1. Building and leading a team
It is essential that you can create clear and common goals and that you work together to achieve them. By sharing information, vision and objectives, you will all be working towards team goals. Ensuring the lines of communication are always open means your team will trust and listen to you. Getting to know each member of staff, how they work, what motivates them and why they are here means you can keep developing them and getting the best out of each individual. Most importantly, people listen when they trust you.
Jaclyn Lindsay-Smith, London
2. Accountability and decision-making
As a Deputy Operations Manager, you will find yourself in situations where you will have to make decisions on the spot; decisions that can affect the advisor and their client. It’s great having that autonomy and with it comes a lot of responsibility. It is important to set very clear expectations of your advisors and follow up regularly to make sure results are achieved. Ultimately, you are accountable to your Operations Manager and senior management, so you need to be on top of everything.
Kirsty Taylor, Edinburgh
3. Inspiring and motivating others to achieve
Part of the role is to be consistent, to show a balanced viewpoint and to practise what you preach. Spending one to one time with each member of staff means getting to know what makes people tick, what they respond to and the best way to deliver a message to ensure it sticks. Regular performance reviews and individual chats with team members mean that I can recognise issues and address them quickly so that each person feels valued and able to focus on their objectives. Mark Persard, Birmingham
4. Developing others
I am the first point of contact for advisors in my team. They look to me - just as their clients look to them - for help, guidance and feedback so that they can do their job to the best of their ability. I regularly meet with each person to discuss their development and to challenge them, if necessary, on how they can support more clients into work. By observing advisors’ behaviour and activity I can then show them how doing something differently can achieve better outcomes. All of this allows me to foster a team of positive and focused advisors.
Luke Jeavons, London
5. Innovation and creativity
The great thing about this role is being able to identify a problem, implement a solution and watch advisors flourish. It also means being able to recognise when you can learn from others and share best practice. Advisors constantly need to think of new ways of working with clients and the most important th
ing to communicate is that no idea is a bad idea and everything will be considered. This encourages advisors to be creative in their approach to the job, which leads to more satisfaction and better outcomes.
Kirsty Taylor, Edinburgh