project that requires an eye for detail, excellent communication skills, diplomacy, stakeholder management, and a focus on delivery.

Role Responsibilities:

The Change Management Specialist will work to ensure people adapt, embrace, and thrive during the transition to Snapp. This will involve embedding change methodologies within our teams and processes to build awareness and ensure internal and external stakeholders migrating to the new platform feel informed, heard, supported and empowered.

Key tasks and deliverables:

1. Collaborate with the Manager, Transformation Initiatives, the transformation team, the Manager, Training Programmes, the publishing units, and the Snapp product teams, to identify, assess and manage change impacts on people, processes and technology.
2. Utilise change management methodologies to create and execute effective change management plans in order to aid the transition, secure engagement and buy-in, and drive successful internal and external adoption.
3. Ensure we have a compelling change story that is included in the transition communications, so those impacted by changes understand what the end point is, and how they will get there.
4. Assist with the planning and organisation of awareness, training activities and staff engagement in preparation for transition to a new system and workflow.
5. Monitor and measure the effectiveness of change management initiatives, providing feedback and recommendations to enhance outcomes.
6. Engage with the Snapp delivery teams in Technology and Product Management who are responsible for delivering the services and systems that are dependencies for success.
7. Engage with teams working on projects that are not directly part of the migration, but which could impact on business objectives.
8. Provide change management support to the Transformation Initiatives team and the wider Journals Editorial Office on other projects as needed, including migrations between publishers, peer-review systems, JEO service providers, systems, and publishing models, as well as journal launches and closures.

Experience, Skills & Qualifications:

Essential

1. Strong understanding of change management principles, techniques and tools.
2. Experience in change management roles, preferably in the tech or publishing sectors.
3. Excellent stakeholder management skills, with ability to communicate and influence effectively at all levels.
4. Exceptional and creative communication skills – both written and verbal – and the ability to present technical information in an accessible manner.
5. A good understanding of the research publishing landscape and how journals and journal publishers serve the research community.
6. Strong problem-solving ability, using initiative and lateral thinking to deal with specific stakeholder or team issues quickly and appropriately.
7. Experience in a fast-paced, constantly changing environment.

Desirable

1. Strong understanding of change management principles, techniques and tools.

At Springer Nature, we value the diversity of our teams and work to build an inclusive culture, where people are treated fairly and can bring their differences to work and thrive. We empower our colleagues and value their diverse perspectives as we strive to attract, nurture and develop the very best talent.

Springer Nature was awarded Diversity Team of the Year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Find out more about our DEI work here link.

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