Director, College Services (HASS)

About Flinders

Our bold vision, captured in our Strategic Plan: making a Difference: The 2025 Agenda, is to be internationally recognised as a world leader in research, an innovator in contemporary education, and the source of Australia’s most enterprising graduates.

To realise this ambition, we recently made a significant organisation change to a six College structure with a professional staff and services alignment.

We recognise the key to our success is exceptional people and we’re seeking an outstanding individual to join the team of our transformed university.

Employment Type:

Fixed Term (Fixed Term)

Position Summary

Availability:
Fixed-term for 3 years | Full-Time
Compensation Grade:
Senior Manager
Salary Range:
Negotiated + 17% superannuation
Reporting To:
Vice-President (Corporate Services)
The College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) encompasses teaching and research activities in history and archaeology, social sciences, language, literature and culture, and the creative and performing arts. Bringing together interdisciplinary projects, the College focuses on major cultural, environmental, geographical, historical, and social challenges. HASS is home to Flinders University Museum of Art (FUMA), the world class Visual Effects and Entertainment Design course, taught in partnership with CDW Studios, to The Void, SAs largest motion capture and digital storytelling platform, and to a cutting edge ambisonic sound studio. Also within HASS is Assemblage: The Centre for Creative Arts, which facilitates innovative research in the creative and performing arts, maximising the reach, impact, and engagement of this exploration.
The Director, College Services is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership of professional support services for the College. The role makes proactive and positive contributions to the College’s service culture and goals of the University. The position will lead and manage diverse and multi-disciplinary professional staff teams to provide cohesive and consistent customer service to a range of stakeholders within the College.
Day to day the position is accountable to the Vice-President and Executive Dean of the College and will work as a member of the College leadership team. The position reports to the University’s Vice-President Corporate Services (COO) to ensure alignment with the strategic and operational requirements of the University, including ensuring consistency of customer service. The role has key responsibility in the financial management of the College and will make significant contributions to the development and implementation of business and governance strategies, frameworks, standards and processes within the College.
The Director, College Services will also contribute to the development and delivery of projects in customer strategy, quantitative and qualitative analysis of College performance, process and customer experience design, operating model design and the improvement of the performance of the College, especially growth and commercialisation opportunities. As a member of the College leadership team, this role ensures high quality, innovative service experiences for students and staff through the provision of customer-focused, efficient and effective support services for the College.

Key Position Responsibilities

• As a member of the College’s leadership team, develop and implement strategy and plans for excellence in, education, external partnerships, research, and culture.

• Lead the professional teams responsible for the operations and financial management of the College.

• Facilitate the development, review and implementation of systems, policies, and procedures to successfully operate the College and focus on continuous improvement in the provision of services.

• Work with the Directors, College Services from other Colleges to drive strategic initiatives to improve services.

• Work directly with the College’s leadership team and the professional service leaders across the University to ensure services to the College are appropriate, consistent, and effective.

• Provide mentorship and leadership to diverse professional staff within the College Services team, driving a culture of customer service and high performance and ensuring staff are adequately skilled, experienced, engaged and appropriately supported to meet College operational needs.

• Develop a resource model and culture that is responsive to the demands of a College with significant cyclical workloads, research activity and competing priorities.

• Undertake a leadership role in the College’s strategic planning process as it relates to the development of support service priorities and the implementation of strategies to ensure their achievement.

• Lead the identification, development and implementation of change management strategies to improve business performance in collaboration with the academic leadership team of the College and other University stakeholders.

• Develop and maintain productive working relationships with key stakeholders within the College and across the University to influence and respond to issues as they arise.

• Lead and manage projects, organisational or system changes, in line with University directives, College plans and operational needs.

• Ensure compliance with relevant regulatory bodies and legislation.

• Other duties as directed by the Vice-President Corporate Services (COO), Vice President and Executive Dean of the College and/or by the University leadership.

Key Position Capabilities

• Proven ability to lead, motivate and develop high performing, multi-disciplinary teams to provide coherent, consistent, and effective customer service in a matrix reporting environment. (Team scale: approximately 30 FTE professional staff supporting the College.)

• Degree-qualified with relevant post qualification experience in one or more of the following areas: arts administration, business administration, commerce, service design, process/operations improvement, business strategy/operating models and customer experience management; or Certified Practising Account (CPA) or equivalent.

• Experience managing the financial and operational needs of a large organisation, ideally within a University or organisation with significant education and/or research activity. (Financial scale: $32 million total budget, with operational responsibility for the non-salary budget of approx. $5M.)

• Demonstrated collaborative style in day-to-day work and decision making.

• Proven ability to work collaboratively as a member of a senior management team in support of strategic objectives, contributing to the achievement of both team and organisational priorities.

• Proven organisational and strategic planning skills including the ability to plan and lead change, prioritise and meet deadlines, allocate resources effectively and efficiently to ensure operational and service delivery goals are met in high volume and complex environments.

• Proven ability to respond to challenging situations in a calm, composed and constructive manner. Significant expertise in creating and delivering a consistent and integrated customer experience within a complex environment and demonstrated ability to create and lead a continuous improvement, service orientated culture.

• Understanding of a wide range of IT systems, including Service Management tools, customer analytics and other data management systems to drive insights for financial management, performance improvement, customer service management and other operations typical of a large organisation.

• Excellent communication, influencing and negotiation skills, including the ability to produce written information and presentations for a range of audiences and to effectively manage stakeholders with competing interests.

• Demonstrated understanding of the relevant government legislation and contemporary issues facing the higher education and research sector.

For more information regarding the position, or to have a confidential discussion, please contact: Mr Mark Gregory

Prescribed Conditions of Employment:

Flinders University has introduced a COVID-19 Vaccination Policy that requires all new staff members to be up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations, subject to medical exemptions and limited exemptions

 

A National Police Certificate which is satisfactory to the University will be required by Flinders University before the successful applicant can commence in this position.

Information for Applicants:

A valid National Police Certificate which is satisfactory to the University will also be required before the successful applicant can commence in this position.

We are seeking to increase the diversity to improve equal opportunity outcomes for employees, and therefore we encourage female applicants, people with a disability and/or from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders descent to apply.

Please note, late applications and applications sent via agencies will not be accepted.

Applications Close 11:59pm:

04 Oct 2022