Operations Manager

About The Company
At Salutem, we aim to create a nurturing environment where children receive the highest quality of care from our dedicated team. Our core values drive our exceptional services:
Our Core Values:
Supportive: Helping everyone reach their full potential.
Ambitious: Striving for the best outcomes.
Loyal: Prioritising our staff and the people we support.
Unique: Innovating without compromising quality.
Transparent: Fostering openness and mutual respect.
Engaging: Partnering with everyone involved.
Meaningful: Offering fulfilling opportunities.
Why Choose Us?
Emotional Support: 24/7 Employee Assistance, mental health resources, meditation apps, and bereavement support.
Medical Support: Free Online GP access, Health Cash Plan, Cancer Cover, and Menopause support.
Financial Support: Flexible pay with Wagestream, utility bill savings, Money Helper, and Life Assurance.
Physical Support: Online workouts, Cycle to Work scheme, gym discounts, and National Trust activities.
More about Salutem:
Top Employer Recognition: Salutem Care and Education proudly stands among the UK's top employers, as acknowledged by the Top Employers Institute.
Disability Confident Organisation: We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and application process.
Top 50 Inspiring Workplace: Recognised for our unwavering commitment to a People First culture, blending culture, purpose, leadership, wellbeing, inclusion, employee voice, and experience.

About The Role
Location: Home based/Luton Based - Travel Required
£3k car allowance - Will be expected to work away from home when required
 
Reporting into the Regional Director you will lead the performance of a number of locations within your geographical region, providing direct line management, support and guidance to a team of managers and allocated support functions in achieving quality, customer, financial and growth targets. You will directly line manager a number of Registered Managers as allocated by the Regional Director, providing feedback and performance information to the Regional Director as an when required.
 
Key tasks:
 
Quality and Governance

Provide operational support to the Regional Director and all services to achieve GOOD or OUTSTANDING ratings with the Regulator (CQC/CIW or country specific equivalent) utilising internal audits. 
You will be expected to take responsibility for a specified number of service visits and service audits (set as KPIs) which are to be managed by you in this role.
You will implement and review the Salutem Assessment Framework in your locations – ensuring effective collaboration and communication with both the quality team and ensuring your Regional Director is kept up to date on progress.
You will implement the recommendations from the surveys of the people we support, ensuring your Regional Director has an overview of progress.  It will be your responsibility to ensure improvements are achieved and maintained.
Lead in your allocated area in driving improvement on all areas of quality performance – such as audits compliance, action plan completion, and other relevant quality metrics.
• Deliver service improvement via the effective management of complaints, compliments, and feedback, ensuring that lessons are learnt and shared
When allocated by the Regional Director, manage and lead on complaints, with the aim to achieve a positive and complete resolution in line with policy.
Ensure that the service action plans are embedded and driven to accomplishment. Support managers and liaise with the Support teams, facilitate and co-ordinate Quality Improvement. As an operations manager you will jointly own and implement the service improvement plans being a key member of the team linking with the managers and the Regional Director.
Remove any barriers and ensure Managers have ready access to, and support from internal and external support services to achieve maximum performance against key goals and objectives.  You are also responsible for ensuring Managers update and use the internal systems effectively and appropriately.
Ensure the highest standards of care, customer service, hospitality and support are always delivered and evidenced.
Have a good awareness of the Single Assessment framework, so that the Registered managers can be supported appropriately in readiness and during assessment processes.
Ensure legal frameworks that ensure people we support are safe such as the Mental Capacity Act, DOLs or court orders and enact conditions where this is appropriate.
Represent the organisation in issues of safeguarding and attend meetings to work towards resolution of areas of concern.  In some instances, as an operational manager, you will be required to lead and manage some cases, reporting directly back to the Regional Director and Divisional Director.
Ensure that environments are safe, meet health and safety requirements, that all major areas such as fire and water are consistently tested and measured and that environments are of a decorative presentation in conjunction with people who live at the location.
Work with people we support, their support and the circle of support around the individual to develop ways of hearing their voice to have best outcomes.
Have a good working knowledge of the regulatory and legal frameworks relevant to the social care sector.
To lead and over see your allocated location in support of the regional director using data and IT systems such as power BI, Nourish, SharePoint etc.
To work with the registered managers to support the staff team for each location to meet their excepted mandatory training and seek further support for specialist training appropriate to the individuals needs as assessed and to monitor that training and skill development are part of the yearly development plan.
Effectively manage urgent and crisis situations, being able to prioritise, devise and implement immediate plans in order to mitigate risk to the people we support, staff teams and Salutem.
KPI – to achieve 90% good and above rating internally and externally for quality metrics for the locations allocated to you by your regional director. 
Financial and Commercial

