Deputy Director / Assistant Director, MAS Academy (2-Year Contract)

[What the role is]

The MAS Academy runs about 150-200 professional and technical programmes each year and provide around 4,000 internal training places to MAS staff. We also receive more than 200 external participants to our regional and bilateral programmes each year.

As we evolve towards a greater emphasis on enhancing learning effectiveness and positioning ourselves as a strategic partner to our departments, we are looking for a tenacious and team-oriented missing piece to join the Skills Development team at the MAS Academy.

[What you will be working on]

You will be a key member of the team to develop learning interventions and events to support skills and competency development in MAS. You will also be involved in a reasonable number of other exciting projects while championing learning and development efforts.

Some of the happy work you will do or develop include:

Learning Partnerships and Solutions

• Assess the most appropriate level of intervention - organisation, department, team or individual to address performance gaps
• Collaborate with relevant departments to ensure timely and effective upskilling for staff
• Engage with subject matter experts to develop and design creative learning solutions to meet business needs, drawing from a range of formal synchronous, formal asynchronous including e-learning, informal, social and workplace learning approaches
• Push through initiatives to promote a self-directed and lifelong learning culture
• Design, translate, and implement policies and processes that are employee-centric while taking into consideration organisational needs, relevant guidelines and industry best practices or benchmarks
• Conduct learning needs assessments and evaluate learning effectiveness to continuously improve learning transfer and effectiveness. This may include designing and implementing reinforcement strategies, support systems and/or workplace application tools to ensure sustained behavioural change
• Develop and implement performance consulting approach, including establishing systematic approach to conducting performance gap analyses and recommending appropriate interventions, as a core capacity we are building within the Academy

Programme Management

• Ensure the smooth running of programmes and be the first point of contact for internal clients queries on learning and development programmes
• Review and refresh the learning pathways to maintain interest and ensure its relevance to organisational priorities
• Draw up, and track success metrics of interventions to eliminate zombie projects and raise efficiency and effectiveness with particular focus on measuring learning transfer outcomes and return on learning investment.
• Partner with department line managers and supervisors to create support environments that facilitate the application of newly acquired skills and knowledge in the workplace

Analytics and Insights

• Use data and analytics across a range of learning interventions to generate insights for forward planning by utilising learning management systems, data visualisation tools etc
• Draw insights from various feedback channels and stakeholder touchpoints to enhance learners experience and implement systematic follow-up mechanisms to track learning application and impact

[What we are looking for]

Professional Experiences

• Preferable at least 3 years of relevant Learning & Development experience or transferable skills such as Organisation Development or other adjacent HR skills. Exposure to and proven experience in performance consulting or business partnering roles is advantageous

• Exposure to business-focused human resource functions with a good understanding of the impact and synergies between other HR processes and L&D offerings such as talent development and talent acquisition

• Familiarity with face-to-face learning and e-learning with experience in designing learning transfer strategies and reinforcement mechanisms

• Strong knowledge of adult learning principles and instructional design methodologies, including understanding of learning transfer theories and workplace application techniques

• Basic proficiency in data analysis tools and learning management systems, with ability to interpret learning analytics and generate actionable insights

• Proven experience in designing and delivering learning programmes, with demonstrated ability to measure and improve learning effectiveness, and driving employee experience initiatives in a corporate environment is advantageous

Personal Attributes and Competencies

• Strong verbal and written communication skills to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels of seniority to achieve win-win outcomes

• Driven by data to distil insights to improve learners experience and achieve business outcomes

• Strong execution capabilities, whilst holding the broader outcomes in mind and achieving value in short sprints, with experience in agile teams or teams with rich feedback culture an advantage

• Experience in managing tight deadlines and delivering multiple projects at once

• Ability to adjust to changes in priorities or scope of projects

• Meticulous, with attention to detail, to ensure compliance with governance and achieve consistent customer experience

• Ability to design and implement experiments to improve processes, or enhance learners experience, and scale successful pilots, whilst minimising IT system change or extensive process changes

• Independent worker, able to perform duties and responsibilities in accordance with MAS Academy's policies, procedures and norms with limited supervision

• Self-aware and open to feedback from team members and internal stakeholders to ensure alignment within team and between Academy and line departments

• Ability to create jingles, limericks or other creative communication tools is an advantage

As part of the shortlisting process for this role, you may be required to complete a medical declaration and/or undergo further assessment. All applicants will be notified on whether they are shortlisted or not within 4 weeks of the closing date of this job posting.