Operations Manager - Early Years

Paragon Skills; Remote; GBP 39,000 - 47,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading educational services provider is looking for an Operations Manager to join their remote team in the UK. You will be responsible for leading and inspiring a dedicated group of professionals to achieve educational goals. This role demands strong leadership, data-informed decision-making, and effective communication skills. Other benefits include 20 days of annual leave, birthday off, and professional development opportunities. Join us to empower every learner and make a positive impact.

Benefits

20 days annual leave

Birthday off

Paid volunteering leave

Perkbox benefits

Qualifications

• Proven track record of developing high-performing teams in a remote environment.
• Experience in driving business growth through commercial partnerships.
• Strong interpersonal and motivational skills needed.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a remote team effectively.
• Recruit, train, and develop peak-performing colleagues.
• Forecast departmental needs and manage resource allocation.

Skills

Leadership in a remote environment

Commercial awareness

Effective communication

Data-driven decision making

People management

Tools

Power BI

Job description

At Shaping Lives, we’re more than a team, we’re a community of passionate, values-driven individuals united by one shared mission: to inspire, support, and empower every learner, every time.

We are dedicated to making learning engaging, accessible, and transformative, equipping educators with the tools they need to reach their full potential, make a positive impact, and inspire others in turn, and we are looking for another passionate and experienced manager to join our growing team.

Location: Remote-based with occasional travel for meetings and 1:1s. Hours: 36.5 hours per week (Monday – Friday). Salary: up to £47,000 (DOE) per annum.

Position

As an Operations Manager, you will use your infectious and transferable energy, to motivate, energise and inspire your team to deliver an outstanding experience to every learner, every time and exceed our ambitious growth targets and drive operational excellence. With your knowledge, experience and unique edge you will lead and invigorate your team to achieve maximum productivity, provide accurate forecasting to our Managing Director including forecasted starts, achievers, leavers and out of funded learners as you drive the team to succeed and execute a mind-blowing performance. You will use our sophisticated reporting system - Power BI to inform decisions, alongside your passion, enthusiasm and drive to ensure high performance across the team, challenging any performance issues to ensure the smooth running of daily operational activity, putting the learner journey the heart of everything you do.

Key aspects of this role include

• Accountability for all aspects of line management and leadership of a remote based team
• Responsible for recruiting, training, developing and retaining peak performing colleagues in your team
• Exceed regional targets against budget and drive our ambitious growth plans
• Develop and share best practice across team and wider business
• Drive consistent and effective delivery to learners
• Conduct regular forecasting for department including; starts, QAR, leavers, out of funded learners and headcount requirements
• Coach, mentor and develop your team with regular team meetings and 1:1 meetings both remotely and face to face
• Adhere to GDPR regulations and all internal information and data security policies and procedures

What we need from you

• Successful track record of leading and developing a high performing team in a remote work place learning environment
• Experience of taking accountability for own and teams results
• Experience of driving commercial partnerships to grow business
• Experience of effectively delivering on deadlines, objectives and targets
• Experience of using data to inform decisions
• Strong people management and leadership skills
• Commercially aware with strong sales and business development skills
• Well developed interpersonal and motivational skills
• Effective communication skills, both written and verbal
• Able to travel for in person 1:1s and meetings

Other information

We are proud to offer a suite of benefits which are optional benefits including life assurance and income protection and core benefits below.

• 20 days annual leave - increasing with length of service and a holiday purchase scheme
• 3 Shaping Lives Days for our Operational December Closure and 8 Public Bank Holidays
• Your birthday off as our gift to you
• Up to 3 days of paid volunteering leave and corporate conscience initiatives
• Perkbox – a suite of lifestyle benefits and wellness tools

We will be reviewing applications and conducting interviews on an on-going basis which may mean this vacancy closes prior to the advertised closing date if we have identified a suitable so please apply as soon as possible.

We are a Disability Confident Employer and have a guaranteed interview scheme in place to ensure that nobody is overlooked or discriminated against because of their disability. If you meet the minimum criteria when you apply and you have informed us in your application that you have a disability, you will be guaranteed an interview for that role. To promote and maintain an inclusive working environment, as part of your application process we will ask you to share data on certain characteristics. These answers will not form part of the selection and recruitment process and will not be shared with anyone outside of the People Team.

We are Leaders in Safeguarding Gold and committed to the safeguarding, welfare and wellbeing of our learners and colleagues and implement robust safer recruitment practices to support this. Dependant on the role you are applying for, we may undertake a number of necessary checks to confirm you are suitable to work with children and vulnerable adults, which may include a Disclosure and Barring Service check. We are proud to inspire success and we can only do this by recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce that is representative of the learners and clients we support, and we encourage applications from diverse backgrounds and actively promote equality and inclusion throughout our colleague and learner populations.