Job Description

Our Planning team in India established in 2012 for supporting our UK offices and currently has 75 staff which expected to double by 2023 in line with our strategic growth plan.

The team undertake design projects within the Planning, Development and Infrastructure sectors for various UK public and private sector clients. The team provides a wide range of services ranging from land referencing, delivering planning approvals though to mastplanning and detailed design. The team also have expertise in design visualisation, photomontage, motion graphics, video and multimedia to complement our highways project delivery.

Through a strategy of steady organic growth, we have built a portfolio of Frameworks and projects that now require additional resource and this includes the further expansion of our teams within our complimentary resource centre (iCRC) in Noida and Bengaluru, India.

The successful candidate, working together with the UK based resource, will bring their expertise, capability and engineering knowledge to provide commercial and technical leadership to our existing teams and facilitate additional growth to enable the business to meet client needs.

As India Head of the iCRC Planning, you will be responsible for the Health, Safety & Welfare, leadership, business management, operational and commercial management within our iCRC team. Your role is to drive innovation and efficiency in order to attain defined commercial and growth targets.

You will be a member of the India Senior Management Team, required to demonstrate collaborative behaviours to support the development and enhancement of the wider business. You will be responsible for the technical, operational, financial and commercial delivery of projects undertaken by your team.

The role will have a particular focus on people and resource management, together with the delivery of projects measured through technical quality and financial performance.

At WSP, there's nothing we love more than pushing boundaries, harnessing innovation and sharing insightsacross our diverse, international team to create a tomorrow's world that's cleaner, greener and safer. Join us and you'll be part of an organization that takes pride in its people and purpose: creating long-lasting, future-ready, solutions to meet the needs of generations to come.

People focus:

• The role has a key responsibility for ensuring the health, safety and welfare of staff. The Head of Department is expected to demonstrate effective & visible leadership across projects, focusing on the ongoing engagement and retention of employees through the development of individuals and building high performing teams;
• Business, operational & commercial management - delivering on business plan & budgetary targets;
• Commercial governance - project reviews; forecasting and resource management
• Divisional Resource Management - iCRC utilisation;
• Technical governance of the Planning teams output working with UK technical governance of all deliverables
• Supervising ensuring the competence, quality and timely submission of detailed engineering deliverables and coordinate inputs from other areas across the business both in India and the UK
• Liaising with project managers you will play a key role in both managing technical input to our projects and ensuring that deliverables are appropriate and fit-for-purpose. Ensuring client satisfaction and providing support in the production of outputs, as required
• Supporting UK with bidding opportunities
• Key point of contact with the UK business, direct liaison with UK leadership, and promoting the iCRCand ensuring its success.
• Line Manager - PDRs, promotion, training & mentoring;
• Staff/Team Development - support, training, nurturing; and
• Representing the Planning business within the wider Indian Business

The Planning Team Leader will work closely with the UK leadership team - UK iCRC SBU Head, UK iCRC Head, Operations Director, Reginal Directors, Project Directors, Project Managers, Technical Directors and the Business Development team across the T&I Strategic Business Unit (and wider WSP UK / global business).

Client / External focus

• Maintain strong colleague relationships and contribute to the teams' performance of client satisfaction
• Contribute to knowledge sharing in internal and external forums and including technical input to your team
• Remain up to date with market and competitor knowledge across the SBU

People

• Inclusively lead people, clearly articulating the vision, defining responsibilities, delegating effectively and providing constructive feedback
• Inspire and motivate departmental staff towards technical progression
• Be self-motivated to take on a leadership role in project work with a clear focus on timeliness, quality and technical excellence.
• Managing people through change and develop succession plans
• Create and support innovation
• Deal with conflict appropriately
• Work across cultures (e.g. international and/or multi-disciplinary projects), embracing diverse points of view

Business Focus

• Proactively influences Health, and Wellbeing including for example Safety by Design
• Deliver successful commercial performance by clearly understanding and monitoring the area of work and ensure agreed targets are met
• Be responsible for the quality of technical outputs to WSP standards including any specific UK client standards
• Identify appropriately qualified staff to deliver projects with regard to the constraints of project budgets
• Champion and mentor others in use of agreed systems and processes
• Explore ways to add value and improve personal and team performance
• Manage opportunities, risks and project changes/variations so that these deliver advantage to the business
• Ensure budget utilisations is met or exceeded
• Ensure budgeted earning capacity is met or exceeded

Key Competencies / Skills

Mandatory skills

• Track record of senior technical experience in at least one Planning discipline.
• Excellent communication, internal client handling, interpersonal skills and listening skills with the ability to influence and interact with people
• Comfortable leading internal engineering discussions and the experience and ability to understand, evaluate and explain complex technical issues to both technical and non-technical professionals
• Technical manager with management acumen and strong leadership skills
• Open-minded and intellectually agile
• A hard-working self-starter with initiative and ability to work within a team environment
• Understand own strengths and impact, adapting behaviour according to different situations and individuals
• Able to work effectively under pressure
• Act ethically with fairness, honesty and integrity
• Capacity to visit the UK every 2 to 3 months for up to 2 weeks
• Successful track record of delivery of large detail design projects in the Planning sector within the context of a professional services provider
• You should be able to lead teams and help with the operational management of a team of 100+staff
• You should have demonstrable experience of resource and project management
• You will be aware of current and emerging technologies relevant to the planning sector
• Experience of liaison with clients, co-professionals and design teams
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Effective time management and strong organisational skills