Operations Manager

Smart Pension; London; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in financial technology seeks a Pensions Administration Team Leader to enhance customer experience and ensure quality service delivery. This role involves leading a team, managing workflows, and driving performance improvements. The ideal candidate will possess strong leadership skills and a deep understanding of the pension regulatory environment. Join a culture focused on innovation and employee well-being.

Benefits

25 days’ holiday per year

£500 annual training budget

Extensive private healthcare

Enhanced sick leave

Enhanced maternity and paternity

Death in service insurance cover

Fully-paid five-week sabbatical

In office wellbeing services

50% discount on Arena Flowers

Qualifications

• Good understanding of the pension regulatory environment.
• Practical experience of risk management in an operational environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop in-house pensions administration team.
• Ensure quality control and manage team performance.
• Oversee processes and procedures for customer outcomes.

Skills

Leadership

Problem Solving

Communication

Education

CF1

FA2

Job description

At Smart, our mission is to transform retirement, savings and financial wellbeing, across all generations, around the world.

The Role

Responsible for leading and developing an in-house pensions administration team, managing workflow and resources to ensure delivery of good customer outcomes and experience

Provide effective leadership focused on optimising resources in the teams to ensure service agreements, delivery promises and performance standards are met.

Develop the required monitoring and reporting on standards in order to identify and drive improvements in performance and customer experience.

Responsibilities include:

• Responsible for team performance against quality and service delivery standards.
• Ensure robust reporting and monitoring of administration delivery, representing Smart in relevant governance forums.
• Proactively and effectively use MI to inform workflow planning and decision making.
• Contribute positively to outstanding customer outcomes through the provision of service and quality assurance training and coaching to increase team member competence, and to retain customer relationships as defined within the Training and Competence scheme.
• To ensure quality control and sampling activities are carried out in accordance with the Quality Approach Summary and Quality Framework, including root cause analysis of errors, feedback and action planning.
• Work closely with the Head of Compliance to ensure that the Smart Pension Master Trust operates within an adequate controls framework.
• Conduct root cause analysis and routine review of customer service outcomes to demonstrate effective process and controls, addressing any emerging issues and/or trends.
• Responsible for the oversight of processes and procedures, ensuring that they are fit for purpose, are delivering good customer outcomes and are operating at maximum efficiency.
• Manage, or actively contribute to, the delivery of annual and ad-hoc projects such as benefit statements, audits and process improvement initiatives. Ensuring projects are fully monitored and completed in line with customer and legislation requirements, ensuring assessment of operational readiness is completed.
• Assist with the oversight of our third party administrator, including quality sampling, review of performance MI and workshops.
• Maintain a comprehensive plan and proactively share details in advance of customer communications being issued.
• Manage internal and external stakeholders, engaging with and escalating into the business Governance function. As well as interacting with external bodies such as TPR and the Pensions Ombudsman.
• Be a point of contact for priority cases, technical matters and non-standard cases.
• Responsible for staff management including setting objectives, performance management and recruitment.
• Inspire individuals to achieve excellent performance through personal leadership and behaviours.
• Develop a culture of continuous improvement, focused on enhancing the end to end customer experience.
• Facilitate change through personal commitment and ownership of initiatives. 2/4
• Gather comprehensive information to support decision making and recommendation.
• Resolve issues using commercial and business awareness.
• Maintain an appropriate level of functional and technical expertise.
• Contribute to a positive team culture. Be a role model for the Smart Hallmark.

The skills, experience, and aptitudes we are looking for are listed below but please don’t be discouraged from applying if you don’t meet every single one of these criteria – having a ‘can do’ attitude is sometimes more important than being able to tick every box

• Good understanding of the pension regulatory environment.
• Detailed understanding of the financial services industry.
• CF1 and FA2 highly desirable.
• Practical experience of risk management in an operational environment.
• Working knowledge of processes and systems, including case management.
• Ability to review data, identify trends and mitigate risk by recommending improvements.
• Understand business drivers and ensure appropriate monitoring and measurement.
• Creative problem solver with strong planning and decision-making skills.
• Professional and accountability, projects credibility.
• Accepts and tackles demanding goals with enthusiasm.

Who we are

We work in partnerships with governments and financial institutions in the UK and internationally. Our cloud-native digital platform is revolutionising how people around the world think about, and save for, their retirement.

At heart, we’re a financial technology business. What we do is all about innovation, and using the power of digital change to put the customer first. Our Engineers will tell you that working at Smart gives you the opportunity to play your part in developing world-class technological solutions, working with – and learning from – like-minded people.

You’ll also find that, across our business, our colleagues love Smart’s culture, and how what we do means better financial outcomes for savers. That feels worthwhile, and it means that what we do, collectively, goes way beyond the nine to five of a typical working day.

At Smart, one of the eight principles we work to is “We want happy and good people in our team”. We created a list of benefits that helps us achieve this goal:

• 25 days’ holiday per year, increasing with length of service.
• £500 annual training budget to spend on your professional development
• Extensive private healthcare, including dental, eyecare and EAP
• Enhanced sick leave (three months’ pay per year)
• Enhanced maternity and paternity (maternity – 6 months fully paid/paternity – 3 weeks fully paid)
• Death in service insurance cover
• Fully-paid five-week sabbatical after five years of employment
• In office wellbeing, such as manicures, massages and barbers. We also serve free lunch, breakfasts and social drinks weekly.
• Smart employees also enjoy a 50% discount on orders from our sister company Arena Flowers, Britain's most ethical florist. They offer unique hand-tied bouquets, luxury flowers, letterbox flowers, plants and gifts to spend on friends and loved ones or even for yourself.

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We think Smart is an awesome place to work. If it sounds like somewhere you’d like to work, too, and if you’re ready to play your part in our continued success in the future, then naturally we’d love to meet you.

About the company

Our mission is to transform retirement, savings and financial well-being, across all generations, around the world.