Location:  National

Position:  Regional Contract Manager - National

Salary:  Commensurate with Experience

Reporting to:  Operations Manager

Background

Ground Control is a commercial grounds maintenance company operating nationwide and catering to a blue chip client base. We hold national contracts for some of the UK’s largest retailers and utility companies covering over 13,000 properties, including two UNESCO World Heritage sites.  Turnover now exceeds £34 million annually. Our outstanding service delivery has helped us achieve 99.2% client site retention rate over the past six years.  Winner of ten BALI Awards, our fast growing business requires highly motivated and experienced professionals to contribute and share in our future growth.

Role and Responsibilities

The Contract Manager is at the heart of Ground Control’s business. The role is divided into two key components: delivering consistent maintenance service and acquiring additional business.

A Contract Manager’s management of his Field Teams will be a critical success factor to delivering maintenance work on-time to the specified standard. Key responsibilities will be:

• Training Field Teams in “Ways of Working” and expected quality standards
• Daily quality monitoring of Field Teams’ work
• Performance Management
• Recruiting new Field Teams

The second key component of the role is ability to price and sell landscaping work. These works may either be additional work required on sites currently maintained by Ground Control or large landscaping projects implemented as part of a construction project. In order to sell these works, the Contract Manager will have to develop successful working relationships with local client decision-makers:

• Accurately price new maintenance sites under tender
• Identify, price and supervise additional works on existing maintenance sites
• Best possible cost for Ground Control, a good living for Field Teams

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Contract Manager’s performance is measured, ranked and closely monitored. A significant proportion of compensation is performance-based. Successfully meeting or exceeding the following targets will determine bonuses:

• Additional works turnover (at agreed targeted margin)
• “Secret Shopper” site Audits
• Field Team missed visits
• Field Team compliance to visit schedule
• Client complaints and Feedback scores

Background

The candidate will ideally have had some, but not necessarily all, of the following experiences before joining:

• Two to three years’ practical work experience (“on the tools”) in landscaping
• Two to three years’ management experience in a service business (landscaping, retail, service engineering etc.)
• Further education, ideally in Horticulture
• Entrepreneurial experience running his/her own business

 Required Skill-Set

 Field Team Management

• Recruits Field Teams or individuals with potential
• Establishes work standards and sets goals
• Performance manages and coaches (raising/replacing poor performers, developing stars)
• Day-to-day checking of standards coaching
• Priority setting/adjust appropriately to changing demands
• Motivate team members, keep good balance between delegation and control

 Client Management

• Builds relationships: identifies all concerned parties from within client, involving and engaging them
• Establishes competence: demonstrates the ability to see grounds maintenance from an operator’s point of view
• Recovers quickly when sites below standard or after complaints
• Responds quickly to client requests (“next day when possible, never longer than a week”)

 Methodical Work-Style

• "Plan, do, review” approach to work (proactive not reactive, learn from past experience)
• Sets goals “top-down” (create overview then work detail)
• Identify key deliverables/structure key activities into work assignments
• Plans timing of work, monitor progress, ensure delivery
• Balances own workload so that all client requirements are met on tim (e.g. prepares quotes on time)

 Tenacity

• “Completer/finisher” (moves on only when the job is done)
• Drive – prepared to go beyond what is expected
• Focused on achieving goals
• Resilience after failure
• Follows up on “next steps”

 Attention to detail

• Checks all aspects of completed work
• Receptive/responsive to feedback
• Enjoys “getting hand dirty”

 Sales

• Uses client network to monitor needs and identify growth opportunities
• Generates enthusiasm and wins support for additional works
• Concludes sales and revives bogged down tenders

 Written Communication

• Clear and concise
• Simple language and proper grammar
• Logical structure in covering subjects and making recommendations
• Backed up by persuasive, compelling verbal style

 IT-Competency

• Uses all MS Office applications without support
• E-mail user
• Can solve basic operating-system related problems (e.g. how to connect to a printer)

 Horticultural Knowledge

• Knows Latin plant names and their growth rates. Also their planting and care requirements
• Able to visualise the necessary sequence of tasks in order to accurately estimate the optimum time and identify equipment required to complete a job.

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