Calling all great Managers and Business leaders!

Are you currently in a management or business leadership role but stuck inside a stuffy office going through the motions? Are you longing to get outside and do something you’re passionate about? Do you want to grow and develop a business you can be excited about? If so read on…

Go Ape are looking for hard-working, friendly, adventurous people to join the Go Ape Tribe. The position of Assistant Site Manager includes a wide range of responsibilities, assisting and supporting the Commercial Site Manager to run the site successfully and safely.

Because of this, we’re excited to meet people with excellent management skills and leadership experience, who are also commercially savvy and able to grow the business moving forward.

As the largest ropes course provider in the UK, we’ve over 20 years’ experience training instructors and managers in operational excellence. So, provided you have the right spirit and a desire to learn and grow, limited experience should not prevent you from applying.

After customer and staff safety, ensuring every customer has an amazing experience is at the heart of what we do. So, you’ll need to genuinely share our values and high standards in customer care, challenge your team, your customers and yourself to ‘live life adventurously’ and ‘turn I can’t into I can!’.

Wherever you may be currently; if you’re a commercially switched on manager who wants to join a forward-thinking business that’s been voted by its own Tribe as one of the ‘Top 100 Best UK Companies to Work for’, and you feel as strongly as we do about delivering first class customer service and living life more adventurously - then we look forward to hearing from you!

WHO ARE WE?

Go Ape is the UKs number 1 adventure company with 37 locations nationwide and 13 different activities. We’ve been providing adventures since 2002 and have welcomed over 10 million customers, but we’re not done yet and have big ambitions for the future.

Go Ape is now Employee Owned that means every Go Ape employee whether full time, part time or a seasonal worker are now co-owners of the business. As a co-owner you will be empowered to voice your opinions and ideas through an elected Employee Council and have a real say in helping to shape the business. There is also the potential to award tax-free bonuses to all co-owners. We know our teams are the people most passionate about the company and its values and they should also reap the rewards for their hard work and dedication.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

Supporting and assisting the Commercial Site Manager to:

Oversee a safe site, safe people (customers and staff), a safe course (infrastructure) and safe equipment.
Employ, train, and build a happy, engaged and professional team who can deliver amazing customer experience.
Own your site, driving it forward commercially by finding ways to increase revenues and deliver efficiencies with a strong focus on the highest cost lines.

Commercial Management & Marketing

Increase revenue by attracting more customers and providing the availability required, upselling, increasing secondary spend and developing your site products.

Oversee efficient staffing and good returns on site expenditure.

Make Go Ape famous locally.

Specifically:

build a good understanding of the commercial nature of your site. Then, in conjunction with the Operations and Finance Support Teams use this knowledge to help set realistic and achievable revenue and customer targets for each year.
monitor and own the revenue and participant numbers for your site, seeking to undertake corrective action as required, with support from other support teams as needed.
write and maintain the local marketing plan for your site, seeking support from the central marketing support team as required.
ensure the completion of Local Marketing tasks in order to grow brand awareness locally and drive customer bookings
maintain good relationships and have regular meetings with the site’s stakeholder, landowners, marketing partners, local media to deliver PR, local businesses/corporates, schools and any other relevant prospective customer groups in the catchment area.
be an active member of the local tourism bodies in order to build Go Ape’s profile.
build awareness and knowledge of local competitors monitoring products, pricing, advertising etc. to assist Go Ape in remaining an attractive proposition.
help to identify opportunities to further grow the site business (be they additional activities that fit the customer profile, partnerships, new merchandising opportunities or upsell potential, etc).

Business Development

Work with key support staff to develop opportunities at site by:
Building and maintaining good relationships with key parties: Landowners, Go Ape personnel, Third Party Contractors, Insurers, HSE and Environmental Health Officers and Go Ape consultants
Attending regular manager meetings in the UK
Visiting other Go Ape sites when requested

Team Management

Develop and manage an effective site team by:

Creating staff rotas, keeping and submitting records of hours worked, holidays and absence
Recruitment of great staff with the support of the People team
Conducting induction meetings to welcome new staff
Conducting probation reviews
Conducting annual and regular performance appraisals and creating performance improvement and training and development plans as required
Managing performance, and where necessary disciplining staff in accordance with company procedures, with support from the People team
Conducting regular team meetings
Conducting exit meetings

Health and Safety

Operate the site in accordance with Company Procedures, including:

