Are you an enthusiastic team player? Can you deliver exceptional results on a range of projects? Do you want to make a difference in a growing region?
We have an exciting opportunity for a People Development Advisor to join Story Scotland on a fixed term basis, based from our Blantyre office - and there has never been a better time to join!
The Role
As a People Development Advisor at Story Contracting you will report to the Head of People. The People Development Advisor plays a key role in supporting the design, delivery, and continuous improvement of technical training, L&D programmes, soft-skills training and development offerings across Story Scotland.
This role also supports the Early Careers Programme and education engagement initiatives and plays a critical role in the success of our coveted graduate apprenticeship scheme. This role has one direct report, our Business Support Assistant who supports training administration duties.
This role is a fixed-term contract providing maternity cover and will begin in December 2025, and end in October 2026.
Key Responsibilities
Technical Training
- Stay informed of updates to Sentinel rules and assess their impact on technical training requirements, ensuring compliance and alignment with industry standards.
- Work closely with Story's Sentinel Coordinators to ensure all Network Rail course bookings are managed effectively and in full compliance with Sentinel guidelines, supporting operational readiness and safety standards.
- Maintain clear training processes, including budget approval workflows.
- Oversee the accuracy and maintenance of training records, ensuring they are kept up-to-date and compliant through effective delegation and monitoring.
- Engage with operational departments to identify training needs aligned to specific projects and industry sectors, such as Civils, Rail, and Energy, ensuring training provision is relevant, commercially sensible and future focused.
- Responsible for maintaining an accurate and up-to-date training competence matrix that reflects current and emerging requirements.
Learning & Development
- Support the development and delivery of L&D programmes.
- Support coordinating and facilitating the Story Contracting corporate induction on a monthly basis.
- Maintain oversight of colleague appraisals, capturing training needs and producing accessible reports.
- Provide guidance and support n the annual appraisal system and process as needed to line managers.
- Contribute to the facilitation of in-house L&D courses such as; soft-skills courses, line manager training and Insights workshops.
- Support the implementation of the wider People team strategic plan within Story Scotland, ensuring local alignment with organisational goals and priorities.
- Maintenance of user accounts on our digital learning platform for Story Scotland using our Learning Management System, whilst liaising with divisional L&D teams across Story to ensure consistency and shared best practices.
- Ad hoc duties to support the People Team and any current initiatives as required.
Early Careers Programmes
- Management of the Early Careers database, including rotation and secondment timetables.
- Act as the key contact with education providers for enrolment and on-going progress reports. Highlighting any academic performance issues with key internal stakeholders.
- Lead the delivery of Early Careers quarterly development events, with support from the People Team.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with Early Careers colleagues through regular One-to-One meetings, ensuring their development needs are understood and supported.
Occasional travel to our Carlisle office may be required, approximately once per month on average. Mileage will be re-imbursed and a car allowance is available for this role.
Benefits
At Story Contracting, we invest in our people. We provide award-winning training and development opportunities for all employees to help you get to where you want to be in your career.
In addition to a salary of £36,000 per annum, pension and car allowance of £6,180 per annum, we show we care about our people by offering a health cash plan and wellbeing support to keep you fit and well - inside and outside of work. We offer agile working, with 1 day per week home working available with line manager approval. For fixed-term roles, the salary and car allowance per annum will be pro-rata.
We care about our communities too and offer our employees two paid volunteering days each year to spend as a team or individually.
The Ideal Candidate:
- An understanding of how Learning and Development can support future direction of the company.
- High level administration skills. Microsoft Excel skills are essential.
- Experience in a training and development role is essential.
- Experience managing others would be desirable.
- Experience working in the Construction, or a highly regulated industry would be beneficial.
- The ability to communicate across all levels of the company and tailor their communication style appropriately.
- Experience of COINS or other similar training databases.
- An understanding of Early Careers programmes.
- Customer focused with the ability to engage with clients (internal & external) and build relationships.
- IT- Working knowledge of MS Suite & Outlook.
- Strong analytical skills.
- Excellent attention to detail.
- Excellent communication, interpersonal skills and telephone manner.
- Ability to work within a team and on own initiative to prioritise workload.
- Experience of working to deadlines and changing priorities at pace.
- Experience of working within a busy Learning Environment.
Why Story Contracting?
Story Contracting is a privately-owned, award-winning infrastructure company who is financially secure and agile with a wide range of public, private and third sector clients who enjoy working with our talented and committed team. Our track record for delivery on time and to budget, safely and reliably, has meant repeat business from our clients, which is reflected in our motto of ‘Do It Right!’
Our values are at the heart of everything we do - the way we work and the behaviours we display. We believe that this is what makes Story Contracting and our people exceptional.
GROUNDED - Everyone is equal at Story. We are down to earth and treat each other with respect.
HARDWORKING - We all pull our weight and work hard for each other.
PROUD - We are proud of our safety, our projects, our people, our clients and the success we create together.
FAMILY - We nurture, train, develop and keep our people safe, just like a family. We are inclusive and do the right thing for the business and its people.
TRUSTED - What we say is what we do. Our clients, our people and our communities trust us to do it right.
WINNERS - We are hungry for success and want to be the best performing contractor for our clients, our people and our communities.
Find out more about what it’s like to be part of Team Story here. https://www.storycontracting.com/jobs/
Every Story Matters
We are proud to be a place where everyone can be part of the Story!
As part of our pledge to eliminate discrimination and encourage diversity among our Story Team, our ‘Every Story’ policy https://www.storycontracting.com/about-us/our-culture-values/ ensures all employees are a part of a diverse environment and always feel included.
All applicants will receive careful consideration for employment regardless of who you are, where you come from or what you believe in.
Think you’d be a good fit?
Successful applicants will be contacted shortly after the closing date.
Apply today and start your story!
