Job Highlight
Change Management - Senior Manager will be at the heart of UNOPS' multi-year transformation aimed at scaling up and speeding up UNOPS’s impact. He/she will be assigned to specific transformation programmes or projects and responsible for shaping and delivering their change management approaches and plans to enable change adoption and benefits realization. Successful delivery in this role requires extensive experience in managing the people's side of change for large-scale transformation initiatives, ability to engage and partner at the executive and senior leadership levels, as well as aptitude for navigating complex stakeholder dynamics, in a fast-paced environment. This is a unique opportunity to take part in and be a central contributor to shaping the next chapter in UNOPS’s mission.
About The Group
The Strategy and Transformation Group (STG) supports the Executive Director in driving the UNOPS long-term vision, guiding the organization through strategic planning, transformation, and change. It leads the development of the UNOPS strategic plan, ensuring alignment with evolving priorities and global contexts; and it manages the midterm review of the strategic plan and the Executive Director’s annual report ensuring transparency to the Executive Board, including through external evaluation suited to the UNOPS mandate and efforts to enhance impact management. STG also provides high-level analysis, oversight advice, and secretariat support to the Audit Advisory Committee, fostering informed decision-making.
With deep expertise in United Nations strategic planning and organizational transformation, STG serves as a trusted advisor and implementation partner for major change programmes, including designing transformation strategies, delivering change management support, and coordinating cross-organizational initiatives that address operational challenges and advance institutional ambitions. STG generates practical, innovative solutions that strengthen UNOPS resilience, efficiency, and impact - positioning the organization to adapt, excel, and deliver on its mandate in a dynamic operational environment.
Role PurposeThe Change Management - Senior Manager is responsible for shaping and delivering change management approaches and plans for large-scale transformation initiatives, ensuring change adoption and benefits realization. This role involves engaging with executive and senior leadership, navigating complex stakeholder dynamics, and contributing to UNOPS' multi-year transformation aimed at scaling up and speeding up its impact.
Functions / Key Results Expected
Establish and maintain an integrated organisational change management approach on a given programme/project that supports its successful implementation
Shape structured change management plans, integrating change management objectives and specific actions into the relevant transformation programme/project governance and delivery plans, covering the entire programme/project lifespan. Ensure sufficient focus on understanding change impacts and utilising that into tailored and practical plans to drive change readiness, enable smooth change deployment and maximise change adoption.
Lead change impact assessments to identify the implications of the new ways of working (e.g. policies, governance arrangements, business processes, management products, digital capabilities etc.) across the stakeholder groups. Develop mitigation strategies to support successful adoption. Periodically review and adjust the change management approach and plans based on the identified and emerging change impacts.
Manage change risks and ensure that planned organisational readiness activities are aligned with programme governance, delivery milestones and business priorities.
Provide strategic advice to the sponsor and programme/project leadership on organisational implications of specific decisions and recommend appropriate mitigation measures where risks to change adoption are identified.
Collaborate with the Regional Transformation Advisors and Regional Change Management Specialists in coordinating change management activities, ensuring a consistent enterprise-wide approach while allowing flexibility to respond to regional priorities and local implementation needs.
Engage with the Transformation Office, ensuring that change activities remain aligned across related transformation initiatives, reducing duplication and helping to manage organisational change load by promoting a coordinated implementation approach.
Partner with and engage with a wide range of stakeholders, change sponsor(s), executives and senior leaders, project teams, regional teams and technical delivery partners across shaping, planning and implementation of the change, reflecting practical realities and needs of different leadership objectives, regions, practices and functional groups.
Drive senior alignment on pivotal recommendations for the change. Ensure effective stakeholder engagement and collaboration in the development and implementation of solutions, often in challenging environments, ensuring commitment to the successful change implementation.
Produce and/or contribute to executive briefings, a wide range of communication products, awareness campaigns and stakeholder engagement activities while establishing mechanisms to capture feedback and incorporate lessons learned into the change implementation. Prepare and deliver senior-level presentations and facilitated sessions when required.
Lead the implementation of the change management plans. Leverage and tailor UNOPS Change Management toolkit to match the needs and scale for the relevant initiative at each step of the change journey.
Mobilise effective feedback channels and engagement plans, to facilitate two way dialogue with the impacted stakeholders, facilitating buy-in in and surfacing and mitigating any prevailing change resistance.
Perform organisational readiness checks and tailor the subsequent actions to target low readiness levels, to ensure offices and personnel are prepared for deployment.
Manage the stakeholder engagement and communication effort, with tailored and practical approaches to engage different audience groups and facilitate their awareness building, build buy- in and mobilise critical change roles (e.g. people supervisors)
Manage the deployment of the targeted learning and support plans (e.g. guidance, training, knowledge products, drop-in clinics) that enable personnel to understand and apply the new ways of working. And are able to sustain them long-term.
Establish and coordinate mechanisms for monitoring change adoption, measuring change outcomes and reporting progress to programme governance. This includes developing change performance indicators, monitoring stakeholder engagement, organisational readiness and learning completion, identifying barriers to implementation and recommending corrective actions where required.
Ensuring that change management considerations remain integrated into the transition to business-as-usual.
Apply and promote a consistent enterprise-wide approach to organisational change.
Contribute to the UNOPS body of knowledge on change management and organisational change management maturity, e.g. through knowledge sharing, mentoring junior change managers, contributing to change management tools and materials where relevant.
Build change management capability through strengthening the contributions for a given programme/project from across the change management ecosystem, e.g. by engaging, guiding, equipping programme/project’s sponsor coalitions, change agents (where applicable), and supervisors to those who are impacted by change.
Education Requirements
Required
A first-level university degree (Bachelor’s degree) in combination with an additional two years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree.
Desired
*Required*Experience Requirements
Desired
