Hire Desk Coordinator/Administrator

Internal Job Title: Hire Desk Coordinator 

Advertised Salary: £28,470 + benefits

Contract: Permanent, full time 

The Canal & River Trust is one of the UK’s largest charities, we maintain 2,000 miles of historic canals, rivers, docks and reservoirs, along with museums, archives and the country’s third largest collection of protected historic buildings – preserving them for future generations.  Our waterways are exciting, vibrant places to work.  

We are currently searching for a proactive Hire Desk Coordinator to join our Infrastructure & Programmes team. 

The Hire Desk provides floating and land base plant and equipment, with technical support for the Trust. Ensuring that our workboats, plant, and equipment are well maintained, serviced and available to meet the needs of our construction and customer operations teams requirements. Having a well-maintained fleet ensures the Trusts programme of works, volunteering opportunities and customer services needs are effectively and efficiently meet. The team also supported the hiring externally floating plant and equipment when required.

In this role you will be responsible for coordination of the Hire Desk to manage all customers enquiries, data management and national communications. This will include: matching resources to planned/unplanned projects and generating reports on plant usage, performance, condition and the repair and maintenance schedule.

The post required is to predominantly support the teams that sit within Direct Services but will also be required to support other areas of Infrastructure & Programmes as and when required. As part of your role, you will have the opportunity to shadow our teams to understand their roles and the issues they can encounter. 

Our-values (https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/thumbnail/35240-our-values.pdf) and below. 

Location

This vacancy will be offered on a remote working basis, with a requirement to attend our hub/office spaces as and when required for team working and meetings. It is therefore essential that applicants are able and willing to work effectively from home.

Our hubs include: Ellesmere Port, Hatton, Birmingham, Newark. 

Applicants would ideally be accessible to Long Eaton (NG10 1AU) for intermittent (one a month) catch ups with the wider team. 

See our network map here: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network

The Hire Desk team assist in supporting the Trust’s aims to improve safety and increase the number of people using the waterways by managing the Trust’s fleet of workboats and land based equipment, to ensure that the fleet is appropriate for the Trusts needs, that standards are met and that capital investment is effectively delivered.

About the role

• Provide a plant scheduling service to the Trust, matching available resources to planned and reactive tasks, taking into account geography, the availability of suitable plant and external hire options.
• Manage the communications with all teams using Hire Desk ensuring that all enquiries are managed in a efficient, helpful and conscientious way. Provide technical advice to help develop effective solutions.
• Manage the equipment database for Hire Desk, ensuring all records are up to date. This will include data input, record keeping and record amendments.
• Provide analysis of data on the use of Hire Desk and its equipment through the production of reports, to give evidence for procurement, sale, maintenance and refurbishment of equipment. Also provide reports at the required frequency to provide information on performance such as: Plant utilisation rates; return to service durations following breakdown, number and nature of breakdowns etc.
• Provide financial management support to the Hire Desk team, under the guidance of the Finance Analysts, to ensure effective management of assets, ordering, creating invoices and other financial processes.
• Review, assess and prioritise basic maintenance and repair requirements for plant owned by the Trust in consideration of the available budget and client requirements, passing more complex issues through to expert teams, to ensure the overall availability of a fleet to meet the requirements of the Trust. 

About you

Technical:

• NVQ Level III / HNC or equivalent in a customer service related discipline within a technical area
• Substantial experience in customer service area. Exposure to managing breakdowns, faults and relevant data is desirable. 
• Substantial experience of administration. Working experience ordering working parts beneficial. 
• Experience logging issues; offering initial solutions support where appropriate. 
• Some knowledge of work safety management, i..e understanding/establishing faults & checking service. 
• Proven budget management experience.
• Proven experience in SAP of benefit. 
• Experienced in the use of word processing and spreadsheet software (Power BI, excel) to write reports - utilisation, issues, orders. 

General: 

• Valid UK driving license advantageous to aid occassional travel. 
• Communication skills that allow you to inform, help and advise customers clearly and professionally and liaise with other professionals.
• Listening skills and the ability to deal with difficult situations.
• Confidence, patience, politeness, tact and diplomacy, when addressing customer enquiries.
• Ability to work well under pressure; interpret and implement organisational policies, analyse and process complex technical data.
• Good personal presentation, especially when working with customers face to face.
• Demonstrable ability at a high level for all of the competencies at Level 1 of the Competency Framework.
• Comply with Canal & River Trust Health & Safety policy and defined standards, report incidents, accidents and near misses.
• To be aware of your own responsibilities regarding safeguarding and to support our commitment to providing safe environments and working practises that promote and protect the safety and welfare of children, young people and adults at risk at all time. 

To apply:  click on the "Apply for this job" button and follow the process - complete the application form & upload current CV.

If you have any questions about the role please contact CRT.recruitment@canalrivertrust.org.uk

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient suitable applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

In addition to your annual base salary of £28,470, we also offer a competitive contributory DC Pension scheme arrangement, and numerous other employee benefits, including several salary sacrifice benefits we are also open to flexible working arrangements. These include:

• Competitive contributory DC Pension scheme arrangement, where we will double your contribution to a maximum of 10%.
• 25 days paid holiday (plus paid Bank Holidays), increasing to 30 days after 5 years.
• Home working status with ‘hub’ facilities available should you need the flexibility to work outside of home.
• Annual £200 personal learning & growth award to spend on any learning related activity.
• Free access to specialist counselling on a range of issues, e.g. health, financial, well-being and domestic matters.
• Access to a range of employee benefits including store discounts, boating holiday discounts and holiday purchase scheme.
• 2 days paid volunteering leave per annum, allowing you to volunteer for a local community project etc.
• Free fishing facilities across our canal network.

At the Trust we care passionately for our waterways, and as importantly, for those who look after and use them. We strongly believe that a diverse workforce brings with it a diversity of ideas, thinking and ways of working which enhances what we do as a Trust. We are striving to represent the diverse communities that we are a part of and welcome applicants from across all sectors of the community.

All candidates will be treated on the basis of their merits, skills and abilities and solely by being assessed against the requirements for the job.

When you join the Canal & River Trust you become a member of an engaged team working to preserve our heritage for future generations. Come and share your passion and knowledge with a team that makes a difference to millions of people every day.

Find out more about us on our website: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us