Sage
Associate Director, Experience Insights & Design
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Associate Director, Experience Insights & Design
Associate Director, Experience Insights & Design
£76,000 - £88,000 – Permanent
Join us and be part of a mission-driven, independent publisher. You’ll collaborate with a diverse team united by a commitment to empowering researchers, educators, and institutions in shaping the future.
About Sage
Sage is an independent, global academic publisher, founded in 1965 by Sara Miller McCune. Rooted in the belief that research and education drive societal progress, we’ve grown from a one-person operation in a New York apartment to a global organisation of over 2,000 colleagues across four continents: North America, EMEA, India, and Asia Pacific.
We publish and disseminate trusted, research-backed content that supports education, informs debate, and fosters critical thinking. In an era where access to reliable knowledge is critical, our work ensures that understanding and learning can thrive universally.
Our independence enables us to adopt long-term perspectives. We invest in ideas, talent, and strategic partnerships to strengthen our mission of bridging knowledge. By connecting people, ideas, and evidence, we create environments where research and education can flourish.
Built on core values, our culture embodies collaboration, empathy, and a human-centric approach, fostering meaningful contributions where individuals can witness the direct impact of their work.
About Our Team
You’ll join the global Internal Communications function, where listening, adapting to change, and driving communication strategy are paramount. We’re undergoing a transformation—Sage is becoming more strategic, insight-led, and integrated across the organisation.
A key focus is bolstering our experience insights capability, centralising feedback, communication signals, and employee experience data into a cohesive overview of what colleagues perceive, feel, and experience. This role will be pivotal in establishing this capability: setting frameworks, standards, and methodologies to enhance decision-making and improve the overall colleague experience.
We are also reframing knowledge structures, systems, and workflows in light of emerging AI, ensuring these are intuitive, maintainable, and easy to improve.
As a team, we thrive on support, open knowledge-sharing, and curiosity. We’re adaptable, thoughtful, and action-oriented, balancing high standards with a collaborative, human-centred approach.
Could This Be You?
Ideal candidates have:
- Experience shaping employee experience within matrixed, global organisations, with backgrounds in employee experience, insight, or internal communications at a strategic level.
- Expertise in employee listening, using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to create a well-rounded understanding of colleague experiences.
- Ability to simplify complexity into clear, actionable direction that supports decisive and timely decision-making.
- Capacity to design, implement, and embed frameworks, standards, or methodologies that improve consistency, clarity, and quality across internal teams.
- Knowledge of content or information design, emphasising structure, usability, and helping colleagues find and retrieve information efficiently.
- Curiosity around how AI and automation can introduce improvements in colleague experience, including streamlining information flow, workflows, and systems to reduce friction and bolster decision-making.
- Confident ability to partner with senior leaders, providing insightful recommendations, and offering constructive challenge.
- Experience setting strategic direction across teams or functions, encouraging transparency and shared purpose.
- Proven leadership in people-centred initiatives, building trust, capability, and a strong sense of belonging within a high-performing team.
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Your New Role
The Associate Director, Experience Insights & Design will establish and steer Sage’s global strategy for listening to colleagues, interpreting their experiences, and translating insights into clearer decision-making.
Your responsibilities include:
- Building an enterprise-wide listening framework, merging inputs from multiple channels into a unified, cohesive view of the employee experience.
- Distilling ambiguous or complex findings into concrete, practical recommendations that guide prioritisation and decision-making.
- Identifying patterns across the employee lifecycle to pinpoint critical areas for improvement.
- Defining and embedding information architecture, governance, searchability, and reuse standards within colleague-facing systems to enhance trust, ease of retrieval, and maintenance across channels and future AI-driven tools.
- Collaborating with Digital Workplace, Technology, and People & Culture teams to improve information accessibility, connections, and process maintenance.
- Steering the Channels Manager in creating intuitive channel architecture informed by insight, enhancing clarity, usability, and stakeholder trust.
- Leveraging colleague data to simplify journeys, channels, and touchpoints, promoting intuitive navigation and a smoother overall experience.
- Serving as a trusted business partner, offering clear advice, constructive challenge, and strategic perspective to senior leaders.
- Establishing expectations, standards, and direction for the Channels team, aiding capability development and practice maturity.
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Overview of Benefits
- 25 days annual leave (plus public holidays) + 2 additional flexible days.
- Hybrid working model up to 2 days per week in-office, with a home working allowance.
- Life assurance, income protection, and travel insurance.
- Comprehensive private medical cover and access to an employee assistance programme.
- Fully-funded tuition scheme, furthering professional qualifications, with access to Sage’s extensive book and journal library.
- Diverse refreshments and beverages available at workspaces.
- Healthy lifestyle stipend and anniversary reward trips.
- Company-loan scheme (season ticket loan, rental deposit loan, training/skiing course loans, and cycle loans).
We are proudly a Disability Confident Employer (Level 1). For those eligible—awarded an interview or conditional offer you may also be eligible to offer an interview or conditional job offer—we’d be happy to support you. If you’d like to apply under this scheme, please state it in your application.
We prioritise an accessible recruitment process: if you require reasonable adjustments, please email humanresources@sagepub.co.uk. Adjustments will only be considered if formal agreement has been reached in advance. Applications under this scheme must be submitted directly via email.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
At Sage, we are dedicated to building an inclusive culture that celebrates diversity, fosters authenticity, and cultivates a sense of belonging. We actively encourage applications from all members of society—regardless of age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious belief, race, ethnicity, nationality, or socioeconomic background. Because our strength lies in the diversity of thought, we’re committed to ensuring our workplace reflects and values everyone.
As global academic publisher of books, journals, and library resources, Sage facilitates the application and dissemination of knowledge. Our mission? Building bridges to knowledge: advancing research, teaching, and evidence-driven applications, enabling critical impact in academia and society.
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