Learning & Development Senior Manager

We have an exciting opportunity for a Learning & Development Senior Manager to join our Human Resources team, based in A&O Shearman's London office.

Human Resources Team - London

The HR team at A&O Shearman provides a first-class service to the business, offering strategic HR business advice and operational excellence through business partners and specialist teams in the full range of HR functions such as talent & development, resourcing, reward, employee relations, systems, and HR administration.

The global Talent & Development (T&D) Centre of Excellence designs and delivers learning and development for all staff globally through business skills and personal development programmes for partners, associates, and Business Team staff and other development support. At the senior end this is for our leadership partners and our directors. T&D provides leadership on identifying, developing, and retaining our talent. We plan the overall delivery of development for the global firm and work closely with the Training Events (TE) team (based in Belfast & London) to ensure the smooth set up and running of each programme, whether this is virtual or in-person.

What You Will Do

The specific populations and programmes that the job holder is responsible for is subject to change over time as priorities evolve and work split is agreed between the team. At the current time, the planned main focus and responsibility is the leadership and business skills development for our lawyers globally at all levels. There is the opportunity to contribute to other programmes for our Business Teams and work with other members of the team on facilitation, delivery, and observations. The firm is continually reviewing its T&D offering and part of your role will be to initiate reviews and refreshes programmes that we currently have and/or design and deliver new programmes that we should have. This includes integrating a more blended learning approach through the use of AI-enabled learning.

The role involves influencing the business to 'buy-in' to the programmes, working with global colleagues to deliver programmes around the network. It also involves advising colleagues about the programmes and development issues more generally and working closely with the business on bespoke learning required which falls outside of the standard programmes and learning. There is also ad-hoc and project work to contribute to and responsibility for reporting and budgeting. Some global travel will be required for this position.

Programme Design and Delivery

• To work closely with the business to define learning needs and the content of core programmes and to propose and agree overall approach to any agreed development programmes and workshops globally.
• To ensure that programmes have defined learning objectives, that the style and structure of sessions and the flow of learning appropriately meets these, that programmes employ effective techniques and to leverage our learning platform to deliver a blended approach maximising learning.
• To champion the use of AI in the delivery of learning.
• To deliver selected programmes and sessions, either virtually or in-person.
• To build and manage relationships across the global network with key stakeholders and line colleagues to ensure that needs are understood and to cover key information on learning, programmes, and new developments. This is to build understanding of how learning supports development in a broader context and ensure learning is delivering high-quality skill development.
• To add to, refresh, and update learning as necessary to ensure continuous improvement and to reflect changing priorities and in response to feedback.
• To project manage the delivery of programmes across the global firm, managing the relationship with relevant members of the Training Events team to ensure the effective organisation, delivery, and follow-up of all programmes.
• To identify and select learning providers who have expertise that meets the particular requirements of a programme(s). To manage our ongoing relationships and contracts with providers to ensure they are providing the highest quality of learning.
• To work with internal experts to develop content and/or run sessions on programmes.
• To create and maintain key documents, frameworks, materials, and intranet sites as required. To manage key systems, intranet, and databases that support consistent global standards of delivery of learning and compliance.
• To deliver value for money on all programmes - and set and manage the budget to achieve this. The budget for the T&D team is circa £4 million and each senior manager would have responsibility for circa £1 million of this. To match demand to supply and ensure the appropriate number of programmes are delivered where and when required.
• To work closely with the business on bespoke learning needs for specific groups of people, teams, departments, or office, often with a need to handle sensitive and confidential information. This includes conducting 1:1 or team sessions.
• To present to management teams or departments on current initiatives or deliver best practice, for example embedding learning tools.
• To advise on team or department off-sites with regard to any learning objectives, advising on design, external expertise, and related costs.
• To facilitate and/or observe on programmes managed by other team members.