Assistant Manager Off-site Services

Description

Contract: Permanent, full time (37.5 hours per week) Salary: £26,042 - £30,281 per annum Location: Thirsk, YO7 3SE Closing date: Tuesday 17th November 2026 Interview date: 26th & 27th November 2026  We're recruiting an Assistant Manager - Off-site Services to lead our home-based pet operations at our Thirsk rehoming centre. In this role, you'll ensure that every pet finds the perfect match with their new family as quickly as possible, while maintaining top quality care for both our pets and clients throughout the entire adoption journey. Join us in making a difference, one pet at a time!

More about the role In this role, you’ll play a key part in ensuring exceptional care for both pets and clients while making well-connected, efficient decisions that prioritise pet welfare. As the leader of our home-based pet operations, you’ll oversee the smooth running of daily activities, acting as the subject matter expert in practical animal handling and assessment. Your goal will be to prepare pets for adoption as quickly and effectively as possible. You’ll work closely with your team to ensure timely pet assessments, behaviour management, and training, while providing full support to foster carers. You’ll also be responsible for achieving pet-related targets, ensuring your team of Pet Welfare Assistants & Foster Coordinators maintain the highest standards of animal care and adheres to national processes in case management. As the offsite team primary focus is home based service, innovation and teamwork are essential to address the most urgent cases effectively. Motivating and managing your team is central to this role, enabling the centre to provide top-quality home-based pet care while helping your team develop professionally. This is a full-time position, working 37.5 hours per week and you will be required to work 1 in 3 weekends. At our Thirsk rehoming centre, we provide onsite accommodation for pets in our care 24/7.  Overnight shifts are usually undertaken by team members who live on site.  However, as a manager you will be on a rota to carry out night checks or stay in onsite accommodation overnight when the resident team members are either not working or away for a period of time.

About you

You’ll be a great people manager, bringing finely honed skills from your experience in an animal-related environment, along with expert knowledge of pet welfare and care.    As a dynamic and innovative leader, you know how to inspire and motivate your team, driving continuous improvement. You’ll lead a team of Pet Welfare Assistants, empowering them through effective management and coaching.  With excellent communication skills, you adapt your approach for different audiences, ensuring your message resonates. While juggling multiple tasks, you remain calm and organised, making confident decisions in high-pressure situations.  Your strong analytical skills enable you to monitor and evaluate effectively, implementing meaningful improvements. Rather than resting on your laurels, you’ll have a genuine desire to enhance onsite facilities and services, actively engaging your team in the process.  Having worked in emotionally charged environments, you understand the importance of resilience and have excellent “bounce-back ability.” Your emotional intelligence and empathy will shine as you support your team and the public, creating a compassionate and effective workplace.

Knowledge, skills, and experience

Significant experience in managing a team.

Significant experience in delivering high level Customer service in a fast-paced environment.

Significant subject matter expertise and application of pet welfare and handling of domestic animals

High standard of verbal and written communication.

Proven decision - making ability

Current full driving licence

The ability to demonstrate, understand and apply our Blue Cross values

It would be great (but not essential) if you also had:

Performance management and improvement experience.

Change management experience.

Delivering training and presenting to large groups.

Experience working with volunteers.

Qualifications in management, leadership, or coaching

Understanding of safeguarding issues. Want to know more detail? Great! We have attached the job description which hopefully gives you everything you need.

Using AI in your application We’re happy for you to use AI tools to help you prepare your application, for example to organise your thoughts, improve clarity or check spelling and grammar. However, your application must be an honest reflection of your own skills, experience and achievements, and AI should not be used to write your application for you or create examples that aren’t your own.

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