Team Lead (Editorial Board Resourcing)

Job Title: Team Lead (Editorial Board Resourcing)

Location: Nanjing, China;

About Springer Nature Group

Springer Nature opens the doors to discovery for researchers, educators, clinicians and other professionals. Every day, around the globe, our imprints, books, journals, platforms and technology solutions reach millions of people. For over 175 years our brands and imprints have been a trusted source of knowledge to these communities and today, more than ever, we see it as our responsibility to ensure that fundamental knowledge can be found, verified, understood and used by our communities – enabling them to improve outcomes, make progress, and benefit the generations that follow.

Position Overview

Springer Nature works with thousands of external academic editors to run our journals. These editors are a key driving force for strong submissions and journal growth, ensuring that rigorous and timely peer review of new manuscripts takes place. The Team Lead (Editorial Board Resourcing) is responsible for managing a dedicated team that supports the recruitment of manuscript-handling external editors to a portfolio of related journals at Springer Nature.  Working closely with Publishing Directors, journal publishing teams and Editors-in-Chief (EiCs), you and your team will implement robust and scalable processes to assess recruitment needs and identify potential candidates for recruitment on priority journals. The team will also be responsible for developing best-practice resources to support publishing colleagues with editorial board recruitment with a particular focus on recruitment of China-based editors.

Responsibilities 

1. Team Management: Ensuring team resources are effectively deployed to meet the needs of the organization and individual team members. Responsibilities include:

• Recruiting, training and managing a high-performing team of China-based Editorial Board Resourcing Specialists who support Editorial board recruitment on a portfolio of related journals.
• Driving and coordinating recruitment priorities for the team, ensuring that a high-quality service is delivered in a timely manner and that targets (journals supported, candidates identified) are met.
• Promoting a culture of continuous improvement in the Editorial Board Resourcing team; ensuring that all team members are able to contribute to development of recruitment processes through feedback and identification of opportunities for improvement.

2. Delivering and implementing the strategy: Work with Head of Editor and Reviewer Resourcing to develop editorial board recruitment strategy within the Editor Engagement team with a particular focus on recruitment in China. Responsibilities include:

• Working alongside the Head of Editor and Reviewer Resourcing and Reviewer Engagement Manager to ensure that processes are aligned with wider team objectives and geared to create a pathway for early career researchers based in China to join editorial boards.
• Monthly reporting on recruitment team progress against KPIs within the journal portfolio. Identifying and implementing changes in practice to improve performance of recruitment team against KPIs.
• Developing and maintaining training resources to allow publishing colleagues to follow best practice when conducting independent editorial board recruitment.
• Contributing to the development of tools and services that help EiCs and the journal publishing teams identify suitable candidates.

3. Support Editorial board recruitment on a limited number of journals: Support journal EiCs and journal publishing colleagues in EBM recruitment by assessing recruitment needs and developing specific recommendations. Responsibilities include:

• Data management and analysis

• Using pre-defined criteria, develop datasets based on the scope of the journal and related field to  identify candidates for editorial board recruitment With our reporting and technology partners creating a scalable performance management process that our internal teams can use to optimise the performance of editorial boards.

• Customer Engagement

• Engaging external Editors-in-Chief and internal publisher teams with the recruitment process, ensuring that goals, and processes are clearly communicated to all parties.
• Working with EiCs to ensure that suitable candidates are invited to join journals in a timely manner and that EiCs are provided with feedback on progress.

Key Relationships

• Reports into the Head of Editor and Reviewer Resourcing, working with them to develop the recruitment team strategy and implementation.
• Manage a team of Editorial Board Resourcing Specialists who identify and recruit new board members.
• Collaborate with the Reviewer Engagement Manager to ensure that team objectives are aligned and that a path to recruitment of early career researchers is implemented effectively.
• Collaborate with Editorial Engagement team to ensure that recruitment processes align with wider team strategy.
• Collaborate with the Editor support team to support a normalized onboarding experience for new EBMs. 
• Collaborates with China-based teams at Springer Nature to ensure that recruitment is tailored to the location and that opportunities to improve recruitment strategy are identified. 
• Liaise with Publishing Directors to report on progress against targets and to ensure that recruitment processes are optimized, high quality and relevant to needs of the journal portfolio.
• Where appropriate, liaise with EiCs and publishing teams to ensure that they are engaged with and understand recruitment processes, and that recruitment support is relevant to journal needs.
• Work with the Business intelligence team to ensure that recruitment data needs are met.

Experience, Skills & Qualifications

Experience

• Line management experience (remote management preferred)
• Experience of STM journal publishing, with a good understanding of peer review and the role of Editorial Boards
• An understanding of the research environment and the needs of researchers, a passion for science and a thorough understanding of recent trends/ developments in the field
• Experience of stakeholder management at all levels of seniority
• Experience in working with and building productive relationships with external stakeholders, including research teams, Editorial Board members and editors in chief
• A track record of planning, delivering and monitoring large scale projects

Skills

• Line management skills, preferably experience working with remote teams
• Confidence in communicating, engaging and working cooperatively with stakeholders at various levels of seniority, including researchers, editors, and other partners, in a professional manner
• Proven background in data analysis
• Project management experience

Qualifications      

• University degree, preferably in a scientific discipline  
• A PhD, MSc, or higher scientific degree (desirable, not essential)

At Springer Nature, we value the diversity of our teams and work to build an inclusive culture, where people are treated fairly and can bring their differences to work and thrive. We empower our colleagues and value their diverse perspectives as we strive to attract, nurture and develop the very best talent. Springer Nature was awarded Diversity Team of the Year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Find out more about our DEI work here https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/taking-responsibility/diversity-equity-inclusion

If you have any access needs related to disability, neurodivergence or a chronic condition, please contact us so we can make all necessary accommodation.

For more information about career opportunities in Springer Nature please visit https://careers.springernature.com/

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