Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Lead

• Work/Life balance (35-hour working week)
• Access to Fitness Passport for eligible staff
•  Base salary ($116,211 – $128,061), plus employer’s contribution to superannuation and annual leave loading.

Join a professional team whose role is to enable everyone across the Commission to produce great communications that help people participate effectively in electoral and democratic processes across NSW!

The Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Lead manages the development and direct implementation of stakeholder engagement and communications strategies to deliver the NSW Electoral Commission’s strategic plan.

The role drives voter engagement initiatives to meet the needs of people who may face additional barriers to participation in democracy including young people, Aboriginal people, people with disability and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. This includes managing relationships and contracts with our information partners to deliver resources and community education and engagement programs.  

The role manages our community reference groups and works with the Communications business unit to create and implement content, communications, tools, education resources, campaigns and translated resources to meet the needs of our key audiences and enable all people to participate in democracy effectively.

The Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Lead works within the organisation as a subject matter expert and advocate for diversity, inclusion and customer focus and has responsibility for managing the creation of, and reporting on the progress of our Disability inclusion action plan and Multicultural action plan. It is involved in a number of initiatives across the agency and will work with an external consultant to develop and deliver a Reconciliation Action Plan for the Commission. The role also supports the Media and Campaigns Advisor role, and acts as a media spokesperson as needed.

This role is an ongoing full-time position.

About you

You have exceptional written and verbal communication skills and can write for a range of audiences and formats from reports and briefing documents to scripts for voter education videos and social media posts. You adjust your style to meet your audience’s needs and are equally at home briefing the Electoral Commission’s executive team, facilitating a meeting with advocacy peak bodies, or hanging out with primary school students on Democracy Day at NSW Parliament.

You are an experienced, passionate, and knowledgeable advocate for diversity and inclusion.

Your stakeholder engagement skills are supported by exceptional communication skills and a genuine desire to reduce barriers to participation in democracy for Aboriginal people, people with disability, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, people experiencing homelessness and young people.

Key to your success will be your capability for building and influencing strong relationships and partnerships with stakeholders internally and externally.

About the NSW Electoral Commission

The New South Wales Electoral Commission delivers trusted and independent systems, processes, oversight, and engagement that support democracy in New South Wales. Our vision is to maintain confidence in the integrity of the democratic process and make it easy for people to understand and participate.

Our work includes:

1. Running elections.
2. Communicating and engaging with the public and our stakeholders; and
3. Investigating possible offences and enforcing electoral laws such as the Electoral Act 2017 and the Electoral Funding Act 2018

What we offer

1. Opportunity to work on large scale events and assist your local community  
2. Career development opportunities
3. Employee Assistance Program
4. Work/Life Balance (35 hour working week)
5. Access to Fitness Passport for eligible staff

Essential requirements – key knowledge and experience

As the successful candidate, you will have:

• Experience in successfully managing a significant corporate stakeholder engagement program, including partnering with some or all the following community groups: youth, people with disability, Aboriginal people, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
• Significant experience in the management, coordination and preparation of briefings, submissions, reports, and other information requests dealing with complex and sensitive matters.
• Experience building and maintain positive and productive relationships and effectively managing partnership contracts.
• Relevant tertiary qualifications or equivalent professional experience in stakeholder engagement, mapping, and strategic communications.
• Experience undertaking and using stakeholder research to enhance strategy development.
• Familiarity with the IAP2 Stakeholder engagement framework is highly desirable.
• A government or media relations background would be considered an asset.