Support the Regional Director to achieve and exceed Regional EBITDA and KPI measures with emphasis on appropriate occupancy, the eradication of agency and direct cost controls- including the management of absence and staff turnover - you will be expected to have a working knowledge of the regional financial status and to report and action accordingly.
Support the RD to Identify where capex and resources are needed to drive new revenue and quality improvements- ensuring a robust return on investment on any expenditure.
• Input to budgets, objectives and targets for each Manager and their Home, including new services and growth, ensuring occupancy targets are met and exceeded. 
Work with the managers and Regional Director to ensure that that costs are managed in line with budget and identify opportunity for efficiencies.
Support the RD to actively seek opportunities to develop effective commercial partnerships with key third party organisations e.g., Local Authorities, NHS etc, working with the RD to ensure that forecasting occupancy targets are met and admissions are planned in line with budget and admission process is followed robustly using Salesforce and other internal systems.
Support the RD to ensure that homes are fully compliant with all company financial operating instructions, policies, and procedures. 
Partnership working 

Develop effective partnerships with key third party organisations e.g. Local Authorities, NHS, CQC always acting as an ambassador for Salutem Care & Education and external stakeholders.
Assist the RD to identify opportunities for business development, including redevelopments, new services, and partnership working with commissioners.
To develop partnerships with key people in an individual's life such as family members, advocates and commissioners of services ie social workers, nurses to enable an appropriate fee response to identified or changing needs.
As an operations manager working directly with the teams at each location allocated to you, you will need to be an effective communicator being a key link between your locations and the senior and executive management teams.
Attend provider forums to keep up to date with current markets and LA commissioning intentions and strategies. 
Regional and Divisional Strategy

Assist the RD to create a strategic plan for the geographic region, to ensure sustained growth and re-purposing of services where they may not be fit for purpose.
Report to the Regional Director during business reviews against al KPIs providing effecting plans and data to evidence and ensure ongoing success and improvements in all areas.
Support the Divisional Director and Adult Senior management team to develop the Adults Division Strategy
Where a service may not be fit for purpose or have quality issues-be responsible for ensuring that a robust service improvement plan is implemented, working with the quality team and using support functions as required, keeping the RD appraised of progress or issues at all times.
Undertake required level of monitoring of performance against all key performance criteria, with emphasis on compliance with all legal and regulatory standards, ensuring that monitoring is recorded on Nourish and other systems as required. 
Effective people management and leadership

Directly line manage a group of Registered Managers to ensure the effective management of our teams (including active management of the recruitment process, staff shortfalls and overstaffing reductions where necessary) and non-labour costs in homes in line with KPI and Budgets. Feeding back to the Regional Director as agreed. The KPIs will be less than 1.5% agency, less than 2.5% ill health absence, turnover less than 22%.
The Regional Director will oversee but you will be responsible for ensuring that robust supervision and development through personal development plans are in place for the managers you directly line manage and that all staff within your allocated portfolio are supervised in line with Salutem KPIs.
You will adopt a coach and mentor style with your portfolio of Managers and teams to ensure they are supported in their professional and personal development and actively manage a talent pipeline to maintain management and leadership strength across the region, division and Salutem Care & Education as a whole - supporting with relevant succession and development plans with the managers you are allocated to as directed by the Regional Director
Demonstrate commitment to staff retention and development, with effective reward & recognition and learning & development programs in all homes. As an operations manager, you will be working with the senior management team on implementing retention strategies to meet Divisional KPIs.
Good leadership at all levels of the organisation, shapes its culture into one where people who use the services and the quality of care come first. You will be expected to regularly visit your services within the region and attend meetings nationally to ensure the effective operation and leadership of your region and homes allocated to you.
In extreme circumstances and where no other solution is readily available, become the registered manager for a location to reduce the risk of any regulatory action.
In some circumstances, you will deputise for the Regional Director and provide regional support to your other Regional Director colleagues across the rest of the Adults Division. This will require you to be able to take the role of decision maker, considering risk mitigation at all times.
Actively seek opportunities within your role to develop your skills and knowledge within the multi-site and regional level. 
This job description should not be seen as all encompassing, and the post holder will be expected to undertake any other responsibilities appropriate to the post as identified by the company. The post holder will need to be able to undertake regular travel and be available for flexible working in line with the needs of the region and division.  Overnights stays are an essential element of the role.

Knowledge, Skills and Competency

Good standard of oral and written Maths and English
Strong inclusive leadership style
First class communication skills, able to communicate at all levels.
Confident problem analysis & judgment skills
The ability to work under pressure and to deadlines.
Skilled at implementing vision and direction of executive management in a way that staff at all levels will understand, helping them to see how their contributes to the achievement of those goals
Experienced in managing people, finances and resources to demanding plans and budgets.
Experience in multi-site management
Must have worked in a health care environment managing resources and people, preferably in a matrixed management environment.
Experience of managing in a heavily regulated environment
Strong relationship building skills.
Excellent communication and presentation skills.
Quality & Customer Focused
Attention to Detail, organised
Responsive and flexible – to changing demands and priorities
Celebrates success and performance manages in a supportive and constructive way following appropriate processes.
Able to work under own initiative and under pressure.
Problem solver
Team playerEducated to degree level or equivalent experience
Experienced in project management

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