Operations Manager - Wales
Animal and Plant Health Agency
Apply before 11:55 pm on Friday 1st November 2024
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About the job
Job summary
APHA is a brilliant place to work where our people feel valued, have a voice and can be their authentic selves. We value difference and diversity, not only because we believe it is the right thing to do, but because it will help us be more innovative and make better decisions.
Are you an effective communicator and influencer with the ability to build and manage relationships?
Do you have the ability to influence others and guide your team in a shared strategy?
Do you possess operational delivery experience within a fast-paced working environment?
If so, we would love to hear from you!
Job description
The Operations Manager Wales plays a pivotal role in the leadership and management of geographically dispersed Operational Delivery teams (including veterinary, technical and administrative teams) and is accountable for the operational delivery of Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) activities in both business-as-usual and outbreak / emergency response.
Responsibilities:
Your responsibilities will include but will not be limited to:
- Leading operational excellence across service delivery, stakeholder engagement and customer service.
- The leadership, performance and delivery of teams with veterinary, technical and administrative experience across Wales, providing strategic direction to ensure a consistent, efficient and effective service is delivered to customers, meeting and exceeding APHA performance standards.
- Ensuring delivery of the outcomes agreed with policy customers to safeguard GB from the incursion of Animal, Plant & Bee Health related disease and harmful organisms.
Leadership and Managing Change
- Provide strategic direction and drive performance to ensure a consistent, efficient and effective service is delivered to all customers, meeting and exceeding APHA performance standards. Ensure the right standards of customer service are adhered to; seeking and acting on customer insight to inform and improve service delivery.
- Demonstrate and role model high calibre, visible leadership of a large, diverse team, championing best practice in workforce planning, building capability and talent management.
- Promote diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity, respecting difference, and external experience.
- Provide coaching and mentoring as necessary to develop veterinary, technical and administrative team leaders and their people to form high performing teams.
- Play a leading role in the design, development and implementation of business change programs, policy initiatives and continuous improvement, ensuring our teams, stakeholders and policy colleagues identify with, and are engaged in the change process.
Strategy & Planning
APHA are passionate about evolving and transforming services and we need our leaders to:
- Contribute to the development of agency-wide approaches that encourage national consistency and best practice (reflecting geographical variation where necessary).
- Ensure all operational delivery related activities are delivered in accordance with policy, business plans and performance targets and support the delivery of continuous improvement, efficiency, and value for money.
- Provide advice to policy development, central projects and activities to represent operational experience and expertise to ensure outcomes are deliverable.
Resource and Performance Management
- Ensure that agreed operational performance targets across Wales are delivered on time, on budget, to the right quality and in compliance with relevant safety standards.
- Ensure performance, behaviour and attendance of teams are proactively managed and establish an environment and culture in which everyone can, and does, contribute effectively and where different perspectives are heard and channelled towards achieving APHA objectives.
Resilience & Risk
- Identify and monitor current and future risks and contribute to a coordinated approach to business continuity and resilience including stakeholder and operational partner liaison, within assigned work area and across Service Delivery.
- Promote, evaluate and continually improve business continuity and contingency plans, ensuring critical roles are identified and succession plans in place to effectively manage the risk and maintain performance.
- Work with team leaders to develop resilient teams which can respond flexibly to changing demands ensuring that incident responses and BAU can be delivered.
- Lead the response and provide direction in disease outbreak and emergency situations.
Safety, Health & Wellbeing
- Undertake essential training and display leadership by acting as a role model and establishing and championing a culture of high health and safety standards.
- Support staff to fulfil their health and safety responsibilities and ensure compliance with risk assessments and standards across the delivery area to mitigate risk.
Additional Information:
- This role involves direct line management of APHA Operational Delivery Team Leaders.
- The post holder will work with functional managers & supervisors to build effective working relationships with APHA teams, key industry stakeholders/customer groups and policy colleagues to promote joint working and shared responsibility in both the provision and refinement of existing activities and the development of new ways of working.
- Regular travel to APHA locations across Wales and wider GB will be required.
- The post-holder will participate in on-call rota for incident management and some evening & weekend work maybe required.
- Out of hours and detached duty work will be required in the event of an outbreak or incident.
