Job summary
Deputy Senior Employment Adviser, Band 5.
Fixed term: initially confirmed to November 2025 with likely extension subject to continued funding.
Full Time: hours per week
Would you like to be part of leading and developing a core provision of the National Employment Adviser in NHS Talking Therapies initiative?
An exciting opportunity for a full time motivated and enthusiastic Deputy Senior Employment Adviser to join the Employment Team within Greenwich NHS Talking Therapy Service.
You will be working in a supportive and fast-paced environment, reporting direct to the Employment Lead. You will provide line management and supervision to Employment Advisers. You will hold a caseload helping people with low mood and/or anxiety with practical employment matters.
As part of our team, you will work alongside Employment Advisers, clients, clinicians, and therapists.
A key part of this role will include generating and presenting KPI specific data to the Employment Lead for review and evaluation. You will possess a high level of IT literacy, including Excel, across various software packages.
You will have excellent organisational, communication and time management skills and be able to prioritise effectively.
The successful candidate will work a minimum of two days a week at our main office in Eltham in line with our service Hybrid model.
Main duties of the job
Main Duties
Provide mentoring and coaching to Employment Advisers to facilitate personal and professional development contributing to overall effectiveness of both staff and our service.
Provide one to one supervision with Employment Advisers for caseload review to problem solve and identify strategies to support clients.
Undertake line management to ensure supervisee goals align with Trust objectives and promote wellbeing to keep the employment lead and senior managers updated on progress, outcomes, and any emerging issues.
Collaborate via face-to-face, video calls (MS Teams) telephone and emails.
Monitor performance of Employment Advisers to meet service requirement in line with service specific KPIs.
Collate KPI data for the Employment Lead to monitor and evaluate our service.
Assist with managing and triaging referrals for allocation.
Research national and local sources of employment support and guidance adding to the Employment Team bank of resources.
Offer tailored Advice, Information and Guidance to clients who require help to gain sustainable employment; stay in employment or return to work after sickness absence.
Work in partnership with a range of stakeholders and services to promote employability, health, and wellbeing.
Contribute to development and delivery of GTTT employment webinars.
Work collaboratively with the employment lead and DWP to assist research and evaluation and develop solutions that support continuous service improvement.
About us
Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children's centres, schools and people's have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.
Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
1. We're Kind
2. We're Fair
3. We Listen
4. We Care
Job description
Job responsibilities
3. Key Task and Responsibilities
5. Promoting the EA in NHS Talking Therapies model and supporting the employment lead to work with senior clinicians to ensure that the employment team are fully embedded in the Greenwich Time to Talk service.
6. Manage and supervise a team of EAs ensuring that EAs work effectively with clinicians so that employment support is a central concern of every member of staff in the service.
7. Work with the employment lead to ensure that therapists and EAs work together to deliver personalised packages of psychological treatment and employment support to create combined care pathways to support individuals with common mental health problems to gain, return to or retain employment.
8. Assist the employment lead with reporting on the performance of the team against EA in NHS Talking Therapy Targets.
9. Lead the team to develop good working relations with local employers, trade unions, Job Centre Plus and other organisations forming the local labour market.
10. Hold their own reduced caseload enabling them to provide supervision of EAs.
11. Provide non-clinical oversight of clients progression through the service whilst accessing employment support.
12. Promote and circulate information on unemployment benefits and JCP services, labour market information, local employers and their recruitment practices, workplace solutions and provision for people with MH conditions both nationally and especially within the local community.
Management responsibilities
13. Support the employment lead to operationalise the aims of EA in NHS Talking Therapies.
14. Assist with strategic oversight of the GTTT employment provision and work collaboratively with the employment lead and others to continuously improve the service.
15. Provide advice to the Service Leads on professional development issues for the Employment staff.
16. Short list and interview applicants alongside the employment lead for employment advisor posts. Induct and supervise employment advisors.
17. To assist in the maintenance of up-to-date protocols for the care pathway to employment services
Leadership
18. Assist the employment lead in consultation to clinical staff in the NHS Talking Therapies service around employment issues.
19. Support the employment lead in teaching clinical staff how to assess employment needs and refer appropriately to the employment team.
20. Enable the upskilling of other GTTT staff on the employment agenda through coaching and education.
21. Support continued professional development of EAs.
Person Specification
Education/Qualifications
Essential
22. Demonstrates knowledge and experience to degree level or equivalent.
23. Experience of line management and supervision
24. Training in vocational work, careers advice and job retention
Experience
Essential
25. Significant experience of providing vocational/employment support.
26. Understanding of the employment needs, barriers and difficulties faced by people with MH conditions.
27. Experience of management and administration of data and records relating to the delivery of the agreed outcomes of the employment programmes.
28. Experience of working in a service where agreed targets are in place, demonstrating specific outcomes.
29. Experience of quality assuring your own work and the work of your team to both contract and organisational standards.
Desirable
30. Experience of service promotion
Skills/Abilities/Knowledge
Essential
31. The DSEA will evidence significant understanding of return-to-work planning.
32. DSEAs will be aware of the secondary effects on the individual that could be caused by their mental health experience.
33. The DSEA will also be aware that many individuals with mental health conditions may also have primary or secondary health conditions and disabilities.
34. The DSEA will have the knowledge to understand the work implications of these conditions, confidence, fear of failure etc.
35. Skills in rapport building to support and empower clients in job retention or seeking employment
36. Ability to assess individual strengths in relation to employment.
37. IT literate, Word, Excel with excellent written skills.
38. Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (written and oral) enabling good working relationships with service users and partners within and external to the Trust
Desirable
39. Ability to adapt activities to be appropriate for the needs of an individual client.
40. Knowledge of employment and disability related benefits.
41. Knowledge of the wide range of educational and employment/training opportunities available to people
42. Knowledge of other voluntary and statutory agencies who work with people.
43. Knowledge and understanding of data sharing legislation
44. Discretion and an understanding of confidentiality issues.
45. Knowledge of safeguarding requirements and processes.
Effort and Environment
Desirable
46. Able to sit in constrained positions for a substantial proportion of working time.
47. Able to concentrate intensely for a substantial proportion of working time, during service user contact, teaching/supervision sessions, team meetings, preparing written work etc.
48. Ability to work under time pressure to meet service targets
49. Maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of emotive and distressing problems.
Other Requirements
Essential
50. Able to contain and work with organisational stress and able to hold the stress of others.
51. Interpersonally calm and able to defuse difficult situations
52. Willing to negotiate and handle confrontation effectively and professionally.
Desirable
53. Respectful approach to service users, colleagues and other professionals
54. Inclusive of colleagues and service users from diverse backgrounds.
55. Good organisational and time management skills, ability to plan and prioritise own workload.
56. Ability to work as part of a team and independently
57. Works well under pressure
58. Motivated and proactive