View Vacancy – Temporary Regional Operations Manager (Europe, Africa, Americas), Global Emergency Travel Document Centre (ESP24.378)

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.

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.