Area Operations Manager

Job Purpose

Area Operations Manager

Salary : £39,588 + £5,100 Car Cash Allowance + £4,000 Inner London Allowance per annum

Working Hours : 37 Hours Monday - Friday, Occasional Weekend Working.

Location : Enfield Yard, with frequent travel to sites along the Rivers Lee and Stort, plus occasional region-wide travel.

About the Trust

We’re the charity who look after and bring to life 2,000 miles of canals and rivers. Our waterways contribute to the health and wellbeing of local communities and economies, creating attractive and connected places to live, work, volunteer and spend leisure time. These historic, natural and cultural assets form part of the strategic and local green-blue infrastructure network, linking urban and rural communities as well as habitats.

Our waterways are on the doorstep of 8 million people and reach some of the most deprived communities within the UK. By caring for our waterways and promoting their use we believe we can improve the wellbeing of our nation. Come and be part of it.

We are looking for an  Area Operations Manager to cover our East London canal network for the London and South East Region, based from our Enfield Yard.

In this role you will lead a team of 9 colleagues (Team Leader, 2 Volunteering Leaders and Waterway Operatives), focusing on day-to-day operational management and maintaining safety management protocols across the East London Canal Network which includes the River Lee and the River Stort. See our network here :

About the Team

Having established ourselves as a major charity, we are now on a journey to deliver ambitious new plans – and central to this is the area structure that will enable us to deliver an outstanding service to all users and customers across our amazingly diverse network. Join us, as one of our new Area Operations Managers, and you’ll play a key part in making sure this happens, as you take ownership of the quality and presentation of the waterways in your area.

You’ll be the main contact for a huge variety of people – not just colleagues and volunteers but internal users, visitors, customers and community representatives as well. By engaging with them, listening to them, and understanding their needs, you’ll be able to build up a complete picture of service-related and operational issues. You will also be responsible for delivering operational activities, works and improvement programmes across your area, leading and motivating internal teams and supervising contractors to ensure a successful outcome every time.

Throughout your work, you will be addressing key customer concerns and using your local knowledge to ensure we operate a reliable waterway network. And, most important of all, you will be helping us prove that life’s better by water, by transforming our canals and rivers into spaces that bring wellbeing benefits to huge numbers of local people every day.

See how we make difference : ().

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Location and coverage

Reporting to the base in Enfield, your area of responsibility will include the River Lee and the River Stort. You will report to the Head of Operations for the London and South east region and work collaboratively with 5 other AOMs across the region, the contract manager, the reactive team manager and the harbour master and as such occasionally travel across the London & South East region.

The regularity & flexibility of travel will be discussed further at interview stage.  Regular accessibility to this is essential to enable managerial function .

Knowledge, Skills / Qualifications & Experience

Key accountabilities :

• Key correspondent for engaging with and listening to users, visitors, colleagues and volunteers to have a complete picture of service related and operational issues in their area.
• Development and implementation of a prioritised improvement programme to encourage greater participation with increasing levels of visitor satisfaction and aimed delivering against the Trust’s framework of strategic objectives.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues across the area and wider Trust for the completion of works, delivery of wider Trust wellbeing, engagement, promotional and other activities.
• Liaison with and coordinate Trust priorities with other teams to ensure all works and initiatives within their area are programmed and delivered with current and future visitors in mind.
• Influence colleagues in relation to the delivery of works outside the scope of their own team to deliver.
• Manage minor projects – typically grant funded valued to £20k, achievement of outcomes and budget compliance, required reporting and other standards.
• Develop and grow the volunteering contribution to the care of the waterways with a targeted, engaging and satisfying programme of opportunities.
• Line management, coaching and mentoring of a team of paid colleagues and volunteers to operate the waterway; and deliver a planned programme of maintenance works to high quality, in time and to budgets; and reactive tasks as circumstances require.
• Planning of work schedules and rotas. Organise and oversee the daily operation of an area of the network to provide a 7-day operational service.
• Key contact with contracting partners in the undertaking of activities associated with the delivery of planned contracted and arising tasks in the Operational Contracts area.
• Undertake specialist activities (example Diving Contract Administration), as needed for the area and more widely where required.
• Identify and implement opportunities for efficiencies, achieving budgetary targets each year.
• Participation in the planning and delivery of a 24 / 7 on call response, to ensure visitor and neighbour safety and satisfaction is maintained at all times.
• Ensure availability of colleagues to resource the rota.
• Responsible for equipment, vehicles and buildings to the required standards to ensure their availability for works and cost effectiveness.

About you

Given how many different kinds of internal and external stakeholders you’ll be dealing with, it’s vitally important that you have excellent communication and influencing skills along with proven experience of leading successful teams and of managing and motivating groups of volunteers. You will also need substantial experience of developing and delivering programmes of work that have been effective in turning a strategic vision into reality.

Safety is another major part of your remit, so you must have proven experience of safety management and, if you haven’t already gained a NEBOSH certificate or IOSH Managing Safely, then working towards one will be beneficial.

A full valid driving licence is essential as you will need to be readily mobile across your area of responsibility.

Knowledge, Experience & Skills

Behaviours :

Qualifications :

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If you have any questions about the role please contact

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient suitable applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

What We Offer

In addition to your annual salary of £39,588 , we also offer a Car Cash Allowance (£425 per month), Inner London Allowance,a competitive contributory DC Pension scheme arrangement, and numerous other employee benefits, including several salary sacrifice benefits, all of which can be found all of which can be found ().

Other benefits include :

At the Trust we care passionately for our waterways, and as importantly, for those who look after and use them. We strongly believe that a diverse workforce brings with it a diversity of ideas, thinking and ways of working which enhances what we do as a Trust. We are striving to represent the diverse communities that we are a part of and welcome applicants from across all sectors of the community.