Partnership Services Lead (Central)

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the delivery of a consistent, proactive and person-centered service throughout the Hearing Dog partnership.
• Ensure Partnership Advisors understand each recipient’s wider hearing loss journey, needs and circumstances, not only their immediate Hearing Dog partnership.
• Ensure advisors identify wider hearing-related needs and connect recipients to appropriate Hearing Link or external services.
• Champion, and proactively share as appropriate, recipient experience and outcomes in cross-functional discussions and service decisions.
• Use recipient feedback, complaints, compliments and case insight to improve service delivery.
• Ensure redesigned recipient journeys and service standards are translated into practical, consistent ways of working.
  People leadership and culture
• Directly lead and line manage up to 8 Partnership Advisors, with support from specialist teams including Dog Training, Healthcare, and Support Pathways.
• Set clear expectations for behaviour, professional practice, service standards, performance and impact.
• Coach and develop Partnership Advisors to build confidence, capability, professional judgement and independent decision-making.
• Create a culture of accountability, openness, learning and continuous improvement.
• Address poor performance and behaviour promptly, fairly and consistently.
• Model the leadership behaviours required for the future service and constructively challenge practices that do not meet agreed standards.

• Implement and maintain agreed critical KPIs, service approaches, standards and quality measures.
• Use performance information routinely to identify variation, risk and improvement opportunities.
• Hold regular performance conversations and act promptly where standards are not met.
• Use case review and quality assurance to improve consistency and professional practice.
• Provide meaningful performance insight, learning and mitigation to the Head of Partnership Services rather than simply reporting activity.

• Lead the implementation of the new Partnership Services model within the team and drive the change in orientation required.
• Build understanding of why change is required and address resistance constructively and robustly.
• Embed new approaches, processes, standards, systems and behaviour into everyday practice.
• Identify barriers to implementation and work with colleagues to resolve them.
• Maintain momentum and accountability after implementation.
  Data, insight and continuous improvement
• Use data and insight as a core leadership tool.
• Interpret and act on trends in workload, quality, recipient outcomes, wellbeing impact and other agreed measures.
• Turn data and insight into action, improvement plans, positioning of new recipients, and management decisions.
• Identify systemic issues and escalate them to the Head of Partnership Services with practical solutions.

• Lead the delivery of a consistent, proactive and person-centered service throughout the Hearing Dog partnership.
• Ensure Partnership Advisors understand each recipient’s wider hearing loss journey, needs and circumstances, not only their immediate Hearing Dog partnership.
• Ensure advisors identify wider hearing-related needs and connect recipients to appropriate Hearing Link or external services.
• Champion, and proactively share as appropriate, recipient experience and outcomes in cross-functional discussions and service decisions.
• Use recipient feedback, complaints, compliments and case insight to improve service delivery.
• Ensure redesigned recipient journeys and service standards are translated into practical, consistent ways of working.

• Directly lead and line manage up to 8 Partnership Advisors, with support from specialist teams including Dog Training, Healthcare, and Support Pathways.
• Set clear expectations for behaviour, professional practice, service standards, performance and impact.
• Coach and develop Partnership Advisors to build confidence, capability, professional judgement and independent decision-making.
• Create a culture of accountability, openness, learning and continuous improvement.
• Address poor performance and behaviour promptly, fairly and consistently.
• Model the leadership behaviours required for the future service and constructively challenge practices that do not meet agreed standards.

• Implement and maintain agreed critical KPIs, service approaches, standards and quality measures.
• Use performance information routinely to identify variation, risk and improvement opportunities.
• Hold regular performance conversations and act promptly where standards are not met.
• Use case review and quality assurance to improve consistency and professional practice.
• Provide meaningful performance insight, learning and mitigation to the Head of Partnership Services rather than simply reporting activity.

• Lead the implementation of the new Partnership Services model within the team and drive the change in orientation required.
• Build understanding of why change is required and address resistance constructively and robustly.
• Embed new approaches, processes, standards, systems and behaviour into everyday practice.
• Identify barriers to implementation and work with colleagues to resolve them.
• Maintain momentum and accountability after implementation.
  Data, insight and continuous improvement
• Use data and insight as a core leadership tool.
• Interpret and act on trends in workload, quality, recipient outcomes, wellbeing impact and other agreed measures.
• Turn data and insight into action, improvement plans, positioning of new recipients, and management decisions.
• Identify systemic issues and escalate them to the Head of Partnership Services with practical solutions.
• Contribute evidence and operational insight to Service Design and wider improvement.

• Collaborate with and influence specialist support colleagues to embed, continuously improve and measure the impact of recipient journeys.
• Work in partnership with specialist teams where their input is required, including Dog Training, Healthcare, Support Pathways, Strategy, Performance and Impact.
• Collaborate with Support Pathways to ensure recipients can access appropriate wider support.
• Develop effective relationships across teams and influence without relying solely on formal authority.
• Ensure information, learning and good practice move effectively across the organization.

• Ensure safeguarding, risk, confidentiality and information governance requirements are understood and followed.
• Identify and escalate significant or systemic risks.
• Manage workload and team capacity effectively and respond to changing demand.
• Manage delegated budget within agreed parameters.
• Contribute to workforce planning and resource decisions

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Significant experience of leading change and developing people.
• Demonstrable experience of successfully managing performance and addressing underperformance.
• Experience of successfully leading people through organizational, cultural or service change.
• Experience of setting or managing standards and KPIs and using data to focus effort and improve performance.
• Experience of improving a service, process or customer/recipient journey.
• Strong coaching, communication, influencing and relationship-building skills.
• The ability to create and maintain clear, effective and uncomplicated systems that enable people to focus on recipient support rather than unnecessary administration.
• The ability to work effectively across departmental teams, bring people together around shared outcomes and drive action.
• Strong professional judgement, swift decision-making and the ability to manage complexity, risk and competing priorities.
• A commitment to person-centered services and measurable outcomes.

Benefits

• Employee Assistance Programme
• Death in Service Payment
• Annual leave enhancements recognising long service
• Day off for your birthday
• Defined contribution group personal pension plan
• Enhanced sick pay
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
• Eye care
• Hearing tests
• Learning and Development opportunities
• Discounts on merchandise at Hearing Dog gift shops
• Pet Dog Policy