Communications Officer - Edinburgh Park, Flexible Hours

About Aegis:

Aegis grew from a staff association established in 1972 to a trade union, gaining independent status in 2008. Up until August 2012 all our members, reps and officers worked for Aegon. As Aegon pursued a strategy of outsourcing non-core parts of their business, we adapted our operations so our members could stay with us as they transferred out to other organisations. To accommodate this, and in line with our long–term strategy, our full-time officers left Aegon at this point and became Aegis’ employees.  

Our long-term strategy is to expand outwith Aegon but to grow carefully within the finance industry. We have a simple operating model that can be easily transferred to a similar sized organisation. This means we can quickly establish an infrastructure within other organisations that would quickly add value to the employees and employers.

In 2014 two similar sized unions in the finance sector agreed to transfer their engagements into Aegis. These were SURGE, which represents staff in the Skipton Group and HML and YISA, which represents staff in the Yorkshire Group. This increased our membership to almost 5000 members. We are currently working on integrating the three separate organisations into one. 

We recently held a strategy day and the full-time officers agreed that the key priorities for Aegis over the next three years are to:

• Improve our financial security
• increase our membership
• Empower reps
• Continue to raise our profile and
• Revolutionise the way we communicate.

We have translated these into the following five strategic goals:

• Ensure the long-term financial stability of Aegis without affecting the services we provide to our members.
• Grow our membership through a consistent approach to recruitment and retention.
• Create an environment that encourages and supports high performing reps.
• Actively promote a positive image of Aegis both internally and externally.
• Improve the communication processes throughout Aegis ensuring all interested parties know what they need to know at the right time.

Key to the delivery of this strategy is a dedicated Communications person to develop and implement a communication strategy to support our goals. The full-time officers currently carry out this role however they do not have the time or the skills to give this the focus it now requires.

We are therefore looking for a person who can work with us to revolutionise the way we communicate.

Project Brief

We anticipate that their brief will be to:

• Develop a communication strategy that supports our ambitions and meets our members’ requirements
• Take responsibility for Aegis’ communications to members, representatives and external bodies, ensuring that they are targeted at the relevant readers, regularly updated, correct and that they comply with our constitutional requirements.
• Proactively promote Aegis using a variety of communications channels.
• Organise promotional campaigns to support union initiatives and raise brand awareness.
• Develop a governance structure to ensure appropriate checks and sign offs are completed before communications are issued.
• Produce and manage communications templates that reps can use.

Next Steps

We are very interested in offering a placement opportunity to students who are interested in this project and have the skills and knowledge to deliver it. Apply online today to start your e-Placement Scotland journey with Aegis.