Complex Arrears Team Leader – 12-month secondment
Hiring Manager: Karen Davison
Salary banding: CR2
Location: On-site – Manchester Balloon Street
Working Hours: 35 hours
Monday to Friday: Between 8am to 6pm
Close Date: 01/11/2025
About the role:
Internal Secondment Opportunity: Complex Arrears Team Leader
Ready to lead from the front in our most critical debt recovery area?
We are looking for a high-calibre internal talent with proven leadership experience to take on the role of Complex Arrears Team Leader. This secondment offers a vital opportunity to lead a specialist team managing our most sensitive and intricate arrears cases.
This role sits at the intersection of leadership, customer support, and regulatory compliance. You will not only develop your team but also shape our strategy for supporting customers with the greatest need, ensuring fair and compliant outcomes.
Key Accountabilities:
Your Leadership Focus:
This is a dynamic role that requires balancing high-performance management with deep operational support. You will be accountable for:
- Expert People Management: Providing motivational leadership, coaching, supervision, and professional guidance to a team of Arrears Officers, fostering a culture of excellence and deep technical understanding.
- Case Ownership and Escalation: Taking ownership of the most complex, high-risk, or sensitive customer cases, providing expert guidance, and personally intervening to ensure effective and lawful resolution.
- Regulatory & Process Integrity: Ensuring all team actions, particularly those relating to legal proceedings (e.g., evictions, sequestration) and regulatory frameworks, are compliant with policy and external legislation (e.g., CONC).
- Driving Service Improvement: Monitoring team quality and performance, identifying staff training needs, and actively contributing to the review and development of debt recovery procedures and practices to maximise income and improve efficiency.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Effectively managing relationships with internal stakeholders and external agencies to ensure a smooth transition of workflow and holistic support for vulnerable customers.
- Operational Delivery: effectively manage Credit Risk strategy including management of monthly debt sale.
Knowledge, skills and experience required:
Demonstrated history of leadership, whether through formal line management, deputising for a manager, or leading major projects/initiatives.
The ideal candidate will be able to clearly demonstrate:
- Leadership Experience: A strong track record in supervising, coaching, and mentoring staff, with the ability to set clear performance standards and manage results.
- Technical Acumen: Proven experience or deep knowledge within a complex, regulated environment, ideally arrears management, debt recovery, or financial services, with an ability to interpret and apply complex rules/legislation.
- Risk & Decision-Making: Strong problem-solving skills and the confidence to authorise high-impact decisions (e.g., legal action) while always ensuring an appropriate audit trail.
- Communication: Excellent ability to explain and discuss complex and sensitive information with colleagues, customers, and third parties in a clear, simple, and empathetic manner.
- Flexible and agile: able to meet changing customer and business demands.
If you are ready to elevate your leadership career by tackling the bank's most challenging arrears cases, we want to hear from you.
What You Can Expect from Us:
- 27 days holiday rising to 30 with service, plus opportunity to buy 5 extra days
- Competitive pension with up to 10% employer contribution
- Income protection / life assurance
- Commitment from employers on continued learning & development
- Wellbeing support ‘Help@Hand’ offers mental health support, physiotherapy, GP’s for both you and your family.
- 2 paid days for volunteering per year
- ‘My Reward’ corporate discount for over 800 retailers and Cycle to Work Scheme.
- Family friendly policies and supportive working environment
- Colleague network groups committed to inclusion and diversity within our Bank.
We can only consider candidates with the right to work in the UK at this time.
We may close this role early if sufficient applications are received before the application deadline.
Our Bank is passionate and committed to continuing to create a diverse workforce and an inclusive environment where all colleagues can fulfil their potential.
At the beginning of the year, The Co-operative Bank officially became part of the Coventry Building Society Group. Together, we have shared values and an ethical approach towards our members, customers and colleagues.
As a reputable employer regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, all offers of employment for this role are subject to a series of background checks, including criminal (DBS) and financial checks.
*Rated by Morningstar Sustainalytics in the Regional Banks sub-industry with a score of 11.2 as of 14 January 2025.