Senior Manager of UToday Services, Communications Services, VP External Relations

Senior Manager of UToday Services
The Office of External Relations is the university's central hub for connection and collaboration. We advance UCalgary's mission by uniting people, ideas, and initiatives across campus and beyond. By building and sustaining meaningful relationships with communities, partners, and stakeholders, we amplify the university's vision, communicate its priorities with clarity, and drive progress toward shared goals. External Relations features a number of major functions including Communications;
Community Engagement, Government Relations and UCalgary International.

In this leadership role, you will report to the Senior Director of Communications Services in the Office of External Relations to build internal pride and enhance the national and international reputation of the University of Calgary through the university's daily e-newsletter UToday. Leading a team of communications professionals you will develop, implement, measure and assess a content strategy for the University of Calgary's daily newsletter that is aligned with operational objectives and the strategic direction of the university.

Summary of

Key Responsibilities

Develops, implements, measures and assesses high-quality and timely digital content strategies for internal and external audiences.

Ensures the implementation of strong and consistent content protocols and training opportunities to enhance the quality, depth and impact of content generated across campus.

Engages key stakeholders supporting university-related to content generation and deployment.

Develop and encourage best writing practices and templated structures for news articles in alignment with the One UCalgary website writing strategy, the brand protocol, SEO-friendly headlines and captions, global standard in plain language for a digital audience.

Work seamlessly with digital tools to upload text and image content, build a newsletter, track content performance, and orient operations to reflect the unit's strategic goals.

Liaise with content producers across all campuses, identifying potential issues and navigating campus resources to recommend solutions engaging with External Relations communications teams to help position sensitive news content.

Develops productive relationships with faculty communications teams, academics, students and staff.

Develop a proactive photography plan that supports compelling visuals for UToday, marketing and leadership purposes.

Works professionally and collaboratively with other university communicators and marketing professionals, as well as members of the Office of External Relations, university partners and more to create comprehensive communications approaches related to content marketing, internal communications, storytelling, brand and more.

Accountable for supporting the short- and long-term business objectives of the University of Calgary through effective content strategies.

Responsible for the refinement of timely and compelling stories to showcase teaching and learning, research, operations and community-related accomplishments to help boost awareness, internal pride and external interest.

Oversee the updating of content on the UCalgary News website on daily, weekly and monthly cadences, along with the development of new web pages for ongoing features such as Top Stories of the Year. Set and oversee best-practice standards in the accuracy, visual appearance and voice of the UToday newsletter.

Establishes and leads a team of communications professionals, ensuring the appropriate allocation of personnel to projects, providing staff with direction on administrative policies, procedure, collective agreements, technical requirements, priorities and service expectations.

Coaches and mentors UToday staff; supports team members to develop professional development plans.

Manages contracts and relationships with external contractors and freelancers.

Establishes and tracks key performance indicators on behalf of the team, articulates foundational team goals, and builds a high performance, results and service-oriented culture within UToday.

Regularly attends Managers' Circle within Communications Services, working collaboratively with peer managers to ensure an integrated approach to content development and deployment in alignment with university and unit goals.

Ensure each staff member is effectively performance managed, with routine updates to job profiles, regular and timely performance reviews, professional development plans.

Creates and implements high-quality and timely content strategies based on industry best practices and key performance indicators.

Develops data-driven decisions to increase readership and key message recall among audiences.

Works with the Office of External Relations to provide a content perspective on any university-wide announcements, events and initiatives.

Collaborates with social media, media relations, event and internal communications professionals to offer a seamless and integrated approach to content…