Employment and Skills Manager

EMPLOYMENT & SKILLS MANAGER

Reporting to the Head of Community Investment, the Employment and Skills Manager is accountable for overseeing and  managing the work of the Great Places’ Employment and Skills team,  and will play an important role in the delivery of our Social Impact Strategy, including our COVID-19 recovery plans, supporting those most impacted by the pandemic.  

You will work with the Head of Community Investment to plan and resource the work of the team to ensure effective service delivery against objectives and drive a high performing culture that embeds our ways of working and develops a highly motivated team. You will ensure that the work of your team delivers a strong and comprehensive Employment and Skills service offer to our customers across geography and tenure, using data and intelligence to ensure resources are targeted appropriately, activities are evidence-led with outcomes clearly defined and impact is measured so we can understand the value of ours, and our partners, contributions. 

What you’ll be doing

• To provide clear and robust management of the Employment and Skills team to ensure excellent performance against individual and collective service objectives, and that a consistent, clear and high quality customer experience is delivered in line with our aspirations for customer access, self service and increased use of digital systems and platforms  
• To develop the Employment and Skills service offer in-line with the Social Impact strategy and support the Head of Community Investment to identify partnerships, initiatives and contract opportunities that support the delivery of the employment and skills service.  
• To ensure the employment and skills function is accessible across all business areas, there is clarity of our baseline offer, and that we are delivering a more targeted and enhanced service offer in identified neighbourhoods or with specific customer groups (in collaboration with Heads of Neighbourhoods, service managers and front-line colleagues) alongside a universal digital and remote support offer for customers across all Great Places regions.  
• To support the Head of Community Investment in the development of bids for funding or for the delivery of commissioned services, ensuring that these are resourced appropriately, performance meets required standards, financial and budget targets are met, and that performance is reported in accordance with agreed criteria, timescales and standards. 
• To lead on the delivery of our Communications Strategy to ensure we effectively promote our services to customers, ensuring we use data and intelligence to deliver a targeted and proactive approach. 
• To ensure that customer needs are triaged effectively, low level support needs are dealt with efficiently ‘in the moment’ by ensuring appropriate signposting information is available to all front-line roles, avoiding unnecessary hand-offs, and more specialist employment and skills queries are dealt with either within the team or channelled to the appropriate internal or external provision.  
• Have a clear understanding of how we deliver services to customer groups, partners and in neighbourhoods by undertaking observations of team members ‘in the work’ to ensure we are delivering services in accordance with our Service Delivery Framework.  
• Use data and evidence to understand, act, learn and improve through the identification of trends and patterns which show how the service is performing, and to always use data in decision-making and in resource allocation with a particular focus on employment and skills data from ONS and other sources.  
• To ensure services, projects and initiatives are data led, robustly evaluated and flexibly resourced to meet identified needs, targeted by place and customer groups across geography and tenure, avoid duplication of effort with colleagues and partners, for the maximum benefit of customers, communities and the business. 

What you’ll need

• Management skills – track record in strong operational management with experience in management of projects desirable 
• Significant experience of managing employment and skills programmes, projects and interventions.  
• The ability to motivate, inspire and influence a diverse and dispersed workforce by example and persuasion 
• Experience of working in a customer focused environment, with a proven ability of delivering a high standard of customer service  
• A sound knowledge of the policy and socio-economic issues affecting social housing customers and the neighbourhoods where they live 
• Experience of managing contracts 
• Working understanding of approaches to measuring social value 
• Experience of administration and recording procedures, with an in depth understanding of confidentiality 
• Proven relationship builder and influencer with stakeholders 
• Great Places Housing Group is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and adults and expects all our colleagues to share this commitment; this role is subject to a basic DBS check

What we need from you

• As a line manager you will need to actively support your colleagues with their development and well-being, some experience of this is desirable but not essential as we offer full support to people transitioning into a management role. 
• Great people skills with an ability to work effectively with stakeholders and colleagues 
• Ability to use coaching techniques to support colleagues to achieve results and be accountable for their actions 
• Ability to challenge and accept challenge   
• Acute customer focus 
• Effective problem solver  
• Willingness to embrace a culture of data driven decision making, ideally with a good track record in change management 
• Good commercial awareness and insight 
• Self-reliant and resilient 
• Commitment to work in partnership with others for the benefit of Great Places 

What we give you in return for your hard work and commitment

• Pension ¦DC Scheme (up to 10% contribution from both colleague and Great Places)
• WPA ¦Healthcare auto enrolled at no contribution level with £1250 of savings available- option to increase & add on family members
• The Market Place ¦high street, restaurant & supermarket discounts, gym memberships, cycle to work, smart tech loans and much more
• Annual Leave ¦Start at 26 days annual leave, increasing up to 30 days + Bank Holidays
• Lottery ¦ Monthly draw with 1st @ £250, 2nd @ £75 and 3rd @ £50
• Savings Club ¦ You can put aside money each month for 11 months to help you save for that special something (pays out in Novembers salary)
• Sharing Greatness ¦ Our colleague incentive scheme where colleagues can earn £300 by helping the business achieve business targets.
• Help with transport ¦ We offer season ticket loans, an affordable way to purchase season tickets for public transport at discounted rates .
   

At Great Places we believe the wellbeing of our colleagues is vital to enable them to deliver to great services, all your benefits can be used inside and outside of work.