Executive Assistant

Contract:  12 month fixed term contract, full time 37.5 hours per week  

Salary £25,011 - 27,500 per annum 

Location: Bromsgrove B61 0RJ

Closing date:   Sunday 11 February 2024

Interview date:   Tuesday 20 February 2024 

We’re recruiting an Assistant Manager – Onsite Services to join our Bromsgrove rehoming centre, to ensure that the right pet is placed in the right service for both the client and the pet, in the quickest amount of time and all our clients receive excellent care throughout the admission and adoption stages of the rehoming process. 

We’ve just launched a new and exciting national Rehoming & Fostering team structure to support our aim of ensuring every pet enjoys a healthy life in a happy home. You’ll be joining a team who strive to be the best versions of themselves, so that they can do the best for the pets who need our help. 

More about the role

At Blue Cross we are ambitious, and the work carried out by our Centres is key in achieving our strategy and ensuring that ultimately, we help more pets.  

This is a wonderful opportunity to join Blue Cross to lead a team in ensuring a high level of client care, efficient and connected decisions relating to pet welfare, and the delivery of high-quality rehoming services.  

On a day-to-day basis you’ll be leading your team and ensuring the smooth running of the refill and adoption stages of our rehoming services. You’ll work closely with operational colleagues to ensure we have a pipeline of new pets and pool of adopters ready for a pet.  

The refill and adoption stages of our rehoming services is critical, so this role will see you working closely with your team and colleagues with a strong focus on finding the right homes for pets as efficiently as possible and refilling to optimise caseloads for our Pet Care Specialists.  While delivering robust rehoming services are important to us, so is the client experience and it will be up to you to ensure that we monitor and continually look for ways to uphold and improve our client journey. 

For many, the centre will be the ‘public face’ of Blue Cross so you will need to ensure that your team put client service is at the heart of every interaction, this includes making sure public areas and facilities are welcoming and engaging and that administration of the admission and adoption process complies with internal processes and compliance legislation such as GDPR.   

This is a full-time role working 37.5 hours per week on a rota which includes weekends and bank holidays. At Bromsgrove rehoming centre, we provide onsite accommodation for pets in our care 24/7.  Overnight shifts are usually undertaken by team members who live on site. Occasionally, you will be expected to carry out night checks or stay in on site accommodation overnight when the resident team members are either not working or away for a period of time. These duties are organised on a local rota and shared between all members of the team. 

About you

You will be an excellent manager of people, having skills which are finely honed by working in a similar, animal related environment with expert knowledge and application of pet welfare and care. 

As an accomplished, positive, and innovative manager, you will know how to inspire, motivate, and drive continuous improvement. You will be able to lead a team of Pet Care Specialists, developing and empowering them through effective management and coaching.

With your excellent communication skills, you will have the ability to adapt your approach to suit different audiences. As there are always many ‘plates spinning,’ you will be naturally calm and organised, and be prepared to make decisions in a high-pressure environment.

You will have strong analytical skills and the ability to rigorously monitor, assess and evaluate in order to deliver improvements. You will not ‘rest on your laurels,’ you will have an appetite to continually improve onsite facilities and services, ensuring your team and others involved are engaged.

You will know what it is like to work in an emotionally charged environment and have excellent ‘bounce back ability’ and resilience. In addition, you will be emotionally intelligent, showing empathy and knowing how to support your team and members of the public. 

Knowledge, skills, and experience 

• Experience of working in a rescue welfare environment.
• Significant experience of managing a team.
• Significant experience in delivering high level client service in a fast-paced environment.
• Experience of developing, mentoring, and coaching operational teams.
• High standard of verbal and written communication.
• Proven decision-making ability.
• Understanding of and ‘hands on’ experience of pet care. 
• Current full driving licence.
• The ability to demonstrate, understand and apply our Blue Cross Values.

It would be great (but not essential) if you also had: 

• Client relationship management experience.
• Performance management and improvement experience. 
• Change management experience.
• Delivering training and presenting to large groups.
• Experience working with volunteers.
• Qualifications in management, leadership, or coaching
• Understanding of safeguarding issues.

Want to know more detail? Great! We have attached the job description which hopefully gives you everything you need. 

How to apply 

Click the apply button below and complete the online application process before the closing date on Sunday 11 February 2024. The recruitment process will consist of a competency based interview and an animal handling assessment. 
 

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response.  

Blue Cross benefits  

Our people are the most important part of delivering our purpose. If it were not for their amazing efforts and commitment, we would not be able to make the difference that we do today. 

In return, Blue Cross wants to ensure we provide you with the best working environment we can. We want you to be happy working for us and will do everything we can to make sure you are.  
 

Our generous benefits package includes:  

• Enhanced annual leave entitlement: 30 days plus bank holidays  
• Pension scheme with enhanced employer contribution  
• Health cash plan 
• Life assurance  
• Unlimited access to an employee assistance programme 
• Programmes for physical and mental wellbeing support 
• Free access to GP via MetLife 
• Recognition scheme Annual volunteer days
• Claim for professional fees 

To read more about the benefits Blue Cross has to offer, please visit the 'why work for us' page on our website.