Discipline Director

As an Arcadian, you already help us deliver world leading sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets. You are part of our global business comprising 36,000 people, in over 70 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life.

Everyone has an important role to play. With the power of many curious minds, together we can continue to solve the world’s most complex challenges and deliver more impact together.

Role description:

This role is part of Arcadis’ Global Excellence Centre (GEC) and will join our 3,000+ talented individuals working in India, Romania, and Philippines, in partnership with Arcadis’ offices globally. The GEC brings key capabilities and capacity to support our clients seamlessly around the world.  For those in GEC there are options to be dedicated to one country: developing deep knowledge and strong relationships, as well as opportunities to be part of teams working truly globally as a Centre of excellence, offering diversity and variety.  Arcadians are by nature, globally minded and culturally aware, and Arcadis strongly believes in flexibility which enables change over time as your career progresses. The GEC model is well embedded in Arcadis, and the strong relationships that exist between our global offices are truly unique. 

This role Discipline Director - Road Design & Drainage (GEC Mobility) would encompass overall leadership of Discipline team of professional staff located across multiple GECs ensuring growth of capabilities and capacity to meet business demands, and delivery of high-quality project outcomes. 

This role reports directly to GEC Business Area Director (Mobility) and can be based out of one of our Arcadis offices in India or Romania or Philippines.
 

Role Accountabilities:

• Provide professional leadership in their discipline at a senior management level, establishing and consolidating relationships with senior staff in BA offices, taking ownership for the delivery of the GEC’s technical capability, supporting the delivery of tasks or specialized components of projects 
• Plan and drive the development of Arcadis’ capability and capacity in the discipline to meet project demands, working with Talent Acquisition and Learning Development to ensure business needs can be met in advance. 
• Drive a culture of project delivery excellence within the discipline, ensuring that adequate talent is available and assigned to lead on project delivery from a technical and task management perspective.  
• Ensure the delivery of projects/tasks within the team is in accordance with Management Systems to meet time, quality, budgetary and health and safety targets 
• Engage with the senior leadership in the BAs and champion the involvement and inclusion of GEC capability in their delivery model using SOPs to standardize the delivery approach. 
• Drive the implementation of the GEC strategy within the discipline, including managing changes associated with the operating model 
• Communicate change and manage transformation within the team, aligned to the strategic direction of the company and GECs.  Develop and implement workforce plans regarding building capability and capacity of the teams over the medium to long term in consultation with GEC BA Business Partners, Workforce Planners, Service Delivery Managers and GEC Director (Mobility).  
• Manage day to day workload within the teams to ensure that direct and indirect hour targets are achieved, working in close collaboration with the Workforce Planner.  
• Work with Service Delivery Managers to define and implement standardization and automation initiatives within the Discipline teams. 
• Ensure a strong focus on career development, driving a culture of best practice around GPS and empowerment of staff to own the development of their careers. 
• Foster a strong culture of health and safety awareness and practices within the teams, setting a leadership example and holding senior staff to account. 
• Manage staff engagement levels by drawing insights from tools such as YourVoice, identifying engagement drivers and developing and implementing action plans to ensure a well engaged team. 
• Manage team shape and size within the discipline to ensure that adequate levels of seniority for leadership, task management and technical roles are in place to support current and future delivery requirements. 
• Drive the development of training plans which ensure that skills are continuously improving and meet the workload requirements from the BAs.
• Need for partnering with other discipline director within GEC BA.
•  Responsible for implementing policies and procedures in line with GEC country specific policies.

Key shared accountabilities:

• Planning and delivery of GEC targets.
• GEC involvement in pursuit process.
• Understanding of GEC capability and capacity to deliver GEC implementation plan.

Owns:  

• Delivery of BA GEC implementation plan in partnership with BA GEC Managers
• Delivery of BA GEC metrics in partnership with BA GEC Managers.
• GEC inputs into pursuits

Influences:  

• Recruitment decisions, capability development

Vetoes:  

• Non-standard GEC operating model approaches.
• BA GEC targets - total services hours, agreed minimum GEC contribution per service / discipline & billability.
• BA project/task performance KPIs.
  

