Section Lead

Job reference number 293111

£45,559 - £49,107 per annum (subject to experience), £1,010 night shift allowance per month and 10% bonus potential

Pension scheme and 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays

Full time, 41 hours per week, Tuesday - Saturday, 22.00 - 06.15

Permanent

Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre, slough, SL3 8AQ

Royal Mail Heathrow Distribution Centre (HWDC) is one of the UK largest, automated hubs which processes export mail and parcels to Europe and beyond. The HWDC scale is immense, the size of six football pitches, operating 24/7 to strict customs and aviation security specifications.

To support the smooth running of the operation, we have an exciting opportunity to join the Royal Mail International team as a Section Operations Lead, covering the Night Shift (Tuesday - Saturday, 22.00 - 06.15)

About the role
In the role, you’ll be responsible for Royal Mail International operations across the shift, leading the successful achievement of safety, quality of service, productivity, automation performance/utilisation and employee targets, driving these through the effective application of Continuous Improvement tools and techniques.

With line manager responsibility for 6 Frontline Managers, you’ll be accountable for the management of safe operations across the section including Pic (person in charge) responsibilities for HWDC operation and to ensure shift compliance with DfT standards in line with United Kingdom Government legislation in respect of Aviation Security.

Key responsibilities will be to ensure that risk assessments for the shift are completed, safe systems of work are in place, and that the process is compliant with safety requirements and operates in a safe manner, always following the set principles of Continuous Improvement.

With support of the Shift Manager, you will implement planned budgetary improvement actions and drive the achievement of metrics and targets for the four scorecard areas – people, customer, efficiency and financial. Alongside this, you will be accountable for co-ordinating & maintaining manpower planning activity for your section through the resource team - ensuring frontline managers undertake effective planning, considering traffic forecast & staff attendance.

Working with Ops Control and the Engineering team leads, you will maximise the volumes of automated mail and drive improvements in machine performance. You will also undertake regular performance reviews with your own team, ensuring visibility of performance throughout the shift and supporting a culture where everyone knows how they can make a difference. It will also be key to benchmark and utilise trend analysis of shift performance to identify best practice and techniques to effectively deploy this within the shift. In addition, you will work with Customs and Revenue Protection to ensure impact of Customs interventions is minimised with regards to overall customer experience.

You will also work with the relevant Trades Union representatives to create effective partnerships which both support people to deliver great performance and create a harmonious working environment where everyone feels valued.

About you:
You need to demonstrate the following skills and experience on your CV/application

• Proven experience of successfully running a large operation, ideally from a highly automated parcels/letters work environment and achieving scorecard targets.
• Experience of leading a large team and line managing frontline managers.
• Operational knowledge - expert operational knowledge of the letters operation and the overall plant operation.
• Experience of deploying operational change and successfully leading people through change.
• Commercial appreciation – understands the challenges facing the business and able to communicate the big picture to influence others.
• A good understand Continuous Improvement tools and techniques and relevant safety measures and tools.
• Planning and project management skills - able to develop a plan, understand the risks, monitor progress and deploy the plan to time
• Strong data analysis and ability to evaluate process performance, using KPIs/metrics to identify trends and shifts in performance and develop solutions
• Stakeholder management - able to build effective relationships with a range of senior stakeholders to achieve business benefit.
• Strong presentational skills and confident in using Microsoft Office programmes including Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, in house Plant and HR systems
• Safety – PIC trained and experience of safety tools and techniques.

Closing date: Tuesday 21st March. Please note, this advert may close early if the appropriate number of applications has been reached.
Assessment dates: w/c 3rd April and consists of a competency based interview and scenario exercise.

Your career in safe hands

At Royal Mail we value our people and we want our people to be proud to work for our businesses.

We have the assets, the infrastructure and the scale that others don’t, yet we are a big part of the communities we operate in, making billions of precious deliveries each year. We are responsible for the largest B2B customer database in the UK and are one of the largest employers in the UK, providing one in every 194 jobs.

An operation of this size needs a strong support network, and the HR, Legal, Finance, IT, Risk & Governance, Customer Experience, Sales & Marketing departments are all integral to helping us to utilise the latest technology and business approaches to optimise, automate and digitise our operations.

Royal Mail is a forward thinking, innovative organisation, that is also committed to reducing emissions and improving air quality in our communities. This includes investing in technologies such as electric vehicles, drones, alternative fuel trucks and energy improvements to our estate.

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