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Vacancy: Head of Operations

28/02/2022

Salary: £55,000 + benefits

Location: Flexible/remote options are available – the role-holder needs to be based in the UK and spend at least 1 day a month in our Birmingham office.

Working hours: Monday to Friday, (we’re happy to discuss flexible working hours, the majority of our clients have office hours of 10-6)

We have written this guide about what to expect if you’re thinking about applying for a job at Substrakt.

The deadline for applications is Monday 28th March 2022.

Overview

We are looking for an enthusiastic, thoughtful and highly organised person to join us as our new Head of Operations. This role will be responsible for ensuring that our strategic planning, systems and processes are supporting the efficient operation of our project, support, product, and consultancy work.

This role will be part of Substrakt’s Senior Management Team and will be a key voice in strategic planning. We have been through a period of significant growth over the past 3 years and are now looking to bring a greater degree of structure and efficiency to our services and operations.

This person will work closely with Substrakt’s Project Delivery, Strategic, Creative and Technical Leads, and Support Manager to ensure that the conditions exist for them and their respective teams to do their best work. Ultimately, you’ll ensure our operations run smoothly and that people are productive.

Why Join Substrakt?

At Substrakt we believe that arts and culture enriches lives and brings society together. We want to ensure that amazing cultural experiences can be enjoyed as widely as possible by harnessing the power of digital technology and the internet.

Substrakt creates digital solutions for cultural organisations. The types of organisations we work with include theatres, performing arts centres, music venues, museums, galleries, and performance groups in Europe and North America.

We work with some of the most exciting and interesting cultural organisations in the world including the National Theatre, Sadler’s Wells, Shakespeare’s Globe, Santa Fe Opera, Royal Court Theatre, American Repertory Theater, Folger Shakespeare Library, Bridge Theatre, Malmö Live and Vancouver International Film Festival amongst many others. Read more about the work we do, and the people we work with.

We also provide consultancy services and training on analytics, digital strategy, ticketing, project management and digital community events.

By supporting organisations with their digital needs, we enable them to reach new and wider audiences so that arts and culture can be accessed and enjoyed by everyone.

Role description

Reporting directly to the Managing Director, the Head of Operations is a new senior role in the company. They will be responsible for overseeing the processes and systems that underpin the delivery of work across all areas of the business, ensuring that we are being as efficient and effective as possible.

After a period of significant growth (we have doubled both our headcount and turnover over the past couple of years) we have created this role to bring organisation and efficiency to the increasingly large, complex, international agency that we now are.

This role will have oversight of and responsibility for the operations of the company, ensuring that we have clarity and organisation in how we plan, resource, deliver and report on our work.

They will be heavily involved in the financial and legal aspects of the company, monitoring and reporting on alignment of delivery and contractual obligations. They will also work on assurance and compliance, ensuring that we understand and appropriately comply with relevant national and international legislation (e.g. data protection, accessibility).

This is a leadership role, this person will work with our talented Leads and Support Manager, ensuring that they have the clarity, direction, guidance and support they need to create the conditions for their teams to do their best work.

This role will be responsible for regularly reporting on the work of the company, both internally and to clients, to inform priorities and future thinking.

The Head of Operations will have line management responsibility for our Project Delivery, Creative, Technical and Strategic Leads, and our Support Manager, ensuring that they are supported to get the best from their respective teams.

The ideal candidate

  • is a strategic thinker who enjoys understanding the bigger picture
  • is highly organised with strong management skills
  • enjoys and excels at identifying and diagnosing problems, and identifying and implementing solutions
  • has experience designing and implementing large scale process change in an agency context (or similar)
  • is interested in understanding how people, processes and systems can interact in the most effective, positive way
  • is an excellent communicator, both written and verbal
  • is experienced managing multi-disciplinary, international, remote teams
  • is adaptable and comfortable being at the centre of a busy and fast paced agency environment where priorities and context switch daily
  • has an understanding of the commercial mechanics of agency management (finances, reporting, contracting, etc)
  • is not afraid to sensitively explore and challenge proposed approaches and be the “critical friend” when required
  • has an understanding of and interest in web standards and accessibility
  • has an interest in, and understanding of, web development, web technologies, digital activity and user behaviour and feel comfortable and confident being involved in discussions about these technologies and concepts
  • has an interest in the business of arts and cultural organisations and the needs of their users

Life at Substrakt

At Substrakt we believe that work should be an enjoyable part of life and we put effort and resources into making this a reality for our team.

We have a friendly and supportive culture that enables our team to do their best work and develop their skills, we value curiosity, compassion and respect. We are selective about the clients we work with, so that we build rewarding relationships and work on exciting projects.

We invest in our employees and provide opportunities for them to grow. This includes formal training, going to industry conferences, and informal knowledge-sharing sessions.

We have a great set of benefits as standard:

  • Fully flexible working patterns, agreed in advance and available from day 1, including part-time hours, condensed hours, flexible start and end times and 100% remote working. We’ll discuss this with you upfront, so you can feel comfortable knowing a role at Substrakt will give you the work life balance you want.
  • 25 days annual leave (plus public holidays) and no fixed holiday dates, so you can use your leave when it suits you. Plus, your holiday will increase by a day for every two years you are part of the team.
  • Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave policies.
  • NHS cashback health plan – enabling employees to claim cashback on health costs such as dental treatment, scans, prescriptions and much more. Access to an employee assistance helpline, counselling, and accident cover is also included. The plan is also available for our employee’s partners and children.
  • Annual profit share scheme.
  • Annual allowance of £500 to spend on books, courses, conferences and training – anything that helps you build skills to thrive in your role – and 6 days off per year for you to focus exclusively on your professional development.
  • Monthly health and wellbeing allowance of £50 to spend on anything that helps you feel your healthiest and best self. This includes anything from hobbies, to the gym, to childcare, talking therapy, a donation to a cause you care about, entertainment, or a nice meal out!
  • Free weekly yoga classes
  • Free weekly Distrakt sessions where we play games, do quizzes and other things to unwind
  • Regularly bringing the team together for outings to theatres, historic sites and cultural events through our network of client partners.
  • Quarterly team lunches and a varied selection of optional, relaxed social events.

To apply…

Please contact our HR & Office Manager, Laura on work@substrakt.com with details of your experience, and an outline of why you think you would be a good fit for this role. We have written this guide about what to expect if you’re thinking about applying for a job at Substrakt. Substrakt is an equal opportunities employer and we welcome applications from all suitably qualified people regardless of their ethnicity, gender, disability, religion, sexual orientation or age, read more about our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion vision. We particularly encourage applications from groups under-represented in the design and tech sectors. The deadline for applications is Monday 28th March 2022.