Remote with travel to Preston minimum of 2 x monthly or Hybrid with 2 days per week in our Preston office
A glance at the role and LPPA:
Due to a recent promotion as we strengthen our organisational structure, we have an exciting opportunity for a new Head of Member Services to join us.
This is a critical role, ensuring delivery of best of class member experience for all our members, and responsibility for creating a high-performance culture and quality service delivery across our case work teams.
The role holder will provide effective leadership to motivate and manage direct reports and other employees, with accountability for the overall performance of circa 170 employees.
Please note, shortlisting will take place week commencing 11th August, with 1st stage interviews on 20th & 21st August.
Local Pensions Partnership Administration (LPPA) is an award-winning organisation and one of the UK’s leading pension administration companies. We strive to deliver the best experience for over 2,100 employers and more than 700,000 members of Local Government, Police and Firefighter pension schemes, keeping them fully informed about their pensions whilst working closely with employers to continuously educate and support them.
What we can offer you:
- Attractive salary of circa £90k DOE and inclusion in annual bonus scheme.
- 30 days’ holiday, plus bank holidays. 2 concessionary days and half day for your birthday, with the ability to ‘buy and sell’ leave.
- Access to an excellent pension scheme (Local Government Pension Scheme) with generous employer contributions.
- Access to our Enhanced Employee Assistance Programme for when you or your family might need some support.
- Access to Health or Dental plan.
- The opportunity to earn through our Employee Referral Scheme.
- Access to our bespoke Reward Discount Scheme – ‘Your Perk Site.’
- Opportunities to attend Wellbeing webinars and social events.
- Daily free fruit and snacks available to you in our office.
- Free Car Parking in Preston Town Centre.
What you’ll be doing:
- Lead, motivate and performance manage direct reports and other employees.
- Drive strong levels of knowledge across the casework teams of local government, fire and police pension schemes with a member focused culture.
- Consistently achieve member and employee satisfaction scores.
- Be accountable for the overall performance of the teams against agreed KPIs and targets.
- Implement robust, delivery focused SLAs at all levels within the management structure with a high focus on accuracy of calculations.
- Utilise a technology first principle, working with the Change and Technology teams to drive technology innovation across administration reducing the number of off system processes through development of existing systems, increasing automation and enhancing self-service.
- Maintain a focus on continually improving the service to members of the pension schemes & drive business efficiency identifying process improvements.
- Maintain a strong understanding of regulatory requirements within Local Government, Fire and Police pension schemes, ensuring all regulatory and disclosure deadlines are met and being aware of any changes in the landscape.
- Support the wider organisation as necessary in the delivery of projects or regulatory changes whilst maintaining a focus on member-centric engagement and development.
- Input into LPPA risk register and where appropriate, act as risk owner, helping define the risk appetite on level of monitoring and compliance risks.
- Be pro-active in identifying and embedding ways to reduce complaints, data breaches and errors.
- Produce regular MI to support the Director of Member Services and Executive Leadership team with insight to aid decision making as well as input into the preparation of the quarterly board reporting and annual budget setting process.
- Provide frequent and meaningful insight into service gaps and coordinate appropriate service related training and development, including regular complaints training.
- Comply with LPPA’s Data Protection and Information Security policies and any relevant GDPR legislation, ensuring this is also a focus for the member services team.
Leadership Responsibilities
- Strong and effective leadership and management of people to achieve LPPA’s strategic goals and establishing a culture that supports LPPA’s aspiration to be the provider of choice for public sector pensions administration and a great place to work.
- Maintain and evolve a team organisation structure that is fit for purpose to deliver the member service focus.
- Build and maintain the right capabilities in the team through a combination of internal talent moves/promotions and development of staff.
- Provide clear objectives and respective individual accountabilities across the team.
- Actively coach and inspire, listening with curiosity and building an inclusive environment.
- Create a culture of giving and receiving timely feedback across the team.
- Role model LPPA values and associated behaviours and demand the same of the team.
- Identify positive and negative behaviours and set clear expectations around conduct. Have the courageous conversations.
- Invest time in learning and development including pathways to promotion and role model via self-learning and completion of mandatory learning.
- Recognise and reward high performance and differentiate in line with the performance management framework. Address performance gaps in a timely and decisive manner.
What we need from you:
- Previous senior leadership experience – including experience of leading, managing and driving the performance of large teams.
- Strong diplomatic and motivational skills to manage large multi-disciplined professional teams.
- Strong experience of Local Government Pensions Administration.
- Significant stakeholder management experience with proven ability to engage and influence others to deliver the best outcomes.
- Experience of managing change in a fast-paced and agile environment.
- Ability to interpret and use complex data.
- Ability to review and improve end to end processes working across functions.
- Obsessed with providing a first-class member and employer experience.
- Experience of working with robust risk assurance frameworks and controls and drives proactive risk management.
- Displaying excellent verbal and written communication skills, be able to use evidence and knowledge to support accurate, expert decisions and advice to support LPPA objectives.
- Attention to detail and innovative thinking skills.
- Self-motivated, decisive, with the ability to adapt to change and competing demands.
Nice to have:
- Experience of using UPM (Civica) Pension Administration system.
- Excellent knowledge of UK Pension Legislation.
- Experience of delivering automation to improve processes.
