Branch Development Manager

Job Role:

The Greyhound Trust Head Office is offering a fantastic opportunity for a talented individual to join us as our Branch Development Manager. After over 40 years of helping greyhounds in their transition from racing and matching them to homes where they will thrive in their retirement, the Greyhound Trust is developing its operations team to support all homing activity and branches, to take us into an exciting new era of even greater success.

Reporting to the Head of Operations and Welfare, you will be a key member of the management team and as such must be talented and experienced, proactive and always prepared to go the extra mile.

Taking responsibility for Branch development, support and compliance, this role is pivotal to the success of Branch homing operations. You will need an excellent balance between leading and managing and getting actively involved in operations as required.

As the Branch Operations Manager you will be accountable for the development and growth of Greyhound Trust Branches within the UK and Europe, focusing on efficiencies and impact, with the ultimate aim of homing more retired racing greyhounds through effective development and management of Greyhound Trust Branches.

You will have a solution driven approach and have proven management experience including drafting business and operational plans and applying for grant applications. You will have experience of leading and managing both volunteers and paid staff, with strong interpersonal skills and the ability to engage with multiple stakeholders across the charity.

Key responsibilities:

Playing a key role in enabling the Greyhound Trust to develop its Branch network to deliver greyhound homing and income growth across Branch activity, in a planned and sustainable manner.
Implementing the Greyhound Trust's Homing and Welfare strategy, maximising all potential homing opportunities for the Greyhound Trust through Branch activity.
Ensuring Branch compliance across all key areas of Branch activity as required by Greyhound Trust: I.e. Financial, Brand and Communications, Homing (kennelling and welfare), Fundraising and general charitable compliance.
Leading and Managing the Branch Development Team in all its goals. Setting team and individual objectives, targets and KPIs and maximising homing and Branch performance.
The Branch Development Team should never be working in isolation, instead your Team is a key but inter-dependent area within the wider charity; seeking to pull together all areas knowledge and activity, and ensuring Branches are supported to deliver in line with Greyhound Trust policies and procedures.
Creation of the Branch Development Strategy in conjunction with the Head of Operations and Welfare is key, and you will be responsible for delivering the strategy through a combination of training, support, development, assessment and compliance activities, supported by your Branch Development Officers.
Taking a 360 degree view of Branch activities and ensuring that your Branch Development Officers devise quality Branch Development plans to improve volunteer engagement, increase fundraising and brand awareness and ultimately build stronger and more sustainable Branches to home more retired racing greyhounds.
Under the direction and leadership of the Senior Team, being a proactive and positive manager who is also focused on the wider success of the charity, through the work of the branches; ensuring all possible strategies are deployed to facilitate Branches feeling valued, engaged and proud to be part of the Greyhound Trust.
Ensuring Branch growth, sustainability and greyhound homing excellence, in line with Greyhound Trust objectives.

Detailed (non exhaustive) example of responsibilities:

Lead the creation, recruitment and development of the relevant Branch Development Team
Identify, assess and pursue relevant initiatives to increase Branch compliance and efficiencies
Implement the highest standards of best practice relevant to Greyhound Trust Branch activity, taking into account all Departmental expectations relating to Branch activity and compliance
Provide tangible and reportable compliance reports for all key areas of Branch activity: Homing, Brand compliance, Financial Compliance etc. on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis as required
Ensuring all Branch non-compliance is fully addressed, with Branches being supported to move from any position of non-compliance to compliance. Where progress is not made as required, to escalate to the Head of Operations and Welfare and be proactively involved to resolve the non compliance, which may include Branch closure in rare cases
Ensuring that all Branches have Branch Development Plans which seek to further enhance and improve the Branch and its success
Responsibility for annual Branch survey, calculating gifted volunteer hours and developing training and support to further support and develop volunteer skills and Branch effectiveness
Ensure you and your team keep abreast of any changes to best practice, relevant legislation and governance that impacts on Greyhound Trust Branch activity
Ensure full GDPR requirements are met and delivered at all times across Branch activity
Take full responsibility for rolling out across the branch network, all relevant standards, policies and procedures relating to Branch operations and the wider charity's governance needs
Develop a culture of creativity and positivity across the entire team and the Branch network, ensuring a proactive approach to ensuring that Greyhound Trust Branches work collaboratively from the Greyhound Trust centre, feeling valued and part of the wider Greyhound Trust family
Introduce and ensure a Branch focus to all departments and ensure that Branch impact is always considered; you and your team must approach change positively and proactively, ensuring a can do attitude when rolling out changes across the Branch network for the success and compliance of the charity as a whole
Develop and deliver training, advice and support to branches and volunteers where necessary on all Branch activity, drawing from expert knowledge and additional resources available in the relevant departments, ensuring that Branches are fully skilled to comply with Greyhound Trust requirements of being a Branch
Investigating and resolving complaints relating to branch volunteers or practice and facilitating conflict resolution where required with volunteers and Branches
Proactively working with Greyhound Events Ltd to ensure that retail products and messaging are appropriate and that Branches comply with policies on buying and selling of goods at Branch level
Secretariat and support for the Branch Working Group, ensuring your Teams full engagement with the group, and ensuring effective use of the members of the group as ambassadors for Branch work, change management and roll out of key policies and procedures across Branches

Skills and experience we need from you:

Proven success of delivering high standards of welfare and animal related homing activity
Proven experience of business / charity support and development
Successful team leadership and a clear understanding of budgets, expenditure, forecasting and management accounts
Experience of line management, setting objectives and goals and holding regular supervision and one to one meetings. Experience of getting the best out of a varied team.
Experience of writing updates and reports and presenting to both internal and external meetings
Experience of all relevant office packages and ability to get to grips with relevant databases and CRM systems
Ability to supervise a consistent look and feel for the Greyhound Trust operations across all Branch operations.
Experience of compliance and or self / internal organisational assessment.

You will be:

An experienced Team Leader having led and developed teams across animal welfare in previous roles. You will have set, managed and reached challenging and relevant targets and KPIs
A strong communicator with the ability to get information across in a stimulating and engaging way to a variety of different audiences; colleagues, volunteers and key stakeholders
Professional, proactive, positive and enthusiastic, with a strong work ethic and "can do" attitude. A multi-tasker who values the organisational set up of a strong volunteer base and our volunteer branch network
Able to exhibit excellent discretion and adhere to professional standards and confidentiality
Curious and inquisitive nature with the ability to work across all departments to ensure a fully joined up approach
Committed to delivering high standards of Branch engagement, support and compliance, whilst being a genuine team player
Able to assess risk, ensure risk mitigation and deal with complex Branch issues in a wide range of areas; finance, communications, fundraising, homing activity, volunteering etc.
Enthusiastic and empathetic to the vision, mission and values of the Greyhound Trust, you must be happy working at a multifunctional head office site (with animals on site both in kennels and the office environment)

This post and its role requirement will develop with the needs of the charity and should not be seen as an exhaustive list of responsibilities. Additional tasks may be reasonably requested by your Line Manager and Senior colleagues.

You will need to a hold a full valid UK driving licence, with travel, overnight stays and some weekend and evening work, form part of this role.

Interviews to be held 14th or 15th January 2019.

Please ensure that you submit a covering letter..... click apply for full job details