Operations Manager

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an Operations Manager to lead our Landlord Mortgage New Business Teams with responsibility for delivering simply brilliant service to our customers via our processing teams.

Landlord New Business is a hybrid working team with colleagues working across the UK, with face-to-face collaboration required to support this.

At Nationwide we offer hybrid working wherever possible. More rewarding relationships are supported through our hybrid approach, bringing colleagues together across our UK wide estate, whilst also supporting generous access to home working. We value our time in the office to solve problems, to learn, and to feel connected.

For this job you'll spend at least two days per week, or if part time you'll spend 40% of your working time, based at our Bournemouth office. If your application is successful, your hiring manager will provide further details on how this works. You can also find out more about our approach to hybrid working here.

If we receive a high volume of relevant applications, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so please apply as soon as you can.

What you’ll be doing

As an Operations Manager you will deliver simply brilliant service through the dynamic leadership of our diverse operational teams. You will inspire, motivate, coach and develop teams to achieve outstanding performance through your personal leadership and demonstration of the Society’s core values. You will challenge the status quo, optimise resources to provide a compliant and cost-effective service, focused on driving service to be a real differentiator. Your role will be to continuously review and improve operational performance and efficiencies, whilst also effectively leading and implementing change.

In addition, you will be:

• Leading a team of high performing individuals with a real focus on personal development, wellbeing, nurturing talent and supporting the society’s ID&W mission.
• Managing resources in line with ever changing customer demand to ensure that defined Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) are achieved, reported, and continually reviewed to provide optimal customer service.
• Regularly planning and forecasting up to 12 months ahead to assess the impact of potential work peaks, creating action plans to maintain SLAs. Any exceptions will be proactively communicated as early as possible to consider alternative options.
• Managing costs to ensure we are within agreed budgets (subject to flex according to workloads) and regular updates / forecasts are reported.
• Using customer insight and employee feedback to identify and implement changes that improve efficiency and quality and help us to deliver simply brilliant service.
• Ensure compliance within legislative and risks and controls framework with all complaints and breaches / risks managed appropriately.
• Ensuring an effective Business Continuity plan is in place and tested.

About you

As a minimum requirement you’ll have:

• Leadership experience of large operations within financial services (preferably mortgages).
• Strong evidence of being able to develop leaders through regular conversations, feedback, and coaching, and helping them to perform at their best.
• Evidence of enabling change or leading operations with continuous improvements with effective engagement.
• Detailed knowledge of Employee Development Scheme and adherence to the guidelines set within it.
• Excellent working knowledge of the mortgage journey and processes, ideally in the end-to-end application journey of Landlord.
• An ability to challenge existing procedures / policies and experience of influencing change.
• Effective and persuasive communication skills as will be liaising with stakeholders on a daily basis.
• Resilience to perform well under pressure.
• An aptitude for planning and forecasting combined with a logical approach and ability to think laterally.

Our Customer First behaviours are all about putting customers and members at the heart of how we work together. You can strengthen your application by showing the behaviours that resonate with you, and how you might have already demonstrated these.

• Say it straight - This is about being honest and direct with good intent and saying what needs to be said in the room. It’s also about being clear, precise, and using language that we and, importantly, our customers and members can understand.
• Push for better - This is about aiming high and constantly looking for better in how we work together and serve our customers and members.
• Get it done - This is about prioritising what will have the greatest impact, being decisive and taking accountability for delivering on the end-to-end outcome.

We know applying for jobs can sometimes feel like you’re sending an application into a black hole. We review each application individually. So, it’s a good idea to call out your most relevant experience on your application to give yourself the best chance.

The extras you’ll get:

There are all sorts of employee benefits available at Nationwide, including:

• A personal pension – if you put in 7% of your salary, we’ll top up by a further 16%.
• Up to 2 days of paid volunteering a year.
• Life assurance worth 8x your salary.
• A great selection of additional benefits through our salary sacrifice scheme.
• Wellhub – Access to a range of free and paid options for health and wellness.
• Access to an annual performance related bonus.
• Access to training to help you develop and progress your career.
• 25 days holiday, pro rata.

What makes us different:

Nationwide is the world’s largest building society. With over 15 million customers, we have a relationship with almost a quarter of the UK’s population. We’ve got the scale to compete with the big banks, but we’re not a bank.

As a building society, we’re owned by our members – that’s our customers who have their current account, mortgage or savings with us. It means we can do things differently to deliver our Purpose – Banking – but fairer, more rewarding, and for the good of society.

When you work at Nationwide, you can experience that difference for yourself. You’ll be part of a high-performing, purpose-driven organisation that offers rewarding career experiences and a highly competitive range of benefits to match. You’ll also be joining us at an important time as we seek to reach more and more people in the UK. We want everyone in the UK to know that they don’t have to bank with a bank. They can choose a modern mutual instead.