Ensure a safe workplace environment without risk to health.
Ensure that all Health & Safety policies, procedures, rules and regulations are adhered to and communicated.
Ensure the company meets its statutory obligations in all areas pertaining to health, safety and welfare at work.
Operate the site in accordance with the Company Procedures and Operations Manual including:
Delivering training at the beginning of the year, ensuring all new staff are fully aware of company policies and procedures
Keeping risk assessments up to date
Keeping records of all site checks
Maintaining PPE and safety equipment in good order including records
Maintaining your site in good serviceable order including the cabin
Ensuring all participants complete a Disclaimer Form prior to participation
Ensuring safety briefs, assessments, rescues and practices are carried out in line with Company Procedures

Corporate Events:

Work closely with the Events Team to ensure all events go smoothly by:
Working with the events support team to meet customer needs, where practical.
Liaising with caterers and external suppliers prior to all bookings to make sure everything is on order.
Arranging for the delivery of the product by the site team.
Providing feedback on the event to improve the process/product for the future.

General Site Operation

Operate a successful site by:

Meeting sales and cost targets as agreed by the Directors
Keeping receipts of all expenses and mileage as per Company Procedures
Ensuring the office/cabin is run efficiently with all files kept tidy and up to date and responding promptly to all correspondence
Banking as per company procedures
Proactively seeking advice, ideas, support and input from the support teams.

Person Specification

Essential

Live within 40 minutes commute of site
Previous management experience and must be able to show the ability to lead, manage and motivate your team to deliver a plan
Business acumen, attention to commercial detail, statistically numerate
An interest in, and appreciation of the impact that Marketing has on reaching targets
Must be rescue trained (training to be given on the job)
Excellent organisation and administrative skills
Customer service background and excellent customer service skills
Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and enjoys working with others
Must be a team player and able to work with other colleagues and teams in a dynamic business
Must like working outdoors and be confident working at height.
First Aid At Work (to be obtained prior to start date)
IT skills: Word processing, Excel, etc.
H&S / Risk assessment skills
Experience organising and delivering Training
High energy levels with a positive approach and outlook
Ability to work under pressure and to deadlines
Confidence to ask for assistance and support when required
Full driving license and own transport

Desirable

Corporate client experience
Risk assessment skills
Carpentry / practical DIY & Maintenance skills
Marketing experience
Recruitment experience
Commercial business administration experience
Ability to delegate correctly
Demonstrable ability to maintain standards in other people’s work

Training

Assistant Site Managers are required to attend training meetings each year. This training will:
Bring you up to date with the latest business development and news
Bring you up to date with Health & Safety and Company Procedures
Enable you to network with colleagues across the whole company
Enable the sharing of good practice
Update you on any changes within the Operations Manual, IT, Marketing, People and Finance to enable them to develop and support you, your site and your team.

Contract

Contract Type: Permanent

Reports To: Commercial Site Manager

Reward Package

Accommodation is not provided but relocation support is available (see relocation policy)
Holiday Entitlement: 25 days holiday plus Xmas and 8 Bank holidays
Working Hours: Average of 37.5 hours/week
Flexible to meet operational needs
Weekend working will be required
Bank holiday work awarded time off in lieu

Benefits

Company Pension Scheme, medical cashback scheme, Enhanced maternity and paternity, Cycle to Work Scheme, Tech Scheme, Workplace Nursery Scheme, Retail Discounts, DRT day (Do the Right Thing), Expeditions, Adventure Fund.

Company Ethos

Our Values

Keeping the adventure in adventure
Encouraging ‘I can’t’ to become ‘I can’
Always seeking to be two steps better
Zero risk equals zero development
To challenge, surprise and excite
Build in customer delight
Be socially and environmentally responsible
Create worthwhile, rewarding jobs
Do the right thing

Our Mission

To be the best adventure company on the planet (where you can be home in time for tea).

Our Vision

“Creating adventures; encouraging everyone to live life adventurously”. If you feel as strongly as we do about encouraging everyone to live life more adventurously then this could be the perfect environment for you to work in!

At Go Ape we are committed to our 'Working together to Safeguard Children' obligation for safeguarding and in this role you will be working in a position of trust.

Diversity, equity and inclusion matters at Go Ape. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our co-owners to thrive and achieve their full potential.

Our Glassdoor rating for Diversity & Inclusion is 4.8 out of 5, this is above the average for our industry and a company of our size.

As well as providing training, we issue a survey to our new co-owners at Go Ape to support us in monitoring equality, diversity and inclusion in the recruitment and onboarding process. We are pleased to hold a score of 4.88 out of 5 in response to the following question ‘On a scale of 1 – 5, how accurate would you say the following statement is ‘I feel welcome at Go Ape’ (5 being very accurate)’.

As the above illustrates, we are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief.

We will consider reasonable adjustments for all our roles.

Please note that all offers are subject to acceptable Right to Work documents being provided.

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