View Vacancy – Temporary Regional Operations Manager (Europe, Africa, Americas), Global Emergency Travel Document Centre (ESP24.378)
Madrid
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Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Consular Roles)
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Consular
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Who are we?
The British Embassy in Madrid is the location for the global Centre’s Europe, Africa and partially the Americas team. The Embassy itself is part of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) worldwide network of 270 Posts, representing British political, military, economic, and consular interests overseas. The global Emergency Travel Document Centre (ETDC) processes all ETD applications with teams based in three locations (Singapore, Madrid and Mexico City). These locations mean we can operate almost 7 days week. We enable British Nationals to travel urgently when their full validity passport has expired, been damaged, lost or stolen or is otherwise unavailable. The global Emergency Travel Document Centre (ETDC) is now looking for the Regional Operations Manager.
Main purpose of job:
Providing Consular assistance is a top priority for the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and issuing Emergency Travel Documents (ETDs) is one of the highest profile services provided by the FCDO to British nationals working or travelling overseas. The ETDC Regional Operations Manager based in Madrid leads service delivery to Europe, Africa and Americas regions, and provides leadership, motivation, strategic direction and oversight of all day to day operations delivered by ETD Centre Madrid. The successful candidate will lead a team of 20-30 including the Workflow Manager also based in Madrid. The ETDC Regional Operations Manager is an integral member of the global ETDC leadership team, along with colleagues in the ETDC Singapore and ETDC Mexico City.
The ETDC works as one operation: with teams processing applications from all over the world, not just in the region they lead. The job holder will therefore be required to operate across the teams in the other locations too, in partnership with the Regional Operations Manager based in Singapore, and the Head of the Global ETD Centre.
During crisis situations it will be the responsibility of the Regional Operations Manager to surge support to the countries which require urgent travel documents, including handling multiple-country crisis at a time.
The successful candidate needs to be confident in leading and managing a fast paced, unpredictable operation often working under significant pressure. The candidate should have experience managing a service operation and have proven skill at building high performing teams at pace, delivering change, working in a high pressure setting with many competing demands and negotiating challenging conversations or situations successfully. Given the volume of processing required the successful candidate will need to be comfortable manipulating and interpreting real time data to ensure continuous improvement.
Roles and responsibilities:
Leadership & Management:
- Lead a team of 20-30 processing staff ensuring that they support their direct reports in delivering within our global processing targets.
- Provide direct line management support to the Workflow Manager and approx. 4 Consular Officers in Madrid
- Ensure the Madrid team are meeting daily and quarterly KPIs, benchmarks and quarterly standards and addressing any performance issues
- Responsibility for the successful implementation of process change in the Madrid and Mexico team, in collaboration with the Regional Operations Manager in Singapore.
- Develop and train staff on crisis readiness plan within ETD Centre Madrid.
- Oversight of quality control checks – ensure trained team and process in place with results recorded and actioned on a quarterly basis.
- Lead delivery of major changes to process, policy or systems that carry a regional or global impact.
- Deep understanding of and ability to communicate the ETD customer journey and full end to end process.
- Deep understanding of and ability to communicate ETD policy and how to apply policy within an operational context.
- Ensure team are regularly up to date on relevant operational and policy training including wider Consular assistance training as needed.
- Responsibility for the development and maintenance of a successful induction and team training programme for new and temporary team members.
Business Continuity and Resilience:
- Ensure ETD Centre Madrid is resourced to match demand throughout each calendar year.
- Arrange recruitment campaigns and staff inductions where required.
- Overall responsibility for team working arrangements, ensuring rules for setting shifts to match service delivery requirements and balancing in-office versus remote working.
- Overall responsibility to ensure Centre stock levels, facilities and equipment are fit for operational requirements in all circumstances, including contingency plans for crisis, hardware or software failures.
- Ensure effective and consistent shift administration by Workflow Manager.
- Direct ETD Centre through fast moving crisis situations as they arise and focus on sustaining delivery of service through severe disruption.
Collaboration and Partnering:
- Daily collaboration with global ETD Centre Management Team, in particular ETDC Singapore Regional Operations Manager and Head of the Global ETD Centre.
- Report to and work with Head of the Global ETD Centre to ensure clear Centre objectives set to deliver the greatest operational impact on a yearly basis.
- Build and maintain relationships with CROMs, Consular staff primarily in Europe, Africa and Americas, plus where required even if outside of these regions.
- Steer discussions with suppliers to develop system upgrades focused on improving efficiency of ETD service delivery and improve ease of use for staff.
