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.

About the Role

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.

How to apply

As part of your application, please respond to the two targeted questions:

1. Please outline a community engagement program you have developed to effectively meet the needs of audiences or stakeholders who were culturally and linguistically diverse, Aboriginal and/or living with a disability? How did you approach the development and implementation of action plans and how did you ensure that you achieved stakeholder and business outcomes? (Maximum 300 words).
2. Giving one or two examples, discuss how would go about developing a new partnership collaboration for the NSW Electoral Commission and an external partner. What steps would you take and who would you engage? What do you think is important for creating a successful collaboration and how do you measure success? (Maximum 300 words).

You should include a covering letter summarising your skills, knowledge, and work experience, along with an up-to-date resume which clearly detail your skills and experience as relevant to this role.

For further information regarding the role please download the role description or contact the hiring manager Liz Smith, Manager, Corporate Communications on 02 9293 1366.

Applying for a role in the NSW Public Service

For more information on how to apply for a role in the NSW Public Service, please refer here.

The NSW Electoral Commission embraces diversity and inclusion and is committed to creating a workplace that reflects the population of New South Wales. We welcome applications from people from diverse backgrounds and encourage women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, LGBTQIA+, people with disability, mature-age people, and people from culturally diverse backgrounds to apply for this role.

Please let us know if we can make some adjustments to our recruitment/interview process to assist you, please contact [email protected] using the subject line: Stakeholder Engagement and Communications Lead enquiry via EthicalJobs.

Applications received and completed after closing time will not be considered for selection.

The selection process will include a range of assessment techniques to assist in determining your suitability for the role.

For further information, contact NSW Electoral Commission’s Talent team on [email protected] 

Other Information

Your employment will be subject to National Criminal Records Check to determine your suitability for employment.  

A talent pool may be created from this recruitment action for ongoing and temporary roles of the same work classification that may become available for filling over the next 18 months.

This role is based in at our Elizabeth Street, Sydney office with a hybrid work arrangement.