purpose of the job

Our job here is to resolve disputes. Financial businesses are required by law to listen to their customers’ complaints and try and sort them out. But if the consumer remains unhappy, they can come to us. This is when the consumer’s “case” is referred to an adjudicator.

You will manage a team of 10 to 12 adjudicators who will have a range of experience and skills – and each will have their own “caseload”. You’ll be working in a particular product or service area (such as banking, insurance or payment protection insurance) – with support from expert ombudsmen and often with specialists in your own team. You’ll have targets to achieve – not just in terms of the number of cases and the timescale for resolving them, but also in terms of the quality of your team’s work.

Behind each “case” are two very real “parties” – the consumer and the business. The case really matters to them. The job of the adjudicators in your team is to get to the heart of what’s going on in each case, so that they can make a judgement on what needs to happen. Then their job is to share the outcome with both the consumer and the business – in a sensitive and appropriate way.

So the heart of your job is to lead your team. You’ll need to support and develop your team members, helping them grow the professional skills they need in the specific area they work in – as well as the customer service skills to handle the toughest situations. You’ll need to help them identify where they can improve – and provide coaching. And you’ll need to bring the team together, so that you get the best out of them as a group, using all their skills – so that together you can deliver a truly excellent service.

about you …

your experience

·   We need you to have experience of delivering excellent customer service – whether as a manager of a team or just delivering a great service yourself.

·   We also need to have the confidence that you have the intellectual and “problem solving” skills to really get to the heart of the cases your team will be dealing with. Although you won’t be working on a lot of cases yourself, you need to be able to do the job your team members are doing – and coach your team through their work. This could be demonstrated through a strong academic background or through previous jobs which require problem-solving skills.
·   We don’t necessarily require knowledge of any particular aspect of financial services to do this job – as you’ll be supported by experts in the area in question and given a lot of training. However, if you do know an area of financial services well, we’d welcome your expertise

good leadership skills

·   Ideally we’d love you to have had some experience as a manager of a team. But if you don’t, we’ll need you to have good leadership skills. It’s important that your team has full confidence in you and want to follow you.

·   We need you to have good coaching skills – which means being able to talk people through issues and help them improve – rather than just doing it for them. You’ll get the best out of your team if they feel engaged and want to develop. And of course, at times you’ll also need to have some tough conversations with people – that comes with being a good manager.
·   We will want you to be someone who really engages your team in the future of the ombudsman service – helping them get excited both about their own career development and about opportunities for delivering an even better service. We’re constantly changing and evolving. And it’s your job to interpret what this means for every single team member.

excellent communication skills

·   You need to be someone with excellent listening skills – and someone who can ensure that our customers (businesses and consumers), as well as your team, feel they’ve really been “heard”.
·   Your written communication skills need to be very strong too – and you need to be someone who can “write for your audience”. If a case is particularly challenging, or if a consumer complains about the level of service we have provided, it will be you who looks into the issue and resolves it.
·   You also need to be great at engaging your whole team – holding team meetings, briefing people on what’s happening around them, getting them excited about delivering an even better service.

a team player who shares knowledge

·   We achieve things as a team and not by working alone. So you’ll need to be someone who asks when you’re not sure, who mucks in to help their colleagues if there is a lot on, and who wants to share knowledge and to learn.
·   You’ll need to be really good at building relationships around the organisation – so that you can solve issues with others, work out how you gain the knowledge and expertise you need for your team to succeed, and make sure that together, across the organisation, we get the best possible results.

strong intellectual and problem-solving skills

·   You need to be able to get to the heart of issues quickly and capably – so that you can help your team members resolve the most challenging cases they’re working on. Your team members are adjudicators – and their job includes taking lots of different bits of information and working out “what really happened here?”.
·   You also need to be able to organise well – to deliver targets. Your job is not just case handling. You’ll have lots of targets as a manager, and you’ll need to work out how you’re going to deliver them – deciding what you need to do when.

delivering what we say we’ll do

·   You need to be someone who hits deadlines and who’s organised. Someone who can work under pressure when there’s a lot on. And someone who – when they say “I’ll phone you on Monday” – makes sure they really do make that call on Monday!
·   You also need to be able to hold your team to account – and to help them plan their work, so that they can meet their own deadlines. This means thinking about how to organise and motivate your team to achieve stretching goals.
·   And finally, you need to be someone who cares about achieving results – and who’s able to make sure your team delivers its targets.