Business Support Manager

Role Purpose

The role of the Business Support Manager represents an exciting opportunity to join a small but busy team working with blind and partially sighted people across Essex.

We are a looking for a dedicated and hardworking individual with a broad skillset that includes project management and planning/resource management experience, ideally within a charity, to join our team on a 18 month fixed term contract. This is an opportunity for you to use your project management and broader business and organisational skills to help us build an effective and resilient organisation at a time of key change as we develop and implement our new strategy.

The purpose of this role is to support the General Manager in developing and delivering Essex Sight’s new strategy and managing various organisational infrastructure projects to support this as part of the new 3-year operational plan. This includes reviewing Essex Sight’s staffing and volunteering model, developing the organisation’s policies and procedures and establishing a new monitoring and reporting framework. You will also collaborate with the team on developing services to support the new strategic priorities: Connect, Inform, Enable, Influence and Invest. Where appropriate/necessary, some projects will involve working with external specialists to secure the relevant input.

Key Responsibilities

General

• Managing organisation wide projects to develop new external facing services or improve internal processes that support the delivery of the charity’s strategic objectives, utilising appropriate specialist support where required.
• Ensuring appropriate project management approaches are employed.
• Reviewing and updating policies and procedures across the organisation to ensure they are fit for purpose.
• Producing effective internal communications to disseminate and promote new policies and procedures and ways of working.
• Increasing awareness and the profile of Essex Sight across Essex through greater community engagement and use of social media.
• Ensuring that all activities are delivered safely and in line with the Fundraising Codes of Practice, GDPR and the charity’s policies and procedures.
• Undertaking other duties as may be reasonably required on either a short or long-term basis.

Staffing and Volunteering

• Reviewing the staffing model to identify skills and capacity gaps and to address particular areas of staffing risk.
• Developing and implementing new recruitment, training, and management practices.
• Reviewing the volunteering model to look at increasing volunteer numbers and ensuring they are managed effectively.

Monitoring and Reporting

• Establishing a new monitoring and reporting framework, working within the Charity Log system, to ensure that clear outcomes and targets are set and measured.
• Establishing new monthly/quarterly reporting processes, ensuring that these are aligned with any local authority and other external reporting.

Service Development

• Reviewing the service delivery model with the wider team to determine how best to serve blind and partially sighted people across Essex.

Skills and Experience

Essential skills, knowledge and experience

• 3+ years’ experience in a project management and/or resource management role.
• Strong track record of project planning including robust scheduling and budget management.
• Experience of managing change and supporting with change management planning.
• A robust working knowledge of HR processes (no specialist knowledge needed).
• Experience in operational and people management.
• Strong inter-personal skills, with a positive and personable demeanour.
• Ability to communicate effectively.
• Ability to work independently, collaboratively and as an effective team member.
• Ability to build rapport quickly with stakeholders at all levels.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Excellent time management and organisational skills with the ability to prioritise work, handle conflicting demands, and meet tight deadlines.
• Strong administration skills.
• Strong IT skills, with good knowledge of MS Office.
• An understanding of CRM systems such as Salesforce, Charity Log or equivalent is desirable but not essential.
• Demonstrable passion for, and commitment to, the vision, purpose and values of Essex Sight.