Details
Westcountry Rivers Trust is recruiting a Operations Team – Programme Supervisor.
This is a permanent contract after a successful 6 month probation period.
The starting salary for this role is between £30,000 and £36,000 per annum (dependent on experience).
The role is 37.5 hours per week.
There will be the opportunity to work from home in this role and work flexible hours. Travel to sites throughout the Westcountry will also be required regularly; this role is a mixture of office and site-based.
Apply by midnight on Sunday 14th April 2024 by CV and Covering Letter to: https://hr.breathehr.com/v/operations-team-programme-34551
Interviews will be held in person at our offices in Stoke Climsland on Tuesday 23rd April 2024
For queries about this role or the application process please contact recruitment@wrt.org.uk
About the Westcountry Rivers Trust
Formed in 1994, the Trust was established to restore Westcountry rivers. Measures to protect rivers can help to save money for farmers, lower costs for water companies, boost tourism, reduce the need to dredge estuaries and even benefit human health. Everything the Trust does is informed by the best available science. Their work is driven by an ‘ecosystems approach,’ considering the function of the entire catchment, not just the rivers that flow within them.
Today the charity works with a wide range of stakeholders from landowners to local communities, businesses, farmers and water companies to restore and protect the rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal areas for the benefit of people, wildlife and the local economy. There has never been a more important time to work on the rivers of the West Country as the impacts of climate emergency and the ecological crisis is forcing society to invest in building catchment resilience.
Spurred by a shared love of rivers, the Westcountry Rivers Trust is very much a grassroots organisation, brought into existence from the bottom up. In the early 90s, a group of individuals, passionate – but concerned – about the waterways around them, began to stitch together their ambitions for restoring Westcountry rivers, laying the foundations for the Trust we know today.
Everything the Trust does is informed by the best available science. Their work is driven by an ‘ecosystems approach,’ considering the function of the entire catchment, not just the rivers that flow within them
It was this new perspective – not to mention the hands-on and tireless approach to river restoration – that grabbed the attention of so many supporters and funders and which lies behind the flourishing rivers trust movement. Since then, the Trust now has circa 75 employees with an annual turnover of c£3m running multi-annual projects spread across a wide range of funders.
The Trust has three main delivery teams and a support services team. Our employees work on delivery sites, from home and from the office. Following the pandemic we have moved to a hybrid way of working and it is important that our IT enables and supports this change.
The Role
Are you looking for a role where you can work with a positive and forward-thinking organisation to deliver tangible benefits, demonstrable change and increase the resilience of our rivers and freshwater ecosystems in the South West? Do you have skills and experience in project management, the safe delivery of site-based work of varying scales and technicality, and a passion for managing and mentoring a team of wonderful people to enact real change on our river systems throughout the Westcountry?
As project delivery specialist contractors and consultants in the freshwater environment, the Operations Team undertakes and supports the in-house delivery of a range of projects delivered either directly by the team or supported by our trusted sub-contractors. The type of project outputs, monitoring and interventions we deliver and oversee consist of, but aren’t limited to, bankside and in-river habitat management such as arboricultural work, wetland creation, protection and restoration, tree planting and woodland creation, gravel augmentation, natural flood management (NFM) and other nature-based solution (NBS) opportunities, floodplain restoration and reconnection, weir removals and modifications, electrofishing monitoring, catchment walkovers, gravel audits, invertebrate monitoring, arboricultural and ecological surveys, supporting applications to countryside stewardship and the England woodland creation offer (EWCO), training and development, and specialist work in protected and sensitive sites.
This role will contribute to the effective delivery of the broad programme of work undertaken by our Operational Team at WRT across a range of projects. Supporting the Operations Manager and Operational Team by taking the lead on a range of project and programme management, internal and external engagement, and enabling processes which assist our good work to be delivered. This role will support development of the team and Trust during an exciting period of growth and opportunity, enabling the delivery of projects and encouraging the environmental resilience and sustainability of our catchments throughout the South West.
Key responsibilities include:
· Support the Operations Team and other departments at WRT with managing the effective delivery of our work programme across a range of projects at the Trust, including the provision of technical experience and knowledge where appropriate.
· Supporting other project and team managers with a range of outputs, providing realistic timeframes and cost estimates to develop a schedule of project activities and key milestones to achieve project objectives.
· To highlight and manage risks, issues, and changes to the work programme.
· Work with the Operations Manager and H&S lead to identify skills gaps and develop appropriate training programmes.
To maintain, interrogate and regularly update work schedules,
deliverables, budget or activity logs and extracting information for reporting, in liaison with the Operations Manager and team.
Managing project budgets and team expenditure, checking invoices, costings on proformas and financial information from suppliers.
· Prepare and review essential project-related paperwork such as Risk Assessments, Method Statements, Site Assessments and Surveys, reports and collation of material and data.
· To build positive relationships and liaise regularly with colleagues and external partners or organisations.
· Support with events, meetings, and workshops.
· To attend formal and informal training and develop relevant knowledge and skills (CPD) as appropriate.
· May be required to carry out other duties from time to time commensurate with the level of the post.
· Maintain appropriate confidentiality of information relating to WRT and its employees and maintain compliance with the UK GDPR.
Essential Criteria:
· Experience working in a project and site-based setting, including planning and delivering a portfolio of work and managing sites in a multi-task environment.
· Strong administration skills with a desire to continually improve and streamline processes.
· A proactive approach and ability to use initiative and problem solve, with a strength in the logistical management of a team and multiple workloads.
· The ability to work accurately with a high attention to detail.
· The ability to work to manage your workload and meet deadlines, managing conflicting demands and working effectively to deadlines with minimum supervision.
· Experience managing/mentoring people effectively and planning workloads across a team to ensure objectives are delivered.
· Effective verbal and written communication with the ability to build positive working relationships.
· Demonstrable experience working with MS Office suite, especially Word and Excel.
· Formal education to Level 2 (GCSE Maths and English to grade C or equivalent).
· Experience working with or performing appropriate desk-based and site surveys for statutory designations, species and habitats, services (above and below ground), historic environment features or similar.
· A knowledge and understanding of biosecurity and NNIS in relation to identifying and managing these on-site.
Desirable Criteria:
· Previous experience working in a forestry/arboricultural, agricultural or construction-based environment or similar.
· Experience working with Health and Safety policy, process and site-based documentation.
· Membership of a relevant professional organisation.
· Higher level site supervision/management or other H&S qualification.
· Degree-level qualification in a subject relevant to the environmental sector.
Benefits
• 25 days Annual Leave per annum, with a reward for long service – an additional 1 day per year for each year worked over 5 years, up to a maximum of 30 days for employees serving 10 years.
• An additional 3 days Annual Leave for the Christmas Closure period.
• 9% Employer Pension, plus Life Assurance cover
