Practice Lead

Tiakina te anamata, mā te tūhono i ngā tāngata me ngā wāhi o te inamata. Taking care of tomorrow: connecting people and place today. Mercury is a bold future-focused organisation, providing energy and telecommunications to more Kiwi than anyone else, leading the way with renewable energy and working toward a sustainable future. At the heart is our purpose which pushes us to do all we can to create a better future for our people, our communities, and Aotearoa New Zealand. **Our Opportunity**: We operate in a highly competitive environment. Our ability to deliver value quickly, provide exceptional customer service, attract and retain great talent, and maintain our licence to operate is what enables our ongoing success. Our goal is to evolve so that we not only achieve our goals, but build a competitive advantage that enables us to expand our ambitions and strategy even further. In this newly created role, you will play a pivotal role as Practice Lead - Continuous Improvement to ensure we deliver our strategy in a fast, nimble and efficient way. Your role is to ensure the growth of Mercury's organisational capabilities of the practice, which includes setting the right expectations on the tools and approaches used in the practice across our squads _and operational teams_ and developing people capability to meet these needs. You will play a critical role in developing tools and mindsets aligned to the Adaptive Ways of Working. As the Practice Lead, your role will be to lead the continuous improvement practice for our Customer business unit, establish and implement frameworks to deliver strategic capability and identify and implement integrated cross-team process improvements, using fit-for-purpose solutions. You will be leading a team of approximately 6 direct reports, consisting of Continuous Improvement Specialists and Coordinators. This is an exciting time to come onboard as we continually evolve - this role will be the lifeblood that runs through many aspects of our business with lots of interesting projects in the pipeline where you will work closely with the robotics team. This role is flexible to be based in any of our offices including Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga with travel required to key office locations. We operate in a hybrid flexible working environment, which gives you the flexibility to work from home while still understanding the importance of connecting and collaborating with the business. **Key accountabilities include**: - Design professional standards and development of practice members - Set the direction for the craft, including required people capability, tools, technologies and processes - Define the professional standards and define "best practices" (e.g. ensuring adoption of industry standards where applicable, building DevOps culture and aligning on tools) - Define processes of interaction and transfer of knowledge among the members of the practice - Professional support and develop members of the practice to support their personal development and increase productivity of squads - Identify growth opportunities within a practice by empathetic listening and utilising data and feedback - Foster and build close working relationships with robotics capability - Support large and complex initiatives **We are looking for**: - Certification in a continuous improvement framework like Six Sigma, Lean methodologies is advantageous. - Experience in continuous improvement, process optimization, or quality management is advantageous - Experience in leading and implementing successful continuous improvement initiatives. - Strong understanding of process mapping, root cause analysis, and data-driven decision-making. - Experience with Agile or Scrum frameworks is advantageous. - Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills. - Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and motivate cross-functional teams. - Experience in leading a practice is advantageous - Proven ability to develop and implement strategic improvement plans aligned with organizational goals. - Strong leadership and management skills with experience in mentoring and developing high-performing teams. - Strong presentation, and stakeholder management skills. - Ability to drive cultural change and foster a continuous improvement mindset across the organization. **Mercury offers (full benefits are listed on our Career Page)**: - Additional 5 days leave per annum (MyDays) - $400 one off tax-free payment towards setting up your home office - A diverse workplace where your unique abilities and talents will be recognised and encouraged - Annual salary reviews with excellent parental leave policy, with the option to purchase additional leave - The opportunities, career paths and facilities associated with working for one of New Zealand's largest multi-utility providers - Flexible working policy - The autonomy and trust to work flexibly from our purpose-built premises and from home, recognisin