Advice Session Supervisor

As Advice Session Supervisor you will be responsible for overseeing daily advice sessions to ensure clients receive high-quality, accurate, and timely advice. You will provide support, guidance, and feedback to advice staff and volunteers, ensuring consistently high quality of service and managing the smooth practical running of advice sessions. You will support advisers working across a variety of channels, including face to face, telephone, and web-based channels as needed. This may include remote supervision of outreach advisers and advisers based in another office. You will be part of a team of Advice Session Supervisors both within your local offices of Abingdon and Didcot, and as part of our wider team across Oxfordshire, providing peer support to each other and working together to deliver a consistent, high quality service to our clients across the county.

Reporting to: Advice Services Manager

Line Manager to: Allocated core service volunteers and staff

Other key internal working relationships: Other Advice Session Supervisors, Finance Team and Core Services Manager

Core Purpose

The core purpose of the Advice Session Supervisor role is threefold:

- Ensuring quality: actively supporting the quality of advice while taking into account advisor capabilities and experience: guiding the team to information sources; checking that all aspects of a client's situation have been considered; ensuring that follow up work is progressed and that research and campaigns issues are identified.

- Providing support: actively supporting each team member to develop their skills and competences, by explaining, guiding, demonstrating, encouraging, suggesting, coaching, giving constructive feedback and challenging appropriately, adapting the level of support to individual competence and need, and taking account of the team as a whole.

Managing the practicalities of the session: allocating the team work as appropriate to the channel, managing waiting times and interview lengths, ensuring that appropriate appointments are booked, and if necessary dealing with client or Citizens Advice emergencies.

Role Profile

Service Delivery and Quality Assurance

- Check the rota and resources available before the session

- Brief the team at the beginning of the session and allocate work throughout the session

- Provide immediate guidance and support to advisers and caseworkers at any stage of the advice process

- Manage the session’s flow of clients and ensure the efficient use of resources (both physical and personnel)

- Carry out case checking in line with our quality assurance processes and provide constructive feedback to advisers

- Make sure the service is being delivered with the core service principles of confidentiality, independence, and impartiality in mind

- Deal with problems and emergencies, such as issues with clients, unexpected adviser absence, fire/safety issues, and equipment malfunctions as needed with support from the Advice Services Manager

- Prioritise your activities appropriately during busy sessions and be available to your advisers across multiple channels

- Provide assistance with Quality of Advice Assessments and Independent File Reviews as required by your local Advice Service Manager

- Provide remote supervision as required to assist with covering unexpected absences or supporting remote advisers

People Management and Development

- Recognise different levels and types of support requirement for each individual on the team

- Ensure fair allocation of work and encourage teamwork

- Acknowledge expertise and and utilise the strengths of team members to optimise our clients’ experience

- Actively support and reassure team members, offering help when difficulties are noticed

- Provide clear, actionable feedback to team members and constructively challenge negative attitudes

- Identify development and training needs to the individual and Advice Service Manager

- Actively support trainee advisers by case checking along with informal and formal recorded feedback to aid their progression to competence

- Hold regular supervisions and appraisals with advisers under your line management to promote their learning, performance, and development

- Contribute to the organisation’s learning and development plan thorough support and supervision

- Assist with selecting and onboarding new volunteers as required by your local Advice Service Manager