Operations Manager - Japan Operations (Remote, Philippines) - Ten Lifestyle Group | New Day Jobs (Yangon, Myanmar)

Ten exists to become the world’s most trusted service provider. As Operations Manager supporting the Japan Operations Team, you will be part of a leadership team for Japan and take the lead in ensuring we deliver a reliable and consistent 24-7 service to our clients and our members. You will ensure appropriate staffing and planning over the short, medium, and long-term taken into consideration the evolving nature of our business, including changes in volumes, new programmes and seasonality. You will use data, scheduling and forecasting tools to determine our ongoing staffing requirements. Success in this respect means we consistently achieve all core service level agreements (SLAs), and deliver best in class service as cost-effectively as possible. You will also drive longer-term forecasting that ensures we are poised to effectively handle expected business growth and one-off events. Examples include onboarding of new clients, global sporting or entertainment events and technological improvements that increase our productivity. You will ensure that business leaders have the information they need with enough advance notice to right-size our teams to be in step with such business changes. 

In addition, you will lead the day-to-day operation for Japan. Working closely with the Head of Travel & Lifestyle, Team Managers, Training, Client Services, HR & Recruitment, you will ensure that the operation is well run with balanced, consistent service.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Operations Management

• Chair the daily Pulse/Stand Up sessions we have for service improvement and operational stabilization (Stand-Up) including keeping people to time, organizing the agenda to ensure that all topics are covered and that all outstanding and current actions are updated
• Communicate and follow-up with people before and after the meeting to ensure they know what the agenda is (pre-meeting) and next actions are (post-meeting)
• Ensure that all meeting attendees are on top of their current actions, particularly ensuring that they are prepared in advance of the meeting to give clear, crisp updates and be ready to offer advice or help problem-solve when people encounter challenges and/or find themselves stuck on making change happen
• Provide/circulate summary emails daily as to the progress of the overall SIP project for Japan
• Drive daily improvements in the service by taking the lead to make proactive adjustments through the shift including, changing skilling, shift patterns, allocation, job processes etc..
• Remain closely engaged with the wider team and ensure they have the understanding and support to deliver the changes they need to make as per the Planner
• Constantly look for ways to make further improvements to the service and the efficiency of the operation.

Supporting the Japan Leadership Team

• Be a go-to support for the Head of Japan Lifestyle – be ready to review and discuss challenges and opportunities and then take things away and execute them
• Own the various Japan planners and ensure that all owners of actions are successfully working through them , do follow ups, coach and help problem solve those owners that are stuck and / or not making progress
• Know the data – SLAs, job levels – have ideas and plans in mind as to what can be done next to make further improvements, put these into action
• Work with WFM – make skilling adjustments, escalate when there are clear SLA issues mid-shift and determine cause and solution
• Work with Training – determine the most pressing training needs of the Japan business (eg getting more people trained on corp schemes) and ensure they are making these needs a priority
• Work with Client Services – help them understand all actions being taken to make day-to-day improvements with various client programmes
• Work with HR – understand current recruitment status and progress. Seek out and suggest solutions that can accelerate and improve speed and quality of hiring.

Line Management

• To manage Japan’s Service Ambassadors Team and ensure a high-level of performance within this group around their KPIs of availability, tasks per day and other QA/qualitative areas
• Insert lines from standard TM JD

Resource Planning:

• Regularly work through the 6 phases of workforce management; gathering historical data, analyzing data, cleaning it of inconsistencies, forecasting work volumes, calculating headcounts, creating schedules and analysing stat and SLA’s to ensure we have effectively scheduled Provide standardised daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly reporting and ad-hoc analytical support to the wider operations team at Ten to ensure there is full understanding of resourcing in your region
• Ensure high visibility of the forecasting approach that informs scheduling so that other stakeholders are clear and bought into changes required to meet forecasts
• Update the regional resource tool on a monthly basis, and communicate any recommended vacancies to relevant Service Directors and Heads of Department
• Take overall responsibility for rota and WFM in your local region in order to maintain accuracy. This includes checking within Humanity and ensuring teams are adhering to rota rules
• To maintain and refresh rota rules in advance of each quarter in accordance with business needs and to present these to the wider group as well as supporting them through implementation
• To meet or beat targeted performance SLA’s through effective WFM including ensuring there are daily and hourly monitoring activities in place to ensure that LM availability is robust through the shift
• Organise coverage for public holidays, regional time changes and one off events
• Ensure that if last minute absence affects coverage, appropriate overtime is arranged
• Provide analysis and recommendations to improve staffing levels and efficiency

