Service Manager in Bracknell

We’re looking for a kind, compassionate and resilient Service Manager to join our Bracknell Young People's Service. Want to feel like you have an exciting future? You’ll feel at home here. Making you feel at home here means helping you thrive in every way. That’s why we offer a wide range of benefits, award-winning Learning & Development and a culture that welcomes all. These aren’t token gestures - we’ve thought long and hard about how best to support our team. After all, our people are doing something amazing: helping to transform lives every day.

Our benefits include:

• Annual leave increasing up to days with length of service
• Free DBS
• Exclusive discounts and cashback via Reward Gateway and opportunity to buy a Blue Light Card
• Fully paid induction programme and further training
• ILM courses and Apprenticeship Programmes
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme for confidential support
• Online wellbeing resources
• A generous pension – we will contribute up to % and life assurance cover up to £ (T&Cs apply)
• Quarterly Staff Awards to reward & recognise our amazing staff’s commitment and contribution

All applicants must be legally eligible to work in the UK by the start of employment as Look Ahead are not able to offer sponsorship.

Join Look Ahead as a Service Manager for Bracknell Young People, where you'll oversee innovative hour supported accommodation for young people aged -. You will oversee four projects and diverse teams within the Bracknell Forest Council area. As a Service Manager, you will lead and inspire front-line staff, fostering leadership and competence development within your team. Your operational excellence will ensure effective management of all projects, maintaining high standards in service delivery. You will be responsible for upholding regulatory responsibilities (OFSTED), ensuring a safe and welcoming environment for our customers, and driving continuous improvement through quality assurance.

In this role, you will actively listen to and engage with young people, ensuring their voices are heard and their needs are met. Developing and maintaining essential external partnerships will be key to providing a robust support structure for our customers. We are looking for an empathetic leader who can connect with young people and staff alike, showing genuine care and understanding. You should be adept at comprehending and implementing policies and procedures to benefit both customers and the organisation. Excellent communication skills are essential for effectively liaising with stakeholders, Children services, Commissioning teams, and OFSTED. A proactive approach to service development and regulatory compliance will be crucial to your success.

You’ll have the chance to grow your leadership skills and advance your career in an organisation that prioritises personal development and values partnerships and collaborative efforts.

What you’ll do:

• Drive business planning activities within your contract, ensuring relevant and challenging objective setting and ongoing performance tracking, developing turnaround action plans as may be necessary
• Using sound financial and accounting principles, manage contract budgets to deliver on corporate and local contract financial targets
• Successfully lead and motivate your team to ensure the championing of and maintenance of a positive local culture within your service
• Work to continuously improve staff competence, ensure ownership of all staff issues and speedy and effective conflict resolution
• Responsible for reporting all staff changes to HR and Payroll departments, as appropriate starters, leavers, additional hours etc.
• Responsible for maintaining quarterly staff succession plans
• Deliver effective, professional and commercially focused briefings and supervision meetings with staff and ensure that information, reporting & communications flow up/down is effective
• Responsible for managing and allocating customers to support staff (casework management)
• Develop key business relationships with all relevant customers/external parties to ensure service delivery excellence and maximise new business opportunities in own patch
• Plan, organise and prioritise operations within your contract to ensure maximum efficiencies/utilisation of all resources
• Working with your team lead creative and ambitious customer involvement plans across the patch and ensure successful implementation
• Where appropriate to role, carry client group specialism activities, linking in with other Managers and Heads of Operations to ensure focussed integration of specialisms across the whole organisation
• Lead quality visits, using Look Ahead’s local indicators to monitor quality/performance, set targets and lead action plans to ensure highly rated services that reflect requirements of local funders and local and national standards
• Responsible for producing and submitting Monthly Management Reports to the Performance team, ensuring that all data gathered on local KPI’s are accurate and up to date
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across contract portfolio ensuring Look Ahead continues to set and achieves sector best practice standards and is held as a benchmark to competitors
• Develop and maintain excellent internal management relationships with all other Look Ahead departments and functions, ensuring sharing of best practice and supporting initiatives to improve organisational performance
• Within your service, ensure competent use of all relevant business IT systems and all company policies and frameworks
• Responsible for managing petty cash for the service in accordance with Look Ahead procedures
• Deliver an out of hours on-call service for region
• Ensure Look Ahead Health and Safety policies are adhered to throughout the service, to review at local level and ensure staff are competent and suitably trained
• Ensure that all safeguarding cases are managed in line with safeguarding protocols and are reported to Head of Operations Managers
• Ensure that all other Look Ahead policies and procedures are adhered to
• Carry out other management duties commensurate with the designated role level, as may be deemed reasonable by Look Ahead, including the management of other contracts within the designated patch, or an alternative patch, if such a need arises

This is not an exhaustive list of all the duties and responsibilities that may be required from time to time and is subject to change in accordance with the needs of Look Ahead.

About you:

• Ability to lead and motivate staff to deliver excellent services
• Is fundamentally calm and resilient, does not let emotion adversely affect them or obscure their judgement
• Has a practical and logical mind
• Excellent organisation skills
• Thrives on change and enjoys dynamic diverse environments
• Is confident with high levels of self-esteem
• Is respectful, articulate and sensitive in style of communication
• Is motivated towards excellence and improvement of personal performance with a can-do attitude
• Ability to cope positively with challenging and diverse behaviour
• Enjoys social interaction and the company of others, joins in local activities to encourage customer involvement
• Exudes a warm friendly presence and open behaviour
• Able to work as part of a group or team as well as being self-motivated

What you’ll bring:

Essential:

• Educated to degree level or equivalent
• Experience of managing contracts and resources and delivering to budget and performance targets
• Experience of delivering to housing management performance targets
• Experience of effectively managing and developing staff to ensure delivery of services performance targets within contract
• Experience of successfully managing external partnerships to ensure successful delivery of services
• Holds relevant CMI/NVQ Level or other Business/Management Qualification

Desirable:

• Other relevant professional memberships and/or specialist qualifications

About us:

Look Ahead is a leading, not-for-profit care and support provider in London and the South East. Our vision is to build better lives through social care and housing in local communities. As an organisation we deliver over services, providing support to thousands of customers each year. Our mission is to co-design and deliver services that offer innovative social care solutions and support people to thrive. We work across mental health, homelessness and complex needs, young people and care leavers and learning disabilities so there are plenty of opportunities to grow and progress your career with us.

We have a strong social purpose and we live and work by our values:

• We focus on Excellence and innovation.
• We are Caring and Compassionate.
• We are Inclusive and Trusted.
• We work in Partnership and are One-Team.

Look Ahead is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and adults at risk, and expects all employees, workers and volunteers to share this commitment.

If your application for this role is unsuccessful, but we feel that you would be suitable for another role, we may contact you to discuss alternative opportunities. If this occurs you would not need to submit another application for the alternative role. We reserve the right to close this advert early if we are able to appoint to the vacancy before the advertised closed date. We are committed to diversity and inclusion at work and are accredited with Silver in the Inclusive Employers Standard. We are a proud member of the Employers Domestic Abuse Covenant and encourage applications from a diverse range of applicants of all backgrounds.