Job Introduction
Do you have the expertise, attention to detail and dedication to play a key role in delivering timely, accurate, transparent, and high-quality service charges?
Do you have the relationship building skills to develop and sustain strong relationships with operational colleagues within your defined business region?
Are you customer-focused recognising the crucial role that service charge accounts play to support Notting Hill Genesis to live well in their homes?
Main Responsibility
We are recruiting four Service Charge Business Partner positions to contribute to our vision of delivering high-quality service charges to residents.
Transparent and clear service charges are fundamental to resident satisfaction, and as a Service Charge Business Partner, you will have responsibility for delivering service charge accounts within a specific region. Working closely with operational teams throughout the year, you will drive the successful delivery of the end-to-end service charge cycle, delivering compliance and customer-focused processes.
We have some ambitious service charge targets in our customer strategy. This includes meaningful consultation across 100% of our schemes ahead of annual service charge budget and a target of fewer than 5% section 20b notices by the end of 2025. We need candidates who are outcome motivated to help us achieve this.
Service charges touch many teams at NHG, from repairs to planned investment, compliance to building safety, estate services to insurance. NHG also have a large number of schemes that are managed by external managing agents through various legal relationships. You’ll be the gatekeeper of service charge costs for your region and will work positively with both internal and external stakeholders to develop processes to support this.
The Service Charge Business Partner role is new to Notting Hill Genesis and is part of our offer to local officers to support the delivery of service charges and make a positive impact by shaping residents’ experience of service charges.
The Ideal Candidate
We believe that great service starts with great people, and are committed to recruiting and developing passionate, progressive and enthusiastic individuals who can add value to our thriving organisation.
Under a Head of Service Charge, you will work alongside other Service Charge Business Partner peers to work consistently and share best practice. You will be proficient with excel and numbers and be confident with service charge compliance legislation. You will be aware of service charge risks and how to mitigate this for the organisation and will be comfortable weighing up information to make a recommendation or decision. Where appropriate you have experience engaging in a formal setting such as the First Tier Tribunal or mediation.
You will be as comfortable working with numbers and spreadsheets, as getting out and about with local officers to see how service charges come to life when mapped onto the properties in your region. A strong communicator, both written and verbal, you will play a key role in motivating and supporting operational staff in breaking down service charge accounts for residents. You will possess the talent to explain how service charges work in a clear, accessible, and inclusive manner to our operational colleagues and residents.
You can break down jargon and complicated processes and communicate these clearly to operational colleagues and residents alike. You seek solutions and proactively identify risks to flag these to stakeholders. Above all else, you take pride in your work and seek to establish a culture of service improvement. As a resident advocate, you take pride in seeing how your work affects residents and understand the crucial part you play.
Necessary experience and skills -
- Significant experience of working compliantly with varying service charge regimes (fixed and variable), directly and through business partnering.
- Significant experience of reading and understanding tenancy agreements, leases, deeds of transfer etc.
- Track record of success in a management role; meeting challenging objectives and delivering business performance that exceeds expectations and targets.
- Evidence of excellent service improvement achievements in a complex service delivery environment.
- Experience of building and managing effective relationships with a range of stakeholders, ideally in a matrix way across teams.
- Experience of effective analysis of complex data to make business decisions.
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
- Excellent communication skills that are tailored to different audiences.
- Strong IT skills, including advanced Excel.
- Ideally MIRPM – essential to be delivered in 18 months
- Pending confirmation of legislative changes, this role may require a qualification to demonstrate competence. If not already qualified, there may be an expectation to study towards a professional qualification.
We value and respect difference and are committed to building an inclusive culture by creating an environment where you can balance a successful career with your commitments and interests outside of work. We support flexible working arrangements that foster collaboration, combined with the power of in-person interactions. Our optimal balance of three days a week in the office or with customers ensures we're at our prime, crafting exceptional customer experiences and achieving outstanding business outcomes. Some roles lend themselves to flexible options more than others and we are open to discussing agile working opportunities during the hiring process.
Benefits
In return we offer:
· Excellent annual leave allowance and flexible working opportunities (qualifying period may apply)
· Generous pension scheme
· Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay - we offer enhanced maternity and adoption pay in addition to statutory entitlements (qualifying period may apply)
· Employee assistance - free confidential advice and counselling services provided by independent specialist organisations
· Health cash plan
· Staff discounts - we give our staff access to discounts at hundreds of major retailers, gyms, restaurants, entertainment, days out, insurance and much more
· Interest free loans: season ticket loan, tenancy deposit loan and training loan
· Cycle to work scheme
· Life Assurance x 4 annual salary
How to apply/selection process
Step 1 – Send your CV and a supporting statement answering the following question;
- What are the three biggest challenges that landlords (particularly social landlords) have when delivering service charges to their residents? Please explain why.
Step 2 – Successful candidates will be selected for an interview.
Step 3 – Successful candidates will be asked to present to the interview panel or submit a prescribed piece of work – you will be told in advance what you need to prepare for
Closing date: 8 January 2024
Interview date: 15, 17 and 18 January 2024
Please review the attached role profile for more information.
Please apply for this role with us online. If you are not able to apply online, please contact our HR team via jobs@nhg.org.uk to discuss your requirements.
If you have any questions that you would like to discuss then please contact Tom Bullock at tom.bullock@retinue-solutions.com
About the Company
Notting Hill Genesis is now one of the largest housing associations in London and the south east. We own and manage more than 67,000 homes and employ around 1,500 staff. We provide homes across a range of tenures and are committed to continuing to deliver housing that is affordable to all. Our roots reach back to the 1960s when our legacy organisations were established by local people who shared a similar vision – to house west London’s working poor, providing them a home from which to build themselves and their families a secure future. For more information on what we do and what makes us different please visit: https://www.nhg.org.uk/about-us/
Our people
We value our people and both respect and celebrate their differences. We’re proud to say that our colleagues come from different backgrounds, with varied outlooks and are from all over the world. We encourage and are committed to diversity. We know that when people with varied experiences and unique points of view come together, it makes us a stronger organisation and more able to help the wide range of residents that we serve. We want all our colleagues to bring their full selves to work in a culture and environment based on respect and fairness, regardless of role, background or ability.
Our pledges
We are proud signatories of the G15 group’s diversity pledge to encourage more diversity in the boardroom and at senior level. The pledge on ethnic diversity commits NHG to reflect the ethnic diversity of the communities we work in at all levels and particularly at senior managerial, leadership and board levels.
We have under-representation of ethnically diverse colleagues at this level and are keen to fill this gap. We welcome applications from everyone. For this role, we especially encourage ethnically diverse candidates to join us and be part of an inclusive culture that celebrates diversity, equality of opportunity and provides a place for you to grow your career.
We are also a Stonewall Diversity Champion, a Disability Confident employer and have signed up to Harry’s Pledge. We actively monitor the diversity of our workforce and strive to show equal representation throughout all levels of the organisation.
To find out more about Diversity and inclusion at NHG, please visit our website.
