Social Housing Operations Manager

Social Housing Operations Manager
Location: Harrow
Salary: GBP35,000 - GBP40,000 per year
Job type: Full-time, permanent
Bridge Recruitment is helping one of our established clients recruit an experienced Social Housing Operations Manager to join their ever-expanding team. Plenty of career progression!
Responsibilities of the Social Housing Operations Manager:
- Lead and manage the performance of Customer Service, Operations Coordinators and office staff.
- Set team priorities and allocate workloads to meet operational targets.
- Manage office rotas and ensure adequate cover during absences and peak periods.
- Conduct one-to-ones, appraisals, performance reviews and team meetings.
- Monitor attendance, compliance and adherence to company procedures.
- Coach and develop staff to deliver excellent customer service and operational performance.
- Foster a positive, accountable and collaborative team culture.
- Ensure high standards of customer communication across phone, email and resident updates.
- Handle escalated complaints and complex customer issues, driving effective resolutions.
- Monitor customer feedback and identify opportunities for service improvement.
- Oversee the coordination of repairs, servicing, planned works and housing maintenance activities.
- Ensure jobs are accurately scheduled, prioritised and completed within service standards.
- Monitor engineer diaries, workloads, overdue jobs and follow-on works.
- Liaise with engineers, subcontractors and internal teams to minimise delays.
- Oversee purchase orders, parts management and job completion processes.
- Support emergency response planning and operational continuity.
- Produce and analyse performance reports, KPIs and operational dashboards.
- Identify trends and implement actions to improve service delivery and efficiency.
- Present performance updates and recommendations to management.
- Support client meetings, KPI reviews and contract reporting.
- Ensure compliance with client requirements and contractual standards.
- Support the mobilisation of new contracts and operational processes.
- Monitor costs, expenditure and purchasing to support budget control.
- Identify cost-saving opportunities and operational efficiencies.
- Lead continuous improvement initiatives and implement best practices.
- Develop and maintain procedures, templates and operational documentation.
- Ensure compliance with GDPR, safeguarding, company policies and quality standards.
- Support internal, client and ISO audits, maintaining accurate records.
- Identify, manage and escalate operational risks and compliance issues.
- Build strong relationships with clients, managers, engineers and support teams.
- Work closely with HR, Finance, Supply Chain, Compliance and IT to support business operations.
- Escalate technical or contractual matters appropriately while ensuring effective coordination.






Requirements of the Social Housing Contracts Manager:
- Proven experience managing a customer service, repairs, scheduling, helpdesk, operations or office-based team within social housing, facilities management, building services or a related service environment.
- Practical understanding of social-housing repairs and maintenance, including resident communication, appointments, reactive jobs, servicing, access, parts, further works and contractor coordination.
- Demonstrable experience of day-to-day people management, including workload allocation, rotas, one-to-ones, performance conversations, training and maintaining standards.
- Strong experience managing high-volume workloads, competing priorities, deadlines and escalations in a fast-moving operational environment.
- Confident complaint handling and the ability to communicate sensitively and professionally with residents, including vulnerable customers and people experiencing service failure.
- Strong Excel and reporting capability, including Pivot Tables, XLOOKUP or VLOOKUP, SUMIFS, Conditional Formatting, charts and professional report presentation.
- Ability to turn raw operational data into clear findings, explain causes and impacts, and recommend practical corrective action.
- Commercial awareness, including an understanding of parts usage, labour utilisation, purchase orders, expenditure control, repeat visits and contract performance.
- Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to work effectively with residents, clients, engineers, managers, suppliers and internal departments.
- High attention to detail when reviewing job records, emails, reports, system notes, evidence, action logs and audit documentation.
- Confident user of Microsoft Office, Teams, shared drives, CRM or job-management systems, telephony dashboards and digital reporting tools.
- A fair, consistent and professional management approach, with the confidence to address underperformance and reinforce company procedures.
If you feel like you meet the above criteria for the Social Housing Contracts Manager role, then please apply now!