Animal Welfare Assistant, Manchester

Radcliffe | £21,622 pro rata per annum

Employer: Blue Cross for Pets
Sector/Specialism: Charity

Animal Welfare Assistant, Manchester Rehoming Advice and Behaviour unit
Salary: £21,622 pro rata per annum
Location: Radcliffe, Greater Manchester
Closing date: 26th February

We currently have the following contracts available:
Permanent, Full time (42 hours/5 days)
Permanent, part time (21 hours/3 days)
Fixed term contract until Dec 23, part time (21 hours/3 days)

Blue Cross are one of the UK’s leading animal welfare organisations for animals. We support sick, injured and homeless pets and care for more than 40,000 animals every year through our rehoming, veterinary and education programmes.

What is the role?
We are currently recruiting for Animal Welfare Assistants to work as part of our team delivering a first-class customer experience, answering queries and matching and rehoming pets effectively and by presenting a professional and friendly approach both face to face and over the telephone and email. The role is about helping pets on their journey, whether that is staying with their owners, transferring to a larger centre, or finding a new family. The successful candidate will need to gain satisfaction from helping pets and not necessarily direct animal contact as we don’t always have pets onsite - pets may be in foster care, on our home direct scheme or we may support owners to keep their pets.

Our Blue Cross team members will be passionate about animal welfare and have a desire to help pets and people. We are looking for success orientated individuals who are self-starters and will thrive on the challenge of working in a Blue Cross rehoming and advice unit. Accurate record keeping, decision making skills and ability to work both in a team and alone are essential.

All positions are on a locally agreed rota which includes weekends and public holidays. (full time hours for this role are 42 hours per week).

Want to know more the detail? Great! We have attached the job description which hopefully gives you everything you need.

What is required?
We are looking for people with the following:
• Valid manual driving licence, this role requires a significant amount of driving
• Paid or voluntary employment with domestic animals
• Experience of working with members of the public in a customer service environment
• Sound administrative skills, including computerised systems
• Experience of working to strict health and safety procedures
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
• Good literacy and numeracy skills.
• Experience of cash handling

It would be great if you had:
• Paid or voluntary employment in an animal welfare environment
• Experience of working with volunteers
• Animal management qualification or equivalent experience gained through employment or vocational training
• Animal behaviour qualification or equivalent experience gained through employment or vocational training

Why work for Blue Cross?
• 38 days annual leave (including bank holidays)
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Holiday exchange & enhanced parental leave
• Annual volunteer days
• Long service awards, starting from 5 years
• Huge range of discounts across high street stores, insurance services & more
To read more about the benefits Blue Cross has to offer, please visit the 'why work for us' page on our website.

To apply for this role, all candidates must complete the online application process. Interviews will be held 7th-8th March and will consist of a competency based interview and a practical animal handling assessment.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response.

At Blue Cross we are passionate about our commitment to diversity, inclusion and removing barriers, should you like to discuss any reasonable adjustments or changes to our recruitment process to support you to be your best then please get in touch. You can get in touch with us either via email at jobs@bluecross.org.uk, via telephone on 01993 825515 or if you would prefer a video call then we can arrange this using Microsoft Teams.

Blue Cross holds inclusion as a core organisational value. We positively encourage applications from suitably qualified, experienced and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, transgender status, religion or belief, marital status or pregnancy and maternity. We actively embrace our differences and know that it is our differences that make us unique. You are very welcome at Blue Cross, without the need to hide any part of who you are.