Finance and Planning Manager

The Finance & Planning Manager helps people with sight loss to live the life they choose by providing support to the business to deliver the objectives of the Five Year Plan, with a focus on delivery of service targets, productivity, efficiency and innovation.  This role needs to understand the drivers of performance, be knowledgeable on historic performance versus targets, and work with management to improve performance cost effectively into the future.

For this role you will be based at our Hillfields site in Reading and expected to attend site 2/3 days per week. This role is a 12 month Fixed Term Contract.

We offer a generous pension scheme, annual leave, life assurance and enhanced pay for parenting and sickness leave. In addition, we provide an Employee Assistance Programme, flexible benefits package and discounts and cashback scheme to care for our people. 

More details can be found in the attached candidate pack and job description.

Candidate requirements

To be able to fulfil this role, the skills and experience we are looking for in a potential candidate include;

Essential

• Finance – ACCA/ACA/CIMA qualified.
• To be able to confidently deal with complex financial and technical disclosure standards.
• Qualified Finance Professional 
• Exposure to a planning environment.
• Demonstrated experience and understanding of the impact of change.
• Evidenced experience of influencing the business to make commercially sound decisions 
• Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of financial and organisational/business context
• Demonstrated the ability to build and establish a credible business partnership with all areas of the organisation.
• Sound knowledge of accounting practices and understanding of tools and techniques to influence and partner across all levels of the organisation and flexibility to apply these in different circumstances.
• Experience of computer based accounting systems.
• Understanding of the general ledger and its feeder systems and coding structures.
• Knowledge of general accounting principles and legislation relating to budgetary control and financial management.
• Interpersonal skills 
 Ability to build highly effective and collaborative working relationships with all levels of the organisation.  
 Ability to communicate complex technical issues in a simple way to meet the needs of a diverse audience.  
 Strong influencing skills.  
 Negotiation and conflict resolution. 
 Logical and organised approach.

• Technical Skills 
 Ability to think strategically and understand the broader organisational issues.  
 Strong problem solver, using a variety of analytical and influencing techniques to formulate a proposed way forward. 
 Strong modelling and analysis skills, including the use of Excel. 

• Management skills
 Ability to work with a relatively low level of supervision, prioritise and communicate the impact of conflicting demands to ensure deadlines are met.

 

 

Guide Dogs welcomes applications from all sections of the community and actively encourages diversity to maximise achievements, creativity and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or nationality. 

 

 

If you are successful you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK via our digital ID checking supplier; in addition, we cannot offer visa sponsorship at this time.

 

Every day is different at Guide Dogs. And no person with sight loss is the same. We work side by side, on our sites and in the community, in schools and on our streets, supporting people to live the life they choose. Our staff therefore also work in different ways to support the delivery of our life changing work.

Guide Dogs is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children, young people and adults at risk of harm with whom we work. We expect all our employees and volunteers to fully share this commitment.

At Guide Dogs, we believe in fair and equitable hiring practices. A criminal record will not automatically disqualify an applicant from consideration for a position. Each case will be evaluated individually, taking into account the nature of the offense, its relevance to the role, and the time that has passed since the incident. We encourage all candidates to disclose relevant information, and we assure you that it will be handled confidentially and fairly.

 

Guide Dogs follow Safer Recruitment practices to ensure we are safeguarding the vulnerable people we work with. As part of this, we require a full work history with any gaps accounted for & a minimum of 2 professional referee details fully covering the past 5 years. If you are applying for a disclosure role, please note that you will be required to undergo an enhanced DBS check and sign up to the DBS update service.

 

You may have particular needs to be able to complete your application, If you would like support please contact our Recruitment Team on 0118 3540345 or [email protected]

 

As part of your application ensure you provide evidence and examples of how your skills & experience meet the criteria as set out in the attached job description.