Unified Communications Systems:

• Work with IT to ensure that the configuration on the unified Comms system Genesys is in line with operational needs
• Manage changes to skill sets as LMs receive program-specific training and/or as mandated by changes to service teams
• Report within your regions requirements whether that’s daily pulse, weekly inbound task reports to
• Investigate any SLA failure cause by schedule non-adherence, producing a root cause analysis and remedial actions for the relevant Team Managers
• Ensure that daily reporting on schedule adherence, unavailability and timekeeping
• Review and report on ‘Task Exceptions’ to ensure there is no manipulation of the telephony system

You will also work as part of a Global Team on the following:

Business Improvements

• Work to innovate and improve Ten’s resource planning system and methodology, utilising prior experience and seeking out efficiency improvements that lead to better business performance
• Develop and manage an effective forecasting methodology that ensures all regional contracts in all languages are sufficiently staffed so that both service quality and efficiency are achieved
• Work closely with other stakeholders and/or lead any upgrades or new software implementation that will enhance global resource planning
• Ensure ongoing operational performance, monitoring mid to long term trends, highlighting opportunities, risks and proposing mitigation options
• Understanding each others workforces in order to spot opportunities where you can provide cross-regional support enabling you to make efficiency and cost saving recommendations

Growth and Resilience

• Develop a standard methodology for understanding the staffing needs associated with launching a new account and embed, so that senior stakeholders in Client Services, Ops and Business Development are familiar with the tool(s)
• Work closely with Ops and Client Services to understand requirements of new business in terms of staffing and SLA adherence and make useful recommendations on staffing requirements to help inform negotiations and pricing discussions

BEHAVIORAL EXPECTATIONS:

You will engender pride in working for Ten, and make a point of celebrating the success of your team and of others around you.

As a manager you will be expected to role model the behaviors associated with our values: Member Focused, Trustworthy and Pioneering. This means approaching your work every day with a positive, solution-oriented and supportive attitude, and setting high standards for yourself. You will be self-aware and visibly committed to continuous self-improvement.

You will exercise good judgment when faced with difficult decisions, and take personal responsibility for problems being resolved. This may include collaborating with stakeholders both in North America, and in other regions.

Requirements

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE:

Five to ten years related experience; or equivalent combination of education and experience. Record of success in roles driving strong operational teams and experience in workforce management within contact/service centres.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES:

• Billungual in Japanese and English
• Strong experience with Genesys and/or other WFM and unified comms platforms
• Strong, sound knowledge of workforce planning and optimisation with a preference for experience using at least one industry-leading Workforce Management platform
• A confident presenter in both written and verbal communications, able to articulate complex projects and ideas into simple, concise language.
• An innovative thinker; always strives to improve and better service delivery, including searching out the market and identify the best practices and new techniques to enhance and accelerate our resource planning capabilities
• To collaborate with other WOM’s & Lead Planners that contribute to resource planning and rota activities ensuring that they support the timely delivery of schedules and initiate all required changes day to day to support strong SLAs and business performance
• High fluency in using data to provide quick, effective analysis and forecasting, including use of Microsoft Excel

Benefits

Our people are at the heart of the business and we have a culture of recognition and reward. We also encourage all our staff to incorporate their aspirations and interests into their career at Ten and we are there every step of the way in supporting development.

All our employees also enjoy a range of benefits regardless of where they are based. Not only do we enjoy monthly Treats on Ten (on the tenth of each month!) but employees also get 3 extra days of annual leave in their third year and an extra month off every 5 years. In line with these milestone lengths of service, we also operate a Ten Loyalty Reward program – this is a bonus (although we prefer to refer to this as ‘extra spending money’) that is awarded once these milestones are reached. The thinking behind the program is that not only does it recognise and reward commitment and loyalty to the business, but it can also be used to fund the adventures to be had during sabbaticals – this is the main intention and driving force behind the program. We want to give our people extra spending money so that they can truly enjoy their sabbaticals.

One of our more popular perks, working holiday opportunities with the ability to work from any of our 20+ offices without taking annual leave.

Ten works with a small Preferred Suppliers List currently, focused on specialists in each location. Please note we are not accepting any further agencies onto our PSL at this time.