The posting
WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands.
We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth.
We work with the world's most valuable brands and have global reach across 100+ markets, with deep local expertise.
Our people are the key to our success. We're committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow.
For more information, visit WPP.com.
Why we're hiring:
The Director of Employee Listening & Insights will lead WPP’s global approach to understanding and responding to employee sentiment, creating a scalable, insight-led listening ecosystem that drives visible action and sustains trust through transformation.
At the heart of the role is connecting employee voice with leadership decisions and tangible employee experience outcomes. The Director will harness technology, analytics and automation to provide timely, actionable workforce insights and embed employee sentiment more deeply into decision-making across WPP.
Partnering closely with HR, People Analytics, Communications, GBS and business leaders, the role will help create a single, trusted view of workforce insights and ensure employee feedback leads to meaningful action and measurable improvements throughout Elevate28 and beyond.
What you'll be doing:
Employee Listening Strategy & Delivery
- Lead the evolution of WPP’s global employee listening strategy, developing a clear roadmap for implementation from 2027 onwards.
- Build and embed a scalable, insight-led listening ecosystem that strengthens employee voice, drives visible action and sustains trust through transformation.
- Review and optimise WPP’s employee listening technology landscape, leveraging technology, analytics and automation to deliver more timely and actionable insights.
- Lead and continuously enhance WPP’s global listening framework, including engagement surveys, pulse surveys, lifecycle surveys, exit feedback and employee advisory forums.
- Deliver monthly pulse surveys and transformation sentiment tracking across major geographies, providing leaders with timely visibility of employee sentiment and experience.
- Ensure listening activities are closely aligned to business priorities, transformation milestones and employee experience objectives.
- Lead survey governance, stakeholder engagement, vendor relationships and communications, ensuring a consistent and effective global approach.
- Monitor participation, engagement and feedback quality, identifying opportunities to strengthen employee voice and increase the impact of listening.
- Partner with the broader People Experience team to identify key employee experience pain points and prioritise areas for improvement.
- Partner closely with People Analytics, GBS and Technology teams to create a more connected, automated listening ecosystem and a single source of truth for workforce insights.
Employee Insights & Action
- Define and embed WPP’s employee insights strategy, establishing clear governance, reporting and action-planning frameworks.
- Translate employee feedback and listening data into clear, actionable insights that strengthen the connection between employee voice, leadership decisions and employee experience outcomes.
- Analyse data to identify emerging trends, organisational risks, opportunities and areas requiring intervention.
- Provide executive-ready insights and recommendations for People Leadership, EMT reviews and transformation governance forums.
- Develop and maintain dashboards that provide real-time visibility of employee sentiment, engagement and experience trends.
- Track key indicators including engagement, transformation sentiment, change readiness, retention risks and wellbeing.
- Identify leading indicators and early warning signals, enabling leaders to take proactive action.
- Partner with HR and business leaders to translate insights into measurable actions and track their impact over time.
- Build a data-driven culture where employee sentiment and experience are embedded into decision-making at all levels.
- Lead the development of WPP’s “You Said, We Did” communications, demonstrating how employee feedback is influencing decisions and driving tangible change.
Key Measures of Success & Year One Deliverables
Success in the first year will be focused on establishing a stronger, insight-led listening approach and demonstrating a clear connection between employee feedback and action. Key priorities will include:
- Delivering a reimagined WPP Employee Listening Strategy and roadmap for 2027.
- Establishing a Continuous Listening Model, including monthly pulse surveys across major geographies.
- Developing an Employee Insights Dashboard providing timely visibility of employee sentiment, engagement and experience trends.
- Delivering the first cycle of the “You Said, We Did” programme, clearly demonstrating how employee feedback translates into action.
- Driving strong listening participation and satisfaction, ensuring employees see value in sharing their feedback.
- Increasing the insight-to-action ratio, with listening insights translated into tangible and communicated actions.
- Monitoring transformation sentiment and fatigue, identifying emerging risks and enabling timely intervention.
What you'll need:
- Significant experience in a senior HR, Employee Experience, People Insights or Employee Listening role, with a strong track record of delivering listening programmes at scale.
- Proven experience shaping and activating employee listening and insights strategies, translating feedback into meaningful organisational change and action.
- Strong partnership skills, with experience working across People Analytics, HR, GBS, Communications and Technology to deliver an integrated listening and insights approach.
- A highly data-driven and insight-led mindset, with the ability to turn complex employee data into clear recommendations, executive-level insights and measurable improvements to the employee experience.
- Experience working within large, complex, global and federated organisations, balancing global consistency with local and regional needs.
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the credibility to engage senior leaders and drive action through compelling data and insights.
- A strong understanding of how technology, analytics and automation can enhance employee listening, provide more timely insights and strengthen organisational decision-making.
Who you are:
You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are open-minded: to new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.
You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.
You're extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.
What we'll give you:
Passionate, inspired people – We aim to create a culture in which people can do extraordinary work.
Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.
Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?
#LI-Hybrid
We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.
WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.
