Strategic Communications Executive

Job description

Division/Dept.

Corporate Affairs

Location

Holborn store support centre / home

Reporting to

Strategic Communications Senior Manager

In a nutshell

Reporting to the Strategic Communications Senior Manager, the Strategic Communications Executive will be responsible for supporting our strategic and financial communications, including helping to build and protect Sainsbury’s corporate reputation. This role places you in the heart of Sainsbury’s communications activity, giving you all kinds of commercial experience and insight into the workings of one of the most exciting retail businesses in the UK as well as the multiple brands within it. 

Working in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment, you’ll be at the forefront of how we communicate to customers, colleagues and shareholders to demonstrate Sainsbury’s has the right strategy to deliver good food for all of us. 

What outcomes do I need to deliver

Support the delivery of strategic communications that build and protect Sainsbury’s corporate reputation 

• You will support the development and delivery of external communications, including drafting material like press releases, social media posts and briefing documents; managing media lists; liaising with media and coordinating events
• Managing content on the corporate website, including uploading press releases using a CMS and working with teams across the business to keep content up to date and accurate – ensuring content is optimised for AI
• Work alongside Investor Relations and other teams to deliver financial reporting 
• Occasionally supporting a busy press office and managing reactive media engagement
• Working with all internal and external stakeholders to deliver external communications activity and corporate news moments

Be part of a winning team

• Contribute to a collaborative culture where everyone in the team works together to deliver a collective outcome, is focussed on continuous improvement and feels comfortable challenging decisions
• Help to simplify and improve ways of working 
• You will be flexible about what you work on and use any extra capacity to build your knowledge and experience of other areas of the business
• Proactively build relationships and work collaboratively with teams across the business

Be responsible for team administration

• Produce regular reports to show progress against the strategic communications plan and update the business on all upcoming strategic communications activity 
• Managing team inboxes and diaries 
• Raising invoices and liaising with Finance and supplier stakeholders
• Leading on file management

What you need to know and show

• A degree related to Communications, Media or English 
• Experience in a communications agency or relevant in-house position
• An interest in B2B communications
• Excellent verbal and written communications
• Passion for current affairs and the media
• Understanding of different types of media, including potential experience of digital and social media communications either in an entry level or intern capacity 
• Creative thinker and problem solver
• Good judgement and highly organised with a strong attention to detail 
• Effective collaborator and networker – able to build relationships across the business
• A real team player
• Confident using Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel

What decisions I can make including budget

• Prioritisation of own workload

Support we will provide

• Training for all systems and processes
• Access to personal development tools e.g. Bitesize talks and Our Sainsbury’s Learning
• Tailored training courses as needed

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:

Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 5% of salary, depending on how we perform.

Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.

Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.

Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).