Recruitment Call: Head of Visitor Experience and Audience Services - now closed

Role specification:

The role is created to ensure that:

• Engagement and Experience remains at the heart of all company activities.
  
  
• Our values remain at the core of all that we do.
  
  
• Our existing programmes are delivered, developed and grow.
  
  
• We regularly review and develop our programmes in line with best practice.

The role involves three main areas:

1. Managing the day to day operations, including Front of House services in the cultural buildings that we operate. This means focusing on engaging audiences and facilitating them to create the conditions across our tour offerings and buildings and our Culture Company offerings in general.
   
   
2. The welcome is an essential part of this team's role for creating the conditions for engaged audiences and ensuring quality control and the continued delivery of people-focused visitor experiences. We have developed a reputation as being wonderful places to visit or projects to be involved in, which give a warm welcome and are special places that share experiences and respect people's memories.
   
   To retain this reputation we need a senior manager who is focused on making sure all of our visitor-facing team members are utilising their soft skills appropriately and consistently in line with the value of the Culture Company.
   
   With the growth of the Company in terms of buildings and staff, someone needs to continuously assess and appropriately train the front of house teams, facilitators and coordinators to ensure that the quality of delivery of the "welcome" and the experience is always visitor focused and to ensure that the visitor and user experience is optimised across all programming for the Culture Company.
   
   
3. The experiences of our tours and tour guides, including content, quality control and training is an essential ingredient to our tour offers. This role will lead the tour guide training and development systems, oversee the training of new guides, as well as the continuous management and quality control of the current tour offerings and management of this process across all programmes as part of quality control measures.

Key responsibilities:

Running a Department:

You will lead the Visitor Experience and Audience Services Department, by line managing the Front of House Team, Visitor Experience Team and Tour Guide Team and other team members and suppliers if and when recruited, alongside a team of expert suppliers and contractors and other team members as appropriate.

Being a Senior Manager:

The Head of Visitor Experience and Audience Services is a key part of the senior management team, reporting to the CEO and working closely with other Heads of Departments (Engagement, Development, Operations, Creative Engagement and Communications) to help achieve our ambitious aims to connect the citizens of Dublin through culture and conversation.

As a member of the senior management team you are expected to link in with other Heads of Department, working closely together to not only ensure smooth collaborative working practice, but also as they have a deep and keen knowledge of what the company stands for and is aiming for with its goals.

Our key partnership is with the people who call Dublin home. Manage, mediate, and engage positively with all participants and partners - including local community groups and clubs, advisory groups, artists, participants, corporate, government bodies, stakeholders, - both personally and through collaboration with colleagues. We work hard to keep accessibility at the forefront of planning in all areas of our work in line with the Company's accessibility goals as laid out in the Company's Universal Design and Accessibility Policy.

Venue Management and Front Of House Operations for Richmond Barracks and 14 Henrietta Street:

• Oversight of all administrative reporting by the Front of House (FOH) teams including monitoring of financial procedures including stock takes, monthly cash and credit card reconciliation via Ticketsolve and other established reporting processes.
• Oversight of the FOH team’s management of daily and weekly procedures, collection care checklists, key holding cash handling and finance reconciliations
• Lead the team to achieve optimal capacity targets for guided tours on the sites.
• Supervision of the Facilities services as arranged by the Operations department and assist in reporting and liaison as required
• Venue-related Health & Safety oversight and training ensuring Health and Safety compliance for visitors, artists, team members and guides is a priority across all our sites.

Visitor Experience and Customer Service in our buildings and across all of our programmes:

• Ensure a smooth functioning of the buildings in all aspects of its role to the public and the team and that the highest standards of customer service are maintained at all times.
• Oversee supervision of buildings during opening hours to ensure an effective and engaging visitor experience.
• Implement appropriate management structures and operational controls to secure the future plans for the venues in conjunction with the creative and programming teams.
• Work to deliver the running of the visitor experience, linking with the work of the tours, events, classes and other activity as planned for the venue, museum and exhibition development and its plans into the future.
• Work to support Audience Development Plans with ambitious and realistic targets and planned actions for cross departmental implementation.
• Develop and maintain key relationships with members of the local community, stakeholders and Dublin City Council.

Historical tours - Content offer and tour development including:

• 14 Henrietta Street:
  • Quality control review and development of the offer including commissioning research and new content as required to enhance the offer for the public.
  • Lead guide team in researching new tour offerings or enhancements to the offers and scripts and experiences already existent.
  • Oversee the development of various events tour offerings, including school tours, accessible tours and Mobile Museum.
  • Linking with all programmes through working groups or in person co-working so that they are as many possible links and work efficiencies and communication opportunities easily reached
  • Refine the schools engagement programme in conjunction with the guide team from the visitor experience department.
• Richmond Barracks:
  • Develop a schools and learning offer in conjunction with the Culture Connects Team as part of the Creative Engagement department.
  • Manage the Fairs at Richmond Barracks, working with Project Manager and FOH teams to ensure the set up and facilitation of four self programmed Fairs per year.
  • Quality control review and development of the historical tour offer including commissioning research and new content as required to enhance the offer for the public.

