Head of Focus Service Operations

First Central; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a leading insurance company as the Head of Focus Service Operations, where you will spearhead the Focus Service strategy. You'll ensure exceptional service delivery, oversee operational performance, and drive a DevOps culture within a dynamic team. This leadership role focuses on enhancing customer experience while maintaining efficiency and excellence in service operation.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in IT service management, application development or leadership roles.
• Experience with incident, problem and change management in a cloud-based environment.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the day-to-day operations of the Focus application within the cloud environment.
• Lead the integration of DevOps practices across various value streams.

Skills

Excellent communication

Strategic decision making

Change management

Excellent problem-solving

People management

Dispute resolution

Interpersonal skills

Influencing and negotiation

Coaching

Time management

Education

Experience in IT service management

Background in insurance or financial services

Job description

We’re 1st Central, a market-leading insurance company utilising smart data and technology at pace. Rapid growth has been based on giving our 1.4 million customers exactly what they want: great value insurance with an excellent service. And that’s the same for our colleagues too; we won Insurance Employer of the Year at the British Insurance Awards 2024 and our Glassdoor score is pretty mega too!

We're looking for a Head of Focus Service Operations who'll be responsible for creating and delivering the Focus Service strategy and driving a Dev-Ops culture across the Product Engineering team. A key responsibility of this role is to oversee the operational performance and service delivery for the Focus application within the cloud environment.

This role includes managing DevOps practices across various value streams, each responsible for resolving incidents and operating their services. While the value streams manage their services, the Head of Focus Service Operations will ensure the overall platform's enterprise-wide service, providing a seamless experience across the business . Additionally, you’ll lead the Focus service strategy, combinin g customer experience management with operational oversight to ensure exceptional servic e at every touchpoint.

We value flexible working arrangements, so you can choose to work remotely or maybe you live within a commutable distance from one of our offices in Salford Quays, Manchester, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, or Guernsey , and want to work in the office occasionally.

Core skills were looking for to succeed in the role:

• Ex cellent communication and interpersonal skills

• Strategic decision making.

• An understanding of Lean / Continuous Improvement tools, thinking and methodologies

• Excellent communication, both verbal and written.

• People management and leadership and ability to motivate employees in a high pressurised environment.

• Influencing and negotiation.

• Good time management and organisation.

• Dispute resolution.

• Change management.

• Excellent problem-solving skills, identifying root causes and offering solutions

• Excellent stakeholder management skills and the ability to influence key decision makers internally.

• Coaching – focused on the development of others, including recognising skills and potential, matching with relevant assignments and providing constructive feedback

What’s involved :

• You’ll b uild and implement the Focus Service strategy focussing on adopting new ways of working aligned to cloud technologies and DevOps principles

• You’ll o versee the day -to-day operations of the software platform, ensuring that service levels are m aintained and operational disruptions are m inimised across the Enterprise Working across the Value streams to manage the t imely and effective response to incidents and problems affecting the Focus application, ensuring minimal business impact

• You’ll e nsure a holistic approach to service management including incident , problem, new service onboarding, release and change management, following best practice

• You’ll c o-ordinate with Value Stream teams, ensuring they are aligned with Enterprise wider operational goals while maintaining responsibility for the overall platform performance

• You'll e nsure the platform’s operation performance is regularly reported to key stakeholders, providing key insights into application performance, service levels and incident trends

• You'll be r esponsible for leading the integration of DevOps practices into the Value Streams to ensure that development, operations and support functions work seamlessly together across the platform

• You’ll work to e nable Value Stream teams to take full ownership of their services aligned with the overall standards and service objectives

• Service Performance Metrics & Reporting – establish and monitor key service performance metrics across the Focus application in conjunction with Product Owners, business and in line with SLAs. Provide regular performance reports to key stakeholders and use data driven insights to make informed operational decisions.

• You’ll s upport the Resilience team with the co-ordination of Focus major incidents across the platform, ensuring fast resolution and minimal disruption to business operations, while maintaining clear communication with stakeholders

• You'll w ork with Value Stream teams to ensure that root cause analysis (RCA) is performed on recurring incidents, leading to actionable improvements in both development and operational processes.

• You’ll e nsure t hat all issues impactin g the pla tform are captured, resolved, and documented, and that trends are analysed to impl ement long-term solutions.

• You’ll d evelop a communication and reporting strategy to provide accurate and timely operational reports on the software platforms performance, including key performance indicator, incident trends and service level adherence

• You'll w ork with Value Streams to develop dashboards and regular reports to offer visibility into platform health, performance and areas of improvement

• You’ll c ollaborate with business stakeholders to ensure that service delivery aligns with business objectives , and work proactively to address emerging business needs or platform challenges

• You’ll l ead a team of professionals dedicated to managing the Focus operations, providing guidance & best practice across the federated value streams

• You'll d rive continuous improvement initiatives, focusing on process optimisation and reliability of the Focus platform

• You'll l ead the Service community of practice driving knowledge sharing across the service professionals, improved skills and increased innovation

• You’ll w ork closely with the Head of Value Streams, business stakeholders, IT teams and partners to ensure that the Focus platform meets the operational expectations and business needs

• You’ll d rive collaboration across the Technology teams to ensure issues are resolved and improvements are implemented in alignment with business priorities

• You'll d efine, plan and support the 24/7 on-call rota to manage incidents, security alerts, and escalations as required .

• You'll d efine, plan and support the Focus application out of hour releases when required

• You'll c omply with the requirements, and act in accordance with , the Group Code of Conduct and Fitness and Propriety policies at all times

• You'll e nsure compliance with Company Policies, Values and guidelines and other relevant standards/ regulations at all times

Experience & knowledge

• Extensive experience in IT service management, application development or leaderships roles with a focus on incident & problem management

• Experience with incident, problem and change management

• Strong experience with driving service delivery and platform performance improvements within a complex, multi-service environment.

• Ideally an insurance or financial Services background, although other backgrounds will be considered

• Knowledge of FCA requirements (including TCF)

• Knowledge of managing cloud-based platforms or SaaS applications

Skills

• Ex cellent communication and interpersonal skills

• Strategic decision making.

• An understanding of Lean / Continuous Improvement tools, thinking and methodologies

• Excellent communication, both verbal and written.

• People management and leadership and ability to motivate employees in a high pressurised environment.

• Influencing and negotiation.

• Good time management and organisation.

• Dispute resolution.

• Change management.

• Excellent problem-solving skills, identifying root causes and offering solutions

• Excellent stakeholder management skills and the ability to influence key decision makers internally.

• Coaching – focused on the development of others, including recognising skills and potential, matching with relevant assignments and providing constructive feedback

So, if you’re up for the challenge and would like to join our vibrant and busy team, we want to hear from you today.

What can we do for you?

People first. Always. We’re passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so that’s what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic, inspirational, supportive. To get a taste of the advantages you’ll enjoy, take a look at all our perks in full here .

Intrigued? Our Talent team can tell you everything you need to know about what we want and what we’re offering, so feel free to get in touch.