Job Details
Job Title: General Manager – Community Bike Shop & Cafe
Location: Lambeth, SW4 7BX. This is expected to be a fully on site role.
Contract: Full-time, permanent (40 hours per week) Monday to Friday with some Saturdays
Salary: £40,000 per annum
Reports to: Head of Commercial
Line management: for a small team (initially 3 staff, with potential to grow)
About Us
Abbevilles Bikes is an exciting new social enterprise offering expert bike repairs to the public, with an onsite cafe. Our experienced bike technicians and baristas will work alongside volunteer workforce members who have mental health issues and other barriers to employment, helping them gain skills and experience to enter work.
Abbevilles is owned and run by First Step Trust (FST) charity, which has over 30 years experience in providing training and work experience to disadvantaged learners. Role Purpose The General Manager will be responsible for the overall day-to-day operation and development of Abbevilles Bikes, ensuring the successful delivery of both its commercial activities and social impact objectives.
Job Summary
We are looking for a motivated, proactive and organised Manager to oversee social enterprise operations at Abbevilles. You will be responsible for the running of the bike workshop and cafe, balancing commercial targets with providing high quality on the job training for people moving back into work. You will also be working closely with our London training team who will deliver training courses for the community in the space for part of the week.
This is an exciting and varied role, ideal for someone passionate about the role of social enterprise and community business to change people’s lives. This is a hands on role in a new venture, and you will need to be prepared to get stuck in and turn your hand to whatever needs doing, motivating your team to make the project a success. In return you’ll have the chance to grow an innovative social business from the start, with loads of opportunities for growth and development. While an interest and enthusiasm for bikes would be a plus you’ll be working with skilled bike mechanics who will work the bike magic in the workshop.
Key Responsibilities
Bike shop
- Set up and run a successful bike repair shop, providing bike servicing and repair to individual and trade customers, covering both standard and electric bikes.
- Oversee bike technicians to deliver excellent bike servicing and repair in line with industry standards
- Drive sales and profit, being proactive in identifying areas for improvement. With support from the Head of Commercial your role will be to ensure the project meets income and sales targets to become financially self sustaining.
- Manage bookings and appointments efficiently, including scheduling jobs, ordering parts, preparing job sheets, estimates and invoices
- Be the reception/front of house lead, greeting customers and answering phone and email enquiries, and liaising with technicians to provide clear and accurate information to customers. As the project grows you may have capacity to hire a receptionist, but initially this will need to be a hands on part of the role.
- Maintain GDPR compliant customer records
- Supervise reception/front of house workforce volunteers and support them to learn workplace skills
- Contribute to marketing by providing content for social media, organising promotional offers, sending customer newsletters, and building relationships with trade customers.
Cafe
- Supervise barista/ cafe staff to deliver excellent customer service to cafe customers
- Meet cafe sales targets, including setting pricing and identifying ways to promote sales
- Identify and liaise with local food producers and community food organisations to become suppliers for the cafe
- Support cafe staff to order cafe supplies and equipment, and maintain stock checks
- Allocate shifts to paid cafe staff and work experience volunteers
Training and development
- Provide on site support to the training team delivering training courses on site. The training is managed by our London Training & Employment Manager who will schedule trainers and monitor training quality, but you will be required to be the senior onsite representative in their absence.
- Work closely with the Employment Support Worker to make sure work placements in the bike shop and cafe are well supervised and workforce are gaining skills to move forward towards paid work
- Work with the Learning Products Manager to develop an accessible in person and VR training bike mechanic training programme
- Provide effective line management to staff, supporting performance, development and engagement
- Budget management, including rigorous tracking of income and expenditure targets and ensuring accurate financial information and records are submitted to the finance department
- Contribute to funder reports for Abbevilles grants and service contracts where needed.
Health and safety
- Responsible for health and safety across the project, working closely with bike technicians and cafe staff to ensure systems and processes are followed and all legal requirements and best practice are met. Support will be provided by our Facilities Manager and FST’s Health and Safety lead.
- Ensure the cafe is meeting the highest food safety and hygiene standards
Other
- Ensure the activities on site are carried out in line with FST values and policies, including adult safeguarding processes.
- Liaise with the building management company and ensure good relationships are maintained with neighbours
Requirements
- Experience managing operations, projects or services, including responsibility for staff and budgetsDemonstrable experience in running a small business or commercial project, ideally but not necessarily in the social enterprise or community business sector
- Ability to take ownership of a service and make operational decisions independently
- An entrepreneurial approach, strong commercial acumen and an eagerness to drive sales and efficiency
- Friendly and professional manner, and a commitment to excellent customer service
- Sufficient bike technical knowledge to advise customers and liaise with technicians, or a willingness to quickly learn this
- Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment
- Excellent communication skills, and the ability to build volunteers’ confidence
- IT skills including Microsoft Office and Sharepoint
- An interest and enthusiasm for bikes- a basic level of bike maintenance skills would be even better but is not a requirement!
- Skills in marketing and business growth
- Understanding of mental health issues and other barriers to employment facing Londoners with multiple disadvantages
What we offer
- Workplace pension with generous employer contributions
- Staff discounts in the bike shop, cafe and FST’s other social enterprises including SMaRT Garage Services in Woolwich
- Supportive and friendly working environment
- Opportunities for training and career development, including external mentoring
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