Operations Manager - South West

Our Lounge Operations Managers play a pivotal role in the success of our business. Working alongside an Operations Chef you will manage an area of c.10 Lounges across North Somerset and Devon. (The area size is a nod to our unique determination to drive amazing attention to detail) remaining close to our teams and our customers every day. What makes a Lounge is the people that work there and therefore your team will be your absolute number 1 priority, spotting amazing talent; having aces in the right places, celebrating success; creating a real buzz and a sense of belonging for our team, plus developing great managers and leaders through training, coaching and mentoring. We're about unrelenting standards, we absolutely love people who never settle and our ultimate goal is that every customer leaves happy. The day to day...

• Relentlessly on the hunt to find great talent to join your Lounges at all levels, with a specific focus on building a high performing and loyal team of Lounge HODs across your sites and have succession in place
• Ensuring the culture of our loungers are welcoming; fun; vibrant above all a home from home for our customers and team, every hour of every single day. Finding the small things (and the really big ones) that help to make our Lounges real pulls for team and customers alike
• Getting the best out of your team by understanding what makes them tick as individuals, ensuring there are clear priorities in place and that that there is a strong culture of honest two-way feedback aimed to building confidence and capability
• Developing your management/leadership team through having clear development plans in place and providing opportunities to develop their skills to progress. Challenging and supporting your GMs to develop their own teams by prioritising training, coaching and developing their people to progress with the Company
• Help to plan and execute 14 great shifts across every site every day. This means having the right people on the right shifts, back up plans in place, as well as quality forecasting, ordering and rota management.
• Ensuring that sites and management teams are delivering on our unique Loungers' Commitments, including fair rotas; 121 conversations every 6 months plus the things that make Lounges a unique place to work for teams
• Making the most of your time in a week by frequently visiting your sites to get stuck into service, poke your head in every nook and cranny, help to train and coach your kitchen teams. We expect most sites to be visited at least once a week by their Ops Managers and we know this is where you have the biggest impact
• Developing, planning and executing all operational aspects for your Lounge caf/bars through being exceptionally close to the detail of your Lounges, your people, your customers, your standards and processes, and of course your community
• Finding ways to add your own unique footprint and personality to your role and your Lounges whilst sticking to our cause.
• Through your own passion as well as the right processes, make sure that there is strong community engagement through engagement and outreach activities, and we're truly providing a place where our local communities feel a sense of belonging. This means social media engagement, events as well as 'The Good Stuff' and supporting those in the community who really need our help.
• Being prepared throw yourself in the deep end working shoulder to shoulder with your kitchen teams, on anything from clearing tables during a busy lunchtime rush, prepping food to cover a sickness, or reaching out to customers where we've fallen short of our high standards to recover them. We love nothing more than honest old school hospitality.
• Deliver daily and weekly the Ops Manager expectations - making sure rota's are submitted on time, orders are accepted, stock takes completed and everything in between
• Collaborating with your Ops peer group to help input into key decisions or based on your detailed understanding of your businesses and your area
• Feeding new ideas to your Regional Operations Manager in how we can be better everyday, and ensuring we challenge processes and practices that get in the way of great experiences for our team and customers
• Working in partnership with your Ops Chef ensure there is clear alignment against priorities for your sites, that front of house and back of house leaders are working in tandem, cross-training and that you're both on the same page
• Daily reporting on all aspects of site performance, including the detail behind every shift, your P&Ls and your people. Remember we take complete pride in our slightly obsessive attention to detail on the small things as we know this is where we can win or lose
• Delivering on our key performance indicators, from customer wait times, to Net Promoter Scores and EBITDA, plus everything in between.
In our roles at Loungers, there is a lot to wrap your head around. So we care more about who you are and what you're capable of, than what you've done. We've described who we're looking for through our Coat Hangers. The behaviours and values we think will make you successful. Being totally frank, if these don't sound like you, then Lounges probably isn't for you either! Who Do We Look For?
• You Believe. In yourself and your leadership, in your team, in bringing people together and in our cause. You believe that delivering a great experience, making sure our customers leave happy and our teams loving what they do 14 shifts a week is achievable day in-day out.
• You're honest: And have the strength of character to own up to what's not going right and tell it like it really is.
• Care for your team: You genuinely care and are interested about the people that work for you and make it show. You know how to keep your team motivated and engaged and how to get the best out of them flexing your leadership style accordingly. For those wanting to progress you can help and support them grow and reach their aspirations.
• Command the detail: You're all over the stocks, rotas, labour, H&S, lightbulbs, the nooks and crannies of the sites - delivering uncompromising standards both front and back of house, and knowing what part everyone plays. Ultimately you get it done.
• Never settle: For second best that is. You obsess about learning from yesterday and getting better, in each site, every single day from every opportunity and helping your team to do the same. We're not a 24/7 business, but we do expect hard work and commitment.
• Do it your way: You lead your team and your businesses through your own unique style and personality, making it your own. You don't look for robots but recruit and develop people that bring their true selves to work., You are probably a GM or HC, Operations Manager or Area/Regional Manager in bars or restaurants or cafes/Coffee shops already with fresh food and wet-led experience;
• You will have had multi-site hospitality experience across bars; restaurants; caf's, or something in between;
• Even though you're in a management role, you balance your time between managing and getting stuck in. We want people who still want to be part of the buzz of delivering awesome old school hospitality. Not management through emails.
• You will have been in senior leadership positions in a large turnover single site or multi-site capacity and have demonstrated inspiring and motivating large teams
• You will be familiar with managing through clear KPIs and making commercial decisions to deliver the overall EBITDA and revenue requirements
• Your ambition will keep you driven and focused on getting better, every single day, and wanting to make a big impact
• You may have come from either a front of house (General Management) or back of house (Food Development/Head Chef) role in the past. Either works for us
• You will know what it's like to be all over the detail and manage across a number of competing priorities
  
  At Lounges, we have a clear objective that runs through everything we do. We call this 'the Cause': our Lounge is a home-from-home, offering delicious food and drinks, all day, on your doorstep.
We exist to bring people together and our unique atmosphere changes hour by hour with each wave of new customers. We are proud of our Lounge and its community, and our aim is simple - every customer leaves happy. We pride ourselves on having the best hospitality team around. We're the kind of place where a job naturally turns into a career, and as we're growing so rapidly, there are plenty of opportunities. It really is down to you how far you go! We ensure you get solid training, so you never feel out of your depth, and offer plenty of incentives, bonuses and recognition for everyone! Loungers is a substantial and growing operator in the UK hospitality sector, operating over 230 sites in England and Wales across three distinct but complementary brands, Lounges, Cosy Club, and Brightside. Founded in 2002 by three friends who wanted to create a neighbourhood caf-bar that they would want to go to, the Group is now the only growing all-day operator of scale in the UK and has consistently outperformed the wider UK hospitality sector over the past three years. Despite being the fastest growing café/restaurant group in the country, Loungers has retained its entrepreneurial spirit and quirky and Loungey local community atmosphere.


• Competitive salary + annual achievable bonus paid 2x a year.
• Opportunity to participate in the Loungers Management Share Plan programme
• Company car allowance
• Full expenses and mileage provided
• Great opportunity for personal development and career progression in a fast growing business
• Annual Ops trip to somewhere sunny. Honest!
• 50% discount on food from day 1
• The best staff party - Loungefest (see our video).