Person specification
Essential Experience:
- Experience of providing a quality service to customers and responding to changing demands and priorities.
- Experience of leading dispersed teams delivering multiple targets across multiple work areas.
- Setting performance targets and managing results across complex geographically dispersed teams.
- Experience of working with key stakeholders and policy customers.
Key Skills:
- Collaborative and engaging leadership with the ability to make effective decisive decisions when needed.
- Builds relationships with a wide range of delivery partners, customers and operational partners.
- Strong change management skills.
- Copes well in pressured environments.
- Seeks expertise of others as needed to make sound decisions in areas which are not necessarily own expertise.
- Strong performance management and continuous improvement to meet targets.
- Effective resource management in challenging times.
- Holds meaningful conversations about performance and coaching others.
- Strong financial/budgetary awareness.
- Exceptional organisational skills.
- Excellent IT literacy skills.
Learning and Development
Everyone in APHA is supported to develop their skills and capabilities. When you join the Directorate, you will be welcomed into your new team through an induction programme that will provide you with helpful information on the civil service, our work and our policies. Your line manager will also work with you to establish your priorities for the year, developing a performance, learning and development plan tailored to you and your role.
In return for your dedication, we will support your ongoing personal development through appropriate training. Inclusion, support and the development of our people matter to us. We aim to support the career and personal wellbeing of everyone in APHA.
Workplace arrangements:
The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Communicating and Influencing
- Making Effective Decisions
Benefits
Further benefits offered also include:
- A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
- An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities tailored to your role.
- Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.
- Staff bonuses and recognition, salary sacrifice benefit options, and an employee discount scheme.
- Making it work for you - With so many flexible options, most people can find a work schedule to suit their circumstances.
These are just a few of our benefits we offer. To find out the full range of what we offer refer to the Information Pack attached for more detail.
Things you need to know
Selection process details
Application Process
As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete a CV and a 750-word personal statement.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Sift
Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift may be conducted using the personal statement only. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to assessment/interview.
Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.
Interview
If successful at application stage, you will be invited to interview where you will be assessed on your behaviours and strengths.
The behaviour 'Communicating and influencing' will be assessed in the form of a presentation, details of which will be sent when invited to interview.
The behaviour 'Making effective decisions' will be assessed by your performance in a reactive exercise, with a scenario being presented at the time of the interview.
For the purposes of the selection process, the lead Behaviour will be 'Leadership'.
Your interview will either be conducted face to face or by video. You will be notified of the location if you are selected for interview.
Reserve List
A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made.
Merit List
Where more than one location is advertised, candidates will be posted in merit order by location. You will be asked to state your location preference on your application.
Salary
New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band.
Location
As part of the pre-employment process for this post, successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. The agreed contractual workplace is then the substantive and permanent place of work for the successful candidate(s).
Where the location is ‘National’ the successful appointee should discuss and agree an appropriate contractual location in line with both Defra’s location policy and site capacity, prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.
Successful applicants currently employed by the hiring Defra organisation for this post may choose to remain in their current contractual location or may choose to change contractual location to one of those listed above. This should be discussed and agreed prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.
The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.
Travel costs to non-contractual workplaces will be subject to departmental travel and subsistence policies. Travel costs to contractual workplaces are the responsibility of the employee.
The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location, and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time.
Defra includes the core department, APHA, RPA, Cefas and VMD.
Visa Sponsorship Statement
Please take note that Defra does not hold a UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker License sponsor and are unable to sponsor any individuals for Skilled Worker Sponsorship.
Reasonable Adjustment
If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
- Contact Government Recruitment Service via defrarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
- Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.
Accessibility
If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.
Criminal Record Check
If successful and transferring from another Government Department, a criminal record check maybe carried out.
In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service/ Disclosure Scotland on your behalf. However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.
Internal Fraud Database Check
Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.
A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5-year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.
Childcare Vouchers
Any move to Defra from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
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Working for the Civil Service
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
Diversity and Inclusion
Apply and further information
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : Recruitment Hub - Becky Rushton
- Email : recruitment.sdd@apha.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : defrarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
Government Recruitment Services via email: defrarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Click https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/contact-us/ to visit Civil Service Commission.
