Head of Services Operations and Performance

Thales Group; Crawley; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a dynamic leader to drive strategic innovation and operational performance in Crawley. This role involves overseeing a dedicated team of 150 professionals in Asset Management and Field Service Engineering, ensuring exceptional customer satisfaction and team development. The ideal candidate will champion Lean Six Sigma practices to enhance efficiency and foster a culture of continuous improvement. With a commitment to employee well-being, the company offers flexible working patterns to support personal and professional growth. If you are ready to make a significant impact, this is the opportunity for you.

Benefits

Flexible working hours

Career development opportunities

Market leading training

Mentorship programs

Qualifications

• Proven experience in leadership roles within customer services or operations.
• Strong background in driving operational efficiency and team development.

Responsibilities

• Oversee a diverse team dedicated to Asset Management and Field Service Engineering.
• Ensure all SLAs and KPIs for contracted Services Delivery Operations are met.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic Innovation

Operational Performance

Customer Satisfaction

Lean Six Sigma

Team Development

Communication Skills

Project Management

Education

HND or Degree in Software/IT/IS, Engineering or Business

Job description

Location: Crawley, United Kingdom

In fast changing markets, customers worldwide rely on Thales. Thales is a business where brilliant people from all over the world come together to share ideas and inspire each other. In aerospace, transportation, defence, security and space, our architects design innovative solutions that make our tomorrow's possible.Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across the major industries of Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Job title: Head of Services Operations and Performance

Location: Crawley

Are you a dynamic leader with a passion for driving strategic innovation and operational performance? Do you thrive in environments where you can make a significant impact on customer satisfaction and team development? If so, we have an exciting opportunity for you!

Role Overview: We are seeking a visionary leader to oversee and inspire a diverse team of 150 professionals dedicated to Asset Management, Field Service Engineering, Product Support, and Sale Order Management. Your leadership will be pivotal in creating a safe, integrity-driven work environment while actively participating in the personal and professional growth of your team.

Strategic Leadership & Continuous Improvement:

• Shape and execute strategic and capability plans to enhance Customer Service Delivery.
• Champion Lean Six Sigma and other operational competitiveness practices to drive efficiency and innovation.
• Cultivate dedicated teams to ensure outstanding Customer Satisfaction and enhanced performance.
• Foster the exchange of best practices and leverage synergies across Thales UK CBU’s, Domains, and Support Functions.

Delivery Excellence:

• Ensure and exceed all SLAs and KPIs for our contracted Services Delivery Operations.
• Align with the strategic goals set by the Services Director of Thales UK.
• Lead transformational activities that secure lasting growth, delighting our customers and fortifying our infrastructure.

Key duties:

Support to Programs:

• To deliver customer services operations and show with evidence that they are successful and timely
• To support forward planning activities for Services activities and to support the generation of relevant planning in Industry, Procurement, Trade compliance and logistics.
• To support the generation of cost and schedule information and manage the review of that data, ensuring great performance.
• To ensure service activities are delivered on time and to budget, managing work packages and cost centres where required and reporting regularly to TUK Services Director.
• To take responsibility for Service Solution Architecture team, ensuring currency and continual improvement of service design
• To take responsibility to professionalise the Service Delivery Management team, specialising in co-ordination of SCC / Support functions to guarantee effective and efficient delivery
• To identify, manage and mitigate any services capability deficiencies to de-risk successful delivery through implementation of transformation projects
• To build, project and promote a positive image of Services and our strategy/delivery
• To promote and ensure best practice in Services Activities

Development of Staff:

• To support team building, within and outside your usual job family and relationships.
• To support a pro-active, 'can-do' attitude within the services Function and encourage innovative thinking.
• To assist in the development of your colleagues
• To knowledge share and consent to shadowing
• To develop your own knowledge constantly and demonstrate this
• Test and iterate new ways of working with the Services Operations team to improve effectiveness and employee engagement scores

Development of Function:

• To provide feedback on the efficiency and effectiveness of the function.
• To propose interventions that will result in a better result for Thales, always to question why and seek efficiency across the UK.
• To create solutions in a manner consistent with Chorus II.
• To participate in the selection design and validation of new tools or approaches.

Process and Techniques:

• To propose and deliver enhancements to Services Processes and techniques to ensure great customer outcomes.
• To be familiar with and adhere to the processes and techniques employed by the Function.
• To support the review of the processes and techniques to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.
• To ensure that tools sets, approaches or functional decisions support our processes.

Metrics:

• To define, manage, organise and support the maintenance of performance metrics for initiatives.

Bid Estimating:

• To generate estimates for work and clearly define the need for support ahead of time (budgeting support also)

Quality Assurance:

• To support and assist audit and review activities (internal and external) on company processes.

Communication:

• To ensure a flow of information of the main issues and to find meaningful ways to communicate your project and plan.
• To share knowledge across the Function and projects.
• To actively raise concerns and ensure that to drive the agenda for change and new service methodology adoption

About you:

Qualifications & experience:

• HND, Degree or equivalent in a Software/IT/IS, engineering or business subject (or equivalent, including relevant working experience)
• Experience in a Customer Services and/or Military or Civilian Operations role

Behaviours:

• Excellent communication skills (written and oral) and an ability to work co-operatively with others, creating and harnessing a diverse and inclusive team spirit within and across other company sites.
• Ability to work as a team player, able to listen and to discuss solutions with other members of the team
• Ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines with a high attention to detail
• Develop others in the team through mentoring & sharing knowledge
• Drives to achieve high standards, actively seeks improvement
• Flexible and adaptable to fast paced changing environments
• Attention to detail, a high level of accuracy, self-motivating and the ability to plan and organise own tasks
• Promotes company interests at all times helping to create a positive working environment
• Demonstrate behaviours appropriate to the LR grade and consistent with Thales behaviours.

Additional Requirements for this role:

• A Services and/or change leadership background is preferred
• Strong examples of Leading People through complex change successfully and demonstrating an ability to lead and engage across all stakeholders in a team/project/business.

Connect with Andreea Burcea, Talent Acquisition Partner #LI-BA1 who is eager to explore together with you this exciting opportunity.

The successful candidate will need full Security Clearance (SC) - For more information and guidance please visit the UKSV website*

Security Clearance statement

Due to the nature of the work that we do at Thales, many of our roles are subject to security restrictions. This role requires you to be a UK National and achieve Security Clearance (SC) without any caveats. It would be advantageous if currently held, however, if not currently held, it is a requirement that the successful applicant undergo, achieve, and maintain SC Clearance prior to commencing employment. If approved by the MOD, a dual national from a Non-ITAR country may be considered. Please visit the UKSV website for further guidance.

To be eligible for full SC, you generally need to have resided in the UK for the last 5 years. In some circumstances, a minimum of 3 years’ residence in the UK over the last 5 years may be accepted, with additional overseas checks.

For further details of the evidence required to apply for security clearance please follow this link https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels .

What We Can Offer

We’re committed to giving you opportunities to be your best. We believe in embracing the passion and potential of our people, and to achieve this we offer market leading training, development and experiences, along with the opportunity to be mentored and coached by some of the smartest minds in the industry. We hire from within as our first priority, so you’ll have a variety of opportunities within our diverse, global organisation.

In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided. For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting (DBS NSV) Agency.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.

Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro-diverse applicants or those with a disability or long-term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment,if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Teamfor graduate and apprentice roles.

Great journeys start here, apply now!