- Collaboration where required with Global Consular Contact Centre, Document Policy Team, Child Protection Unit, Country Casework Teams and more.
- Promote the values and services of ETDC through representation at Network Conferences and other organisational events.
Service Delivery:
- Accountable for overall ETD Centre Madrid service delivery, pre-empting and resolving issues as they arise.
- Ensure team have full awareness and understanding of ETD policy and process including full engagement on changes.
- Regular analysis and reporting on service performance using data & visualisation tools to communicate successes, highlight challenges and opportunities for improvement.
- Direct support to applicants where necessary, including on non-straightforward ETD applications (normally via video-link but could be face-to-face).
- Oversee team engagement in learning and development activities, projects and continuous improvement initiatives to build team resilience and improve service delivery.
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Our Ideal Candidate shows:
- Full professional proficiency in English, both verbal and written, with excellent communications skills (a minimum of C1 level, according to CEFR*);
- Demonstrable experience in managing high impact service delivery change projects;
- Experience leading, managing and delivering change to small to medium sized teams;
- Experience managing a complex service delivery operation – crisis management, working in global service delivery operation;
- Experience in managing a large team with at least 3 years of line management experience;
- Professional experience in customer service oriented role, minimum of 5 years;
- Demonstrable experience in managing high impact service delivery change projects;
- Excellent IT literacy and able to quickly learn and utilise new applications;
- Experienced in design and delivery of training materials;
- Ability to respond flexibly to changing priorities, working weekends and unsociable hours where required;
- Excellent attention to detail;
- Ability to work under pressure, meet tight deadlines and make challenging decisions without supervision;
- Strong leadership and organisation skills;
- Strong communicator, able to clearly express viewpoints clearly to senior leaders and stakeholders;
- Able to understand and clearly communicate the bigger picture.
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Nice to have:
- Knowledge or experience of working in consular services;
- Previous experience in recruitment and / or interviewing;
- Previous experience of collaborating with external suppliers and partners;
- Experience or knowledge of working in an international environment;
- Experience in data analytics, resourcing and demand forecasting.
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Changing and Improving, Communicating and Influencing, Developing Self and Others, Seeing the Big Picture
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30 October 2024
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Higher Executive Officer (HEO)
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Full-time, Fixed Term
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37.5
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9 months
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Europe, Eastern Europe & Central Asia
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Spain
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Madrid
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British Embassy
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1
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EUR
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€ 60,060.15
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yearly
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6 January 2024
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This is a full-time, temporary contract (9 months approx.) at HEO grade level, based in Madrid. Normal working hours are 37.5 per week.
The successful candidate is subject to a confirmation of a background check, security clearance and the successful completion of a probationary period.
The successful candidate will be enrolled in the Spanish Social Security Scheme and will therefore not be entitled to any gratuity from the Embassy based on gross annual salary.
The Embassy is a Diplomatic Mission with tax exempt status and does not collect taxes for other States. Employees are fully responsible for payment of income tax at the legally required rate. Staff recruited locally by the British Embassy in Spain are subject to terms and conditions of service according to local Spanish employment law.
Visa/work permit requirements:
Candidates must currently hold the independent right to live and work in Spain and be prepared to ensure that right remains throughout the scope of the contract.
Working patterns:
Normal working hours are 37.5 per week: 8.30am to 4:30pm from Monday to Friday, although the ETDC needs to operate on shifts and timings of work can and do change. The job holder will be required to be part of an out of hours, 24/7 on call rota of approx. 1 week per month.
Learning & Development:
We offer time and financial support for the successful candidate to take advantage of professional learning and development opportunities inside and outside of the organisation.
All new hires undertake a workplace induction and there are a number of mandatory e-learning courses that must be completed in order to pass probation.
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Please note that the deadline for applications is 23:55 on the day mentioned in the above field “Application deadline”.
We advise you to allow enough time to complete and submit your full application, since only applications completed and submitted before the deadline will be considered.
Please be aware that the deadline for submitting applications is considered to be the time zone for the country where the vacancy has arisen.
FCDO does not pay for travel-related expense incurred in interviews (including Security Check) or accept any financial risk, including cancelation or reschedule costs. The FCDO will not meet the costs connected with relocation if offered a position.
*Please note for more information on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment levels please click on the following link CEFR. Please bear in mind in case you are invited for an interview your language skill is going to be assessed.
The Embassy is committed to employee development and wellbeing and has several initiatives in both areas that benefit staff.
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To apply please copy and paste this link: https://fco.tal.net/vx/appcentre-ext/candidate/jobboard/vacancy/1/adv/
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