What does a Shift Manager do?
Shift Managers oversee lower-level staff and report to upper management. They allocate tasks to their team based on speciality and availability. They ensure that their team is adequately resourced by recruiting additional staff for seasonal cover. Shift Managers deal with complaints and act as the first point of escalation from their team.
Shift Managers ensure that their staff have what they need to perform their jobs to the best of their ability. They manage floats in cash registers, schedule working patterns to ensure that all staff have the breaks they are entitled to and deliver training to staff as required.
Shift Manager skills and qualifications
A successful Shift Manager candidate will have various prerequisite skills and qualifications to perform their job effectively, these include:
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
- Leadership and management skills
- Problem-solving abilities
- Strong time management skills and the ability to prioritise their workload effectively
- Diplomatic nature and ability to resolve issues efficiently and professionally
- Efficiency and ability to identify ways to improve processes and systems
- Relevant industry knowledge
Shift Manager experience requirements
There are no specific experience requirements for a Shift Manager role, but Shift Managers typically work in a lower-level role before earning promotion to a supervisory position. This gives them valuable experience of the roles of the staff that they are supervising and enables them to provide cover when needed. Experience of using shift management or scheduling software is an advantage.
Customer-facing roles can provide useful experience for a Shift Manager, as they will often need to deal with issues that have been escalated beyond their team members. Any management or leadership experience is also an advantage for a Shift Manager. Experience working in the industry is a bonus, as is a prior role that has required the candidate to deliver training or allocate tasks to other team members.
Shift Manager education and training requirements
There are no specific education or training requirements for a Shift Manager, but typically they have GCSE passes in maths and English. Depending on the level of seniority of the role, a degree or some further training may be required. Candidates who have completed training such as a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) or City & Guilds qualification in administration or staff management will have an advantage. Health and safety training or other regulatory certifications are helpful for Shift Managers.
Shift Manager salary expectations
According to Indeed Salaries, the average salary for a Shift Manager in the UK is £30,890 per year. This is dependent on the size of the team they are managing, the level of training required and the area of the country in which the role is based.
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