Contract Type:

Regular

Location: Bedford, Hybrid

Contract Type: Full-time, permanent

Salary: £60,000 - £65,000 DOE + car allowance, 25% annual bonus, opt-in private medical cover, 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays

Role Purpose

Reporting to the Head of Central Operations, this leadership role is responsible for Autoglass®️ Operations Resource Capacity and Labour planning, Ops Workforce management administration and our Approved Partner network.

The role holder will lead a planning team who will build operational plans that meet efficiency KPIs and drive the long-term headcount.

The Senior Planning manager will have direct input into the direct labour strategy and therefore impact and influence the direct labour budget spend.

Their team provides primary support to Autoglass® Operations with the overall business objective of ensuring that long-term capacity is aligned to forecasted demand through the effective deployment of our operational workforce, including sub-contraction and any other flexibility levers.

The Senior Planning manager will develop, own and deliver the overall planning and resource strategy for Autoglass ®️ Operations.

Key Accountabilities

• Own the National Plan by effectively leading an engaged resource management and planning team in the delivery of high quality plans, data and reporting structures.    

• Deliver improved, more detailed Capacity plans, through the planning team, focussing strategically on the budget and improving governance on Direct labour spend for the business.

• Adopt a long-term view to the National Capacity plan with ownership and input in the flexibility levers strategy, effectively managing cost vs flexibility requirements.

• Effectively lead the Resource planning manager and their team who produce annualised rosters for the operational workforce. Ensure effective allocation of hours against forecasted and re-forecasted demand, whilst optimising the use of additional hours and other flexible resourcing tools.

• Report on the adherence to the capacity plan at total company, region and district / location level and collaborate with local leadership as required to ensure that the capacity plan is understood and delivered.

• Review Demand forecast monthly as part of the Sales & Operational Planning Process and make appropriate recommendations to the Supply Meeting to ensure that VGRR planning capacity is understood by the business, together with the impact of cost per customer served.

• Design, implement and create ways to monitor Regional performance against agreed Key Performance measures in order to drive accountability, ownership and transparency, such as Capacity and Bay utilisation, Hours control, Adherence to Resource plans etc.

• Provide other departments (Finance, People Function, BI, Payroll) with accurate and timely data and reporting as required (e.g. hours usage, additional hours worked etc).    

• Support the continued review of all Workforce Management applications to identify opportunities for improvements and efficiency gains in productivity/capacity for both Direct and Indirect labour. Complete detailed impact evaluation ready for Senior Manager sign-off and implementation.

• Maintain a working knowledge of “Best Practice” in other Belron® business units /brands to ensure that the Autoglass® UK maximises opportunity by adopting and sharing best practice.

• Maintain good working relationships with key stakeholders within Belron® UK (Marketing, Sales, Legal, Customer Service, People Function, Finance, IT, Risk and Compliance, CCC, Operations, Laddaw® Operations, Forecasting) to ensure involvement as required and all parties have a full and clear understanding of Operations Efficiency Improvement projects.

• Work in conjunction with the Field Operations management & Forecasting teams, managing the short, medium and long-term forecast ensuring we optimise all opportunities through accurate forecasting and the optimisation of labour.

• Develop and continuously improve operational processes covering all areas within their direct influence, such as Approved Partners, Ops WFM administration and Planning teams.

• Provide expertise on the Technical content and application of all areas of Workforce Management through the Ops WFM team.

• Provide reports and information to Senior managers on trends in workforce management with strategic focus and recommendations on any next steps.

What is the scale of this role?

The Senior Planning Manager will have 3 Direct reports. The role has influence across the business working cross functionally to achieve our strategic plans.  Budget Responsibility includes budget setting and responsible spend and use of company resources within areas of accountability, as an example Direct and Indirect labour hours spend, Headcount strategy and Approved Partner spend.

Who are my key stakeholders?

• Central Operations Team
• Exec Team
• Field Operations Team
• Customer Teams
• SLT
• People Team
• Belron® International and other business units
• Finance
• Forecasting
• ID&A

How will I know if I’m doing a good job?

When we’re looking at how our business is doing, we look at 4 areas; people, customer, shareholders and what progress we have been making in each of these:

We have a range of indicators to understand if we are making progress in each area. For you in your role the indicators could be things like:

• People – Engagement, Retention, Employee Relations, Performance
• Customer – NPS
• Finance – Trading Profit
• Society – Environmental, Giving Back, Supply Chain and Spirit of Belron