Assisted Digital Manager

Contract
12 months fixed term. We will consider candidates who can commit to working 30-37.5hrs (4-5days) per week. The role will be available on reduced hours (18.5hrs / 3days per week) after this point for an additional 20 months.

Location:
The role is home-based, with some working mainly in Leeds, occasionally Birmingham, and potentially other UK travel required.

Annual Leave:
25 days + public holidays

About Citizens Online

Citizens Online is a UK digital inclusion charity, established in 2000. Our aim is to ensure that no one is left behind in the digital world in which we now live. Living during lockdown has demonstrated to everyone how important digital skills and technology are to make our lives easier. But there are 9 million adults in the UK who can’t use the internet and approximately 1 in 5 adults that don’t have the skills to transact online.

The people more likely to be digitally excluded are older, on low income, disabled or with low educational attainment. We want to bridge the digital divide and help everyone to use the internet confidently and safely.

We work with organisations to embed digital inclusion as part of digital transformation programmes. We aim to make digital inclusion provision sustainable and advocate three key elements to make this happen. 1. Evidence – we research digital exclusion risk within a locality and build a baseline for digital inclusion work. 2. Partnerships – many organisations within a local area will be providing digital inclusion support or aware that their clients and staff need support with essential digital skills. Organisations must work together to achieve greater impact. 3. Digital Champions – we know that the best way to support people with digital skills is a 1-2-1 digital champion approach. Our clients include Local Authorities, Housing Associations, CCGs, Government, Commercial Businesses and Voluntary Sector organisations.

We deliver digital inclusion projects such as Digital Brighton & Hove where we provide digital champion support to the community and operate a tablet loan scheme. We have built a digital inclusion network of over 350 organisations in the area. We operate a national freephone digital skills helpline to support people with essential digital skills and manage over 600 digital champions. We also undertake research and evaluation projects. Recent clients include The Centre for Aging Better and Public Health England.

Our key values underpin everything we do:

• Independence – we act with honesty, integrity, and fairness to earn the trust of those that we work with both internally and externally
• Collaboration – we encourage creativity and better communication through our supportive culture which values knowledge sharing, learning, and working together to achieve the best that we can
• Innovation – we’re an innovative and forward-thinking organisation with an open and collaborative culture. We embrace change, new technologies, and better ways of working in everything we do, from service delivery to our internal processes
• Quality – we empower individuals to take initiative and responsibility to achieve the best results they can within time and budget

The role

We’re working with Conduent who is designing and implementing a new self-service payment system for the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing. ‘The Dartford-Thurrock Crossing, which consists of two tunnels and the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, is used by approximately 165,000 vehicles per day, making it one of the busiest road routes in Britain. Following an 18-month deployment period, Conduent will provide improved customer self-service capabilities, state-of-the-art roadside equipment, and the latest generation of license plate recognition technology. Enhanced self-service options will improve the customer experience by facilitating payments for pre-paid and pay-as-you-go customers.

The free-flow solution will also maintain the existing traffic safety and environmental benefits at the crossing, helping to reduce vehicle congestion and emissions. With a workforce based in Leeds, the company will provide account management, payment processing, and customer support services including a call centre and website.’

Conduent understands that many people using the crossing are digitally excluded and are keen to ensure that the payment options for crossing users are inclusive and accessible to all.

Payment options for tunnel users will include website, mobile applications, webchat, Payzone, call centre, and postal options. We’re looking for an experienced practitioner to design an assisted digital strategy and digital inclusion action plan for the project. You will work closely with the Conduent and HCL user experience/product development teams to ensure that digital inclusion is embedded into the payment solutions, acting as the subject matter expert (SME) for Assisted Digital and Digital Inclusion.

Citizens Online is researching the digital exclusion risk of populations near the crossing and the findings will assist you in strategy design for targeting digital inclusion support for crossing users. We will also hire a Digital Champion Coordinator that you will manage, to work with you on this project. Their role will be to train and support digital champions with the Conduent Call Centre and in community locations near the crossing.