About the candidate

The ideal person for this role will meet the following criteria:

Essential:

• A minimum of four years of equivalent experience in a relevant role is essential
• A knowledge and/or expertise in audience services, front of house and team management in customer service area
• Experience of project management and effectively managing people and/or teams.
• Excellent working knowledge of ticketing systems (we use Ticketsolve), reporting, and rostering systems.
• Proven experience in worthing in the area of visitor experience, heritage or cultural activity, projects or programmes.
• Ability to plan, organise and lead a project, and to work to deadlines with flexibility around working hours
• Ability to prioritise competing work demands, working independently and collaboratively as part of a team

Additional experience, which may be considered:

• An understanding of, and, ideally, experience in, preparing Engagement or audience development plans in a cultural or heritage context
• Experience of monitoring, evaluation and reporting of qualitative research or customer feedback
• Excellent communication, interpersonal skills
• Ability to engage with a wide range of people including colleagues, project partners, community groups and the general public.
• An interest and knowledge of the work of Dublin City Council Culture Company

Position summary:

Post Title:

Head of Visitor Experience and Audience Services, Dublin City Council Culture Company

Post Status:

Fixed Term Contract (full-time), three years; a six month probationary period applies.

Location: Dublin City Council Culture Company HQ, 14 Henrietta Street, Dublin 1, D01 HH34 and Richmond Barracks, Inchicore, Dublin 8, D08 YY05.

Reports to: Chief Executive, Dublin City Council Culture Company

Key relationships: Other departments as part of the senior management team; manages Visitor Experience Teams and Tour Guide team; supports and collaborates with Development, Engagement and Creative Engagement teams and programmes.

Salary: Full time salary of €48,000 per annum, prior to reward & recognition

Reward and recognition: All Dublin City Council Culture Company employees participate in the performance review and appraisal process annually. This process measures performance, considers training and development opportunities and is used to determine any reward (pay or annual leave increases) that may be applicable.

Annual Leave: 20 days plus seasonal restricted / compulsory assigned three to five days ("grace & favour" days), 23-25 days.

Pension: A contribution of 10% of salary will be made to an agreed pension savings scheme subject to the individual contributing a similar percentage.

Other benefits: Other Employee benefits include Employee Assistance Programme, Cycle to Work Scheme, Taxsaver Commuter Ticket Scheme for public transport to and from work, access to certified training and opportunities for professional development in your role.

Training: You will be provided with the necessary training for the key functions required of your role.

Professional development opportunities: will be discussed in line with company policy following your probation period.

Working from home: The company facilitates some working from home opportunities suitable to the requirement of the position; this can be discussed further with the successful candidate.

How to apply:

Applications are now invited from applicants who meet these published requirements. Applications must include the following:

• A CV, including the names and contact details of two referees. Note that referees will not be contacted without prior consent.
  
• A one page letter citing your specific skills, knowledge and experience relevant to the role specification and requirements set out here.

Please email recruitment@dublincitycouncilculturecompany.ie with “Head of Visitor Experience and Audience Services” in the subject line.

Closing date for this application is Sunday 30 April 2023. Applications received after the closing date and time will not be accepted.

The information supplied in your application will be reviewed against the requirements sent out in this notice by a panel to shortlist applicants and call people for an interview. Dublin City Council Culture Company reserves the right to shortlist applicants and/or call people for an interview. We envisage that any resulting first round interviews will be held during the week beginning 8 May 2023. subject to government guidelines, these may be online or in person. It will not be possible to provide application process feedback to unsuccessful applicants.

Garda vetting may be mandatory for successful applicants, and you must be cleared by the National Vetting Bureau before the work can commence. The successful applicant may also be required to complete mandatory training in line with the requirements of their role or broader company requirements.

Please note that Dublin City Council Culture Company is committed to developing policies and practices ensuring that accessibility, universal design and reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities are taken into account. Dublin City Council Culture Company is an equal opportunity employer. Please see our Equal Opportunities Policy here (PDF).

Please note that both the museum at 14 Henrietta Street and Richmond Barracks are Part M access compliant, and the offices of Dublin City Council Culture Company in both have limited physical access. Reasonable accommodation of access requirements will be made for successful applicants.

Interviews will take place in an accessible location. We are committed to respecting and protecting your privacy. We keep several kinds of personal data about our prospective employees so we can manage the recruitment process effectively and efficiently and meet our legal obligations. Please see our Privacy Notice for Job Applicants here (PDF).