Career Change and Rehoming Manager (Health)

The Career Change and Rehoming Manager (Health) helps people with sight loss live the life they choose by leading a team of Career Change and Rehoming Specialists (Community), based in the community, to deliver effective delivery of health, wellbeing and training support for dogs who are no longer suitable for or leaving the Guide dogs programmes, supporting their transition into alternative roles or new homes. The role ensures consistent person-centred support for volunteers, clients and dogs in the community. Working closely with the Veterinary Services and Operational teams, the role ensures high standards of canine health, ethical decision making and continuous improvement across the career change service.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership and Line Management

• Provide first-line leadership and line management to the Career Change and Rehoming Specialists (Community), fostering high performance and engagement.

• Manage recruitment, development and performance of a geographically dispersed team, ensuring team members are equipped to meet operational objectives.
• Promote staff and volunteer and Guide dog owner engagement through inclusive leadership, professional development, and values-led behaviours.
• Ensure all staff and volunteers adhere to safeguarding and welfare policies, working collaboratively with relevant departments.
• Build team resilience and encourage continuous learning and shared accountability.

Operational Delivery and Service Improvement

• Manage the delivery of a consistent, ethical and standardised approach transition of withdrawn dogs into and through Career Change and Rehoming ensuring quality and sustainable outcomes.
• Ensure consistency and compliance in rehoming practices by implementing standardised operational guidance, frameworks and process improvements.
• Support the creation and implementation of improvement plans where gaps in standardisation or quality are identified, using data and feedback to drive innovation.
• Ensure the team works efficiently and effectively to meet demand, balancing dog welfare, organisational goals and customer expectations.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to ensure integration between rehoming processes and the wider dog supply chain, identifying and addressing health-related dependencies.

Subject Matter Expertise and Compliance

• Act as the subject matter expert for health-related transition into career change and rehoming Services and/or new homes, providing leadership of health and wellbeing during Career Change and Rehoming and support of our retired guide dogs.
• Use veterinary insight to contribute to the development of national policies, procedures, and improvement projects related to health withdrawals.
• Ensure all activities and decisions relating to health transition, Career change and rehoming and retirement are ethically informed and evidence-based, in line with internal policy and external regulation.
• Support and uphold safeguarding, health and safety and compliance requirements across all aspects of the service.

Collaboration and Communication

• Collaborate with Veterinary, Buddy dog services, Dog Supply, Breeding, Welfare and Training and Behaviour teams to ensure continuity and quality of service when dogs are withdrawn or retired.
• Liaise with Partners and volunteers to ensure a smooth and ethical career change and rehoming journey.
• Support internal stakeholders such as Fundraising, Marketing and Policy with subject expertise where needed.
• Ensure consistent communication of policies, processes, and service developments to internal teams and volunteers.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Continuous Improvement

• Monitor outcomes and consistency of health-related career change and rehoming and retirement placements, evaluating success using KPIs, compliance data, and feedback.
• Respond to complaints and service feedback in a professional, ethical and timely way, ensuring insights lead to improvement.
• Use data to inform service performance, address variances, and develop action plans for ongoing quality assurance.
• Ensure the voice of customers, Guide dog owners and volunteers is heard and used to shape service delivery and inform improvements.

Planning and Delivery

• Contribute to the development and delivery of plans for Career Change and Rehoming (Health) services in alignment with organisational goals.
• Use health trends, data and capacity forecasts to anticipate and plan for future service demand.
• Collaborate with the Dog Supply and Welfare teams to ensure productive and efficient delivery of Career Change and Rehoming service.
• Support with operationalising change and continuous improvement initiatives.
  
  

Financial Focus

• Ensure resource use is cost-effective, aligned with budgetary expectations and contributes to overall organisational efficiency.
• Monitor and manage team, volunteer expenditure, external and internal vet related expenditure and claims in line with allocated budgets, working with the Head of Career Change and Rehoming where needed.
• Support the Head of Career Change and Rehoming in monitoring relevant budgets, ensuring effective and efficient use of resources.

Professional Development

• Identify and address learning needs within the Career Change and Rehoming (Health) team, providing coaching, training and development opportunities.
• Facilitate workshops and learning interventions to develop understanding of dog health, career change and rehoming standards, and Guide Dogs’ operational approach.
• Support CPD and learning for volunteers and staff across the wider team, fostering a culture of knowledge-sharing and improvement.
• Stay up to date with current research, legislation, and sector best practice, using this insight to inform the continuous development of Guide Dogs’ health services.

How to apply 

Further details on the full role are attached below. When you are ready to apply, submit an online application form via this page.

If you would like to have an informal conversation about the role before applying, or require any accessibility support to apply, our friendly recruitment team is ready and waiting to help. Call them on 0118 3540345 or drop an email to [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. You will also be asked to complete a few job-specific questions as part of this application process, so please be prepared to write your answers to these questions.

If you want to know more about the teams who work at Guide Dogs, you can find it on our Careers Page

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

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. 

As a Disability Confident Employer, we are proud, whenever possible, to offer an interview to all candidates that meet our selection criteria, and who indicate they wish their application to be considered under our Disability Confident interview commitment. For more details, visit our careers site.

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.

Safeguarding

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.

For high volumes of applications, we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than advertised.