You’ll understand the barriers excluded people face and have worked on projects to mitigate exclusion as part of digital transformation. You’ll be a brilliant collaborator, able to forge strong relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, primarily Conduent, HCL, and Highways England teams, based on trust and mutual respect. You’ll be committed to delivering value to our clients. You’ll be confident in your analysis and experience to make sound recommendations to improve inclusion and accessibility for the payment solutions and design a robust, workable Assisted Digital strategy.

The role is home-based with regular contact with clients and colleagues via video calls. We expect the role to involve UK travel to work face to face with clients, primarily in Leeds but also Birmingham and Dartford and Thurrock areas. You’ll be supported in your role by the Managing Director and the Citizens Online team.

Your responsibilities

• Act as the subject matter expert for Assisted Digital and Digital Inclusion for the project
• Produce an Assisted Digital Strategy
• Work with Conduent, HCL and Highways England teams to fully embed digital inclusion and accessibility into dart-tunnel payment options
• Advise on user testing and recruitment of digitally excluded and ‘narrow’ internet users
• Develop clear user journeys and communications to encourage inclusion and workable assisted digital support
• Monitor and evaluate Assisted Digital processes to continually improve and support more digital transactions
• Review and recommend improvements for training materials for people delivering Assisted Digital support for Dartford-Thurrock Crossing
• Understanding the client and end-user needs to make recommendations for improvements
• Produce update reports for stakeholders
• Keep up to date with learning, developments, and trends around Assisted Digital and feed this into the development of the project where appropriate
• Share knowledge and learning with the wider project team
• Develop relationships of trust and understanding with key local stakeholders and work collaboratively with them
• Manage the Digital Champion Coordinator and lead the project to ensure delivery of agreed outputs for clients, acting as the main contact for clients
• Manage day to day project activity
• Work with the team and the Managing Director to manage project risks
• Identify ways to improve process and systems
• Innovate and adapt to achieve outcomes
• Ensure the support and outputs we provide are of a consistently high standard

Essential Skills and Experience

• At least 3 years experience of Assisted Digital Strategy design and delivery
• Extensive experience of working in user experience teams building digital products
• Ability to understand the client and user needs and design support and recommendations to achieve their outcomes
• Experience with analysing data to gain insights and properly convey the context and meaning of the insights to stakeholders
• Experience of user testing and focus groups, specifically with digitally excluded or ‘narrow’ internet users
• Writing compelling research, findings, and recommendations reports
• Building and maintaining good relationships with internal and external stakeholders
• Working collaboratively in partnership with multiple organisations
• An organised self-starter, who can work on their own initiative and as part of a team to deliver objectives
• Ability to communicate effectively over the phone, digitally, and in-person with a variety of service users
• Ability to think both logically and creatively, with strong problem-solving skills
• Knowledge and understanding of digital inclusion and the implications of being digitally excluded. Sensitivity and compassion around societal inequality, exclusion, and discrimination
• Knowledge and understanding of WCAG 2.0 guidelines. Awareness of assistive technology to help people with a disability

Desirable Experience and Skills

• Experience of working on channel shift projects and building business cases
• Working in public, private, and third sector

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably skilled and experienced people, regardless of their race, gender, physical ability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.

Please send a covering letter (max 600 words), demonstrating how you meet the essential experience and skills, and if applicable the desirable knowledge and skills outlined above. Please reference the criteria 1-14 in your covering letter. Please also include your current CV (no more than 2 pages).

Interviews will take place w/c 28th June 2021.

Contract length: 12 months

Part-time hours: 30-37 per week

Application deadline: 24/06/2021

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Experience:

• Assisted Digital Strategy design and delivery: 3 years (required)
• working in user experience teams building digital products: 3 years (required)
• client and user needs: 3 years (required)
• analysing data to gain insights: 3 years (required)
• user testing and focus groups: 3 years (required)
• Writing research, findings and recommendations reports: 3 years (required)
• Building good relationships with stakeholders: 3 years (required