Area Manager
| Posting date: | 16 May 2024 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | £37,485 to £40,590 per year |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 09 June 2024 |
| Location: | Ludlow |
| Company: | Government Recruitment Service |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 351103/3 |
Summary
Background
Forestry England is part of the Forestry Commission. West England Forest District is responsible for the sustainable management of over 38,000ha of the Nation's Forests in the west and south-west of England. The north of the District extends from woodlands near Shrewsbury, southwards to the majestic oak and beech woods of Savernake Forest in Wiltshire and in the south-west the District stretches as far as Idless Woods near Truro in Cornwall. The District is managed from the District Office at Coleford, in the Forest of Dean, supported by 13 local Forest Beat or Forest Visitor Centre delivery teams dispersed across the Forest District. These local teams are responsible for the professional delivery of agreed work programmes assisted by a team of business support staff.
The Northern Beats (Area Manager - North) manage our woods in north Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire, as well as north WIltshire and the Bristol area. This region includes the nationally important veteran trees of Savernake, and the vast extent of the Wyre Forest which is designated as a National Nature Reserve.
The South Western Beats (Area Manager - South-west) cover our woods in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. These are a mix of predominantly coniferous plantations on the south-west moors, as well as a rich collection of ancient woodlands throughout all 3 counties. The south-west includes our woods in Exmoor and Dartmoor National Parks.
The area manager roles are key for us to develop as an outstanding organisation, supporting our front-line forestry teams through excellence in people management, business planning and partnership working.
The post holder will lead the front line delivery teams in either the south-west, or northern areas in support of delivering agreed programmes of work on time and to the standards required for the UK Woodland Assurance Scheme and our Forestry England Values - Look out & look after, Do it together, Be adventurous, and Think beyond a lifetime. The focus of the post holders will be on supporting the beat foresters through excellent people management, as we aim to ensure we maintain our expert, motivated and committed workforce, supporting recruitment and our commitment to training and development of our people. Business planning and financial reporting, and supporting procurement exercises will be key, actively engaging with the team to understand the real issues and reality of income and expenditure challenges. These roles are about facilitating the forestry teams to deliver superb forests through exemplary business support, they are not of themselves forestry roles. The forestry programmes, standards and processes are led by the functional operations managers with whom the area managers need to engage and align with.
A part of the role is to support internal and external communications, and this is likely to include assisting your team in responding to complaints and information requests in a professional and timely way.
You can expect to spend nearly all of your time indoors and will be expected to manage your own time to maximise efficiency and personal effectiveness.
Key Work Areas
Leadership
- To support the beat foresters and their teams, encouraging communication, networking, collaboration and team working;
- To encourage a culture of life long learning, under pinning technical competence, and supporting the growth of people and business management skills;
- Facilitate sound business planning, and monitoring and reporting of business delivery so that we can better match approved programmes to available resources, and more accurately forecast and report on expenditure and income targets in relation to the programmed work.
- Embed realistic time management, supporting beat foresters with work planning and scheduling so that all work is properly planned and resourced as we aim to only deliver forestry that we are proud of.
Partnership
- Understand the priorities of stakeholders and how they fit into plans and activities
- Develop and maintain excellent relationships with local stakeholders and partners to strengthen their support and utilise their expertise for the delivery of mutual aspirations, maximising public engagement and understanding for all parties.
- To support partnership projects, and working with communities to add value to our core work.
Communications
- Deliver a step-change in the way both internal and external communications are planned and proactively delivered for your area of responsibility
- Helping the Organisation to communicate the operating policies, customer issues and safety measures
- Support local stakeholder and neighbour communications to defray tensions and promote positive messaging, take the lead when necessary on complaint resolution.
Financial Monitoring
- Support the financial management of the cost centres within your area of responsibility, understanding the reality of how expenditure and income is matching to actual delivery and provide accurate, reliable reports to the Finance Manager based on the front-line experience.
- Contribute data and information to enable the development of cyclical or ad-hoc business planning or business case development as we aim to better match delivery programmes to available resources.
Health and Safety
- Ensure that all work programmes undertaken meet appropriate standards of health and safety, operational efficiency and quality of output.
- Lead on incident investigation to aid learning and reduce unsafe working practices
- Promote a safety first culture with our staff, partners and communities we work with.