About Babbasa 

Babbasa is an award-winning, Bristol-based, social enterprise with a vision to create a world where all people are inspired and able to realise their employment and enterprise ambitions, irrespective of where they live, their nationality, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality or faith. Babbasa realises its mission through its subsidiary enterprises including Babbasa’s Youth Empowerment Programmes and Recruitment & Inclusion Services (BRIS) and our core values of Imagination, Determination and Kindness.

Babbasa supports low income and ethnic minority young people to prepare for the workplace as well as support employers to recruit diverse talent, develop cultural competencies and create inclusive work environments for all to thrive. The direct support for young people includes soft skills training, mentoring, and information and guidance support. The direct support for employers includes Recruitment, Inclusion Advisory Support, Cultural Competency Training, Research, Inclusion Needs Analysis and Onboarding Support. Over the next decade, Babbasa plans to grow its services to both young people and employers to respond to the pressing imperative to overcome the structural barriers to workforce inclusion and associated social inequalities in Bristol and beyond.

Job Purpose

The Assistant Service Manager is a pivotal role that contributes to the leadership of Babbasa’s Services team. The Assistant Manager is responsible for managing part of the Services team that deliver tangible outcomes for young people as well as the successful delivery of relevant projects from external commissions that align with the aims and objectives of the business plan.

Core Responsibilities

Leadership and Team management

• Line Manage part of the Services team,  promote staff wellbeing, motivate and provide support and leadership to staff
• Responsible for setting goals, managing and appraising performance of line reports. These include Enterprise, Placement, Training & Inclusion Lead and Recruitment Lead
• Role model the values and behaviours of Babbasa’s Manifesto, during engagement with staff, corporate and community partners, young people and funders
• Work with the services manager in promoting and implementing organisational policies and procedures, ensuring compliance and understanding from team members

Project Management

• Lead on incoming services projects to ensure the scope, objectives and success criteria are understood by wider team members as well as delivered to time, budget and quality
• Monitor the progress of relevant projects, identifying and addressing potential risks to delivery, resourcing and ensuring key commitments and reporting requirements are met
• Liaise with Insights and Impact Lead, and other relevant team leads, to ensure that agreed project evaluation reports are completed within set timelines i.e to help satisfy the needs of management and project sponsors/funders
• Lead on producing monthly status report on Services projects that helps the wider team, SLT and board to assess performance against set outcomes, deadlines, budget and quality standards in line with our mission

Service Delivery

• Identify, mitigate and manage key organisational risks, ensuring the Senior Leadership Team  are notified and briefed through Babbasa’s risk register and procedures
• Cultivate and maintain effective relationships with all key stakeholders including project clients, Trailblazer Leadership Team, the Babbasa staff team, and management
• Work with the line reports to ensure their continuous professional development and progression 
• Ensure key policies, processes and practices when delivering projects are adhered to at all times e.g CRM input, project documentation, scheduling etc
• Undertake other reasonable tasks as directed by the Service Manager
• Work to ensure recurring business from engaged project clients (60-80%) after project completion

Person Specification

Knowledge and Experience

You have developing management and leadership skills – You are a developing manager, with some experience of managing, developing and motivating a team.   The well-being and efficacy of wider team are of importance to you, and you demonstrate developing leadership through setting an example of best practice. You are a critical and systems thinker who can also deliver operational commitments.

You have a good experience of Project Management and Service Delivery – You proactively identify business needs, scope and plan projects to address them, and successfully drive the project to completion, involving and engaging colleagues appropriately throughout. You have an understanding of how to manage budgets. You have the ability to monitor and evaluate, improve and adapt services for young people. You have good problem solving skills and you are able to problem solve in a complex and rapidly changing environment.

Working with others - You develop and maintain excellent working relationships with formal and informal stakeholders at every level – with the young people on our programmes, with staff, with our external consultants, with our Board and with others. You build trust and can stand in the shoes of others. You are prepared to work flexibly occasionally including evenings, weekends and other unsocial hours to fulfil the needs of the business. 

Organised - You are well-organised and have good attention to detail. By doing so, you manage your own time well and respect the time of others. You juggle multiple deadlines and have a track-record of balancing multiple tasks and responsibilities. You are meticulous and able to prioritise conflicting needs. Effective and efficient – You are constantly reflecting on working practices and improving where necessary. A completer-finisher - you are able to work to deadlines, take initiative and are proactive in your approach to work. You create change that benefits all and is aligned with organisational strategy. 

You have good enterprise skills - You have the aptitude and desire to develop your skills in creativity, commercial awareness, problem solving, decision making, negotiating and strategic thinking to ensure results. You have personal resilience and have the ability to stay focused.  

You’re aligned with our mission - You have lived experience and/or an understanding of the critical issues surrounding equality, inclusion and diversity, including structural issues around race and class, and how they impact young people with specific reference to their leadership and employability experiences. You believe that, with the right support, everyone has potential to achieve excellence, whatever that means for them.

Desirable

• Qualification in project management
• Qualification in or knowledge of change management

Incentives/ Benefits

• Work in an inclusive environment and supportive team who will support you to be great
• Have the opportunity to demonstrate your enterprise skills being part of the development of a new business unit
• Work for one of the few organisations in the UK honoured with Queen’s Award For Enterprise
• Be part of transforming the lives of low income and ethnic minority young people in Bristol
• Help Bristol to become an inclusive city by directly working with us to address inequalities
• Have access to flexi-working arrangements