Qualifications & Experience:

• The candidate should have a bachelor's or master's degree and at least 10+ years of experience leading and growing a significant business function within a multinational engineering or professional services firm. 
• The candidate will be able to inspire multi-disciplinary teams around a common purpose and demonstrate significant leadership capability.  
• The right candidate possesses a high level of intellectual, professional, and interpersonal agility and flexibility. 
• Further the candidate will bring excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to collaborate at all levels of the organization in particular senior levels. 
• A pragmatic attitude is vital.  
• Strong commercial acumen is required to support GEC involvement at pursuit phase, working in collaboration with BA stakeholders and senior GEC staff. 

Further requirements and competencies: 

• Leader with experience growing a GEC team in a country, area or division within a multinational engineering or professional services firm.
• An excellent understanding of GEC services and capabilities.
• An excellent understanding of and appreciation for business needs. 
• A well-developed understanding of and appreciation for organizational mission, values, and goals and consistent application of this knowledge. 
• Observation and persuasion skills especially with internal stakeholders (e.g. GBA directors, and local workforce). 
• An ability to communicate complex issues to diverse audiences, orally and in writing, in an easily understood, authoritative, and actionable manner. 
• Time management and ability to multi-task with competing priorities. 
• Excellent decision-making capabilities and ability to make decisions and deal with conflicting priorities. 

For this role Arcadis values professional experience across the following priority areas:  

Leading transformation: Ability to bring people on a journey to the unknown, creating a sense of stability and security in uncertain times, avoiding change fatigue.  

Managing change: Managing change e.g. divestments or mergers/acquisitions, growing a start-up, or leading change into other market/services or products, operating with new business models, turning around underperforming businesses, programs or teams and driving standardization and automation at scale. 

Data and technology: Adopting data-driven decision making, leveraging data to create and demonstrate value. Tech savvy and comfortable and curious about technologies.  

Aligned to the Arcadis Leadership model we seek Arcadians with a strong fit to our leadership success profile, to build and drive our culture of inclusion, accountability, human-centricity, and sustainability. Successful Arcadians will possess strong learning agility, combined with a balanced mix of being curious, driving success and igniting passion.  

Be curious:  

• Demonstrate and develop curiosity in oneself and others, bringing clients and Arcadians on a journey of discovery and co-creation. 
• Have a global, strategic, and future thinking mindset. 
• Are digitally-savvy, entrepreneurial and innovative.  
• Build organizational networks that are value-adding, engaging and purposeful. 
• Incorporate a human-centric, experimentation-led and continuous learning mindset to lead innovation and transformation. 
• Actively engage diverse points of view and manage healthy issues-based conflict.  

Drive success: 

• Create a sense of shared ownership and accountability balancing this with decisiveness and holding others to account for delivery.  
• Take ownership for own responsibility, creating clarity and motivating and aligning others.  
• Internalize organizational goals, making them one’s own personal stretch goals.  
• Are outcomes focused and tackle challenges head-on. 
• Demonstrate commercial acumen in general, and specifically with regards to sustainable solutions.  
• Actively shape the future of the organization.  

Ignite passion:   

• Personally, role model own commitment to improving quality of life and putting sustainability at the core. 
• Apply an adaptive style to engagement that is culturally sensitive and appeals to the personal needs of others. 
• Bring clarity and manage anxiety in others, through clear communication and inspiring storytelling.  
• Integrate their work, helping others make the connection between their work and the bigger picture.  
• Maintain personal resilience and rebound from setbacks and help others to do the same.  
• Build trust through authenticity, demonstrating integrity and courage regarding own convictions. 

Continue your career journey as an Arcadian.

We can only achieve our goals when everyone is empowered to be their best. We believe everyone's contribution matters. It’s why we are pioneering a skills based approach, where you can harness your unique experience and expertise to carve your career path and maximize the impact we can make together.

You do meaningful work, and no matter where your next role in Arcadis takes you, you’ll be helping to deliver sustainable solutions for a more prosperous planet. Make your mark; on your career, your colleagues, your clients, your life and the world around you. 

Together, we can create a lasting legacy.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We want you to be able to bring your best self to work every day which is why equality and inclusion is at the forefront of all our activities. Our ambition is to be an employer of choice and provide a great place to work for all our people. We are an equal opportunity employer; women, minorities, and people with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply. We are dedicated to a policy of non-discrimination in employment on any basis including race, caste, creed, color, religion, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, and gender identity.