Head of Central Operations
Location: National
Salary: Competitive
Achieve together is one of the UK’s leading providers of support for people with learning disabilities, autism and associated complex needs, we have a strong ethos and our commitment to supporting the people and families we work with is at the very heart of what we do.
We are currently seeking an experienced and exceptionally driven Head of Central Operations to join the team, reporting directly to the Chief Operations Officer.
This fantastic senior leadership opportunity has been developed as part of a brand-new function that is going to be fundamental in the further operational success of our business, with a brilliant mandate for simplifying the business and supporting our home managers and teams.
What you'll be doing...
As the Head of Central Operations, you will support Operations to achieve their objectives by finding opportunities to simplify processes, provide tools and coordinate requests for and to frontline operational teams. Ensure communications are accurate, coordinated, timely and appropriate, to enable operations to deliver the best possible quality support and care to the people we support, whilst achieving key performance indicators and objectives.
Key Responsibilities:
- Process Review - Reviewing all current processes and tasks expected of managers and team members in our homes with a view to simplifying by Automation, Reduction in frequency or removal completely, identifying and mitigating any potential risks.
- Standard operating procedures (SOPs) - Building a database of documents that describe the way we do things operationally throughout our homes. Once agreed, trial and roll out the agreed standard operating procedure across the organisation to achieve consistency and ultimately have all homes working in broadly the same way (allowing for the specific individual requirements as appropriate).
- Systems – Work closely with system product owners to ensure they are current, fit for purpose, in line with our SOPs and easy for our managers to use.
- Build a library of What Good Looks Like (WGLL) and How Do I? Guides - These would be built over time, starting with the most important tasks we undertake that articulate how you do something and to what standard.
- Workload Planning - Anything due to hit the homes from an additional workload perspective needs to be agreed by this department. They would create and govern a rolling 6-month plan that ensured anything new from any function was phased in a way so as not to create spikes of workload in any of our homes.
- Project steering groups - The operational representative on all project groups, ensuring all projects are built with the user in mind, are tested and piloted thoroughly and fit for purpose before launch to homes.
- Operational issues – Be the conduit between home managers and the field teams and Support functions to identify and resolve issues affecting operations within the business.
- Internal communication - Management of all communication being sent to team members working in our homes and all of the people we support across all channels. Ensuring communication is accurate, well written and prioritised. Reviewing all current vehicles of communication (email, meetings, app, Teams etc) and systemising delivery to achieve maximum readership and understanding.
- Support ad hoc projects and escalated issues as requested, deputising for the Chief Operations Officer or Head of Operations in their absence or as required.
Required skills, knowledge, and experience:
- Demonstrates senior leadership and management ability with experience in line managing a senior team.
- Demonstrates excellent business acumen at a senior level.
- Detailed knowledge of key business operating functions.
- Strong external and internal stakeholder management.
- Previous operational experience, ideally as a Home Manager, would be beneficial.
- Ability to quickly and accurately understand current ways of working and find pragmatic opportunities for improvement.
- Experience in managing through fast paced change and complex structures in a regulated environment.
- Ability to make complex decisions with integrity that adheres to and supports company guidelines, simplifies the business, puts people we support at the centre of what we do and makes good commercial sense.
- Can integrate strategic thinking while remaining highly operational.
- Strong organisational skills with the ability to juggle multiple priorities, work effectively with ongoing distractions and prioritise and reprioritise where required, to support the frontline needs of the business.
- Excellent and articulate speaker and presenter with a professional communications style, both verbally and written.
- Courage to challenge where required and balance conflicting stakeholder demands.
- Strong attention to detail.
Why work for us...
We’re committed to the growth of people across our business because working with us is not just about having a job, but the opportunity to grow and flourish within our organisation for years to come.
If this sounds like you and you relish the idea to work for a company where you can really make a difference, then we want to hear from you today!