Contact Centre Leader - Complaints in Bexhill-on-Sea

Welcome to Hastings Direct. We're a digital insurance provider with ambitious plans to become The Best and Biggest in the UK market. We've made huge investments in our data and tech capabilities over the past few years, along with nurturing our 4Cs culture. We're proud of the journey we're on as a company and know that our continued success will rely on the contribution of our talented colleagues. We provide insurance for over four million customers, but we know there's even bigger opportunity out there.

Role overview: As our Contact Centre Leader in Complaints, you'll lead a high-performing insurance complaints operation, managing a team of Leaders, who in turn lead complaint handling teams that are focused on delivering fair, timely and customer-focused complaint resolution. You'll be a visible and influential leader, working closely with senior stakeholders across Operations, Risk, Compliance, Quality Assurance and Customer Experience to drive service excellence and identify opportunities for business improvement. This is a key leadership role for someone who can balance customer outcomes, regulatory compliance, operational efficiency and colleague engagement. You'll create a culture of ownership, accountability and continuous improvement, ensuring customers receive the right outcomes.

Job details – you'll need to have demonstrable experience in:

• Leading, coaching and developing your Team Leaders within the Complaints operation, supporting them in managing performance, capability and overall colleague development – championing employee engagement and building a positive, high-performing culture.
• Delivering strong operational performance across complaint volumes, quality, customer outcomes and service level commitments.
• Driving a culture focused on customer fairness, root cause analysis and continuous improvement, by using MI and performance data to identify trends, opportunities and risks.
• Taking ownership of resource planning, capacity management and operational delivery.
• Leading operational change initiatives and implementing process improvements, providing regular updates and insight to senior stakeholders on operational performance and emerging complaint themes.
• Collaborating with Quality, Risk Compliance and Customer Experience teams to improve complaint handling standards and ensuring compliance with FCA regulations, DISP requirements and internal governance standards.

Essential skills/experience:

• Significant leadership experience within a regulated complaints environment, managing Team Leaders and delivering results, as well as coaching, developing and motivating teams.
• Strong knowledge of insurance complaints handling and regulatory requirements.
• Experience in leading operational performance through KPI's, quality measures and customer outcome metrics.
• Experience in using MI and data to drive decision making and performance improvement, with a track record of leading operational change and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, high level of customer focus and commercial acumen.

The interview process includes a recruiter intro/screening call, a 1st stage interview with the hiring leader, and a 2nd interview with hiring leaders.

As a Disability Confident employer, we're committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are fully inclusive. We also welcome applications through the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS).

Benefits: In addition to a competitive salary and £5k car allowance, you will also receive:

• Flexible working – we champion a flexible hybrid working approach.
• Competitive bonus scheme - all colleagues are eligible for our annual 4Cs performance bonus.
• Physical wellbeing – Hastings pays for you to receive private medical insurance (PMI).
• Financial wellbeing – providing you with 4x your salary with our life assurance cover, income protection at no extra cost, and matched pension contributions up to 10%.
• Mental wellbeing programme – including the thrive mental health app and our colleague assistance programme available 24/7.
• 27 days annual leave + bank holidays, with the option to buy or sell one of your weeks.
• Access to health care cash back plans, dental plans, discounted health assessments, Cycle to work and tech schemes, and social events throughout the year.

Join us and you'll find a different way of doing things. We call it the 4Cs. We focus on getting it right for our colleagues, customers, company and community. Hastings Group is an equal opportunities employer which means we treat people fairly. We welcome applications from all suitably skilled persons regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, ethnic background, religion/belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or marital/family status.