Department Manager

Job Description

Department Manager

Reports to Head of Department Operations

​Purpose

​The Department Manager maintains the department schedules and allocates Department Supervisors and Artists to shows.

​Role of the Department Manager

​The Department Manager is responsible for maintaining and developing a highly skilled team of Department Supervisors, Leads, Key Artists and Artists. They oversee the overall labour spend, day to day resourcing, employee engagement, on-going team development, and managing and guiding artists and employees within their department. The role works closely with Resource Planning, Department Supervisors, Production Managers (PM), in partnership with the Head of Department (HoD), they contribute to the timely and efficient completion of shows and foster an effective working team.

​As part of the Production Operations leadership team, this role will partner across departments and disciplines, especially production operations, to inform and implement change programmes and drive performance and culture – fostering a healthy, positive, and inclusive environment.

​Project lifecycle stages – when is the Department Manager involved?

Award > Set-Up > Build > Turnover > Delivery > Close
• Oversee the VFX Department Coordinators' department schedule

​Key responsibilities

​People management
• ​Manage the employee relationship with the artist, including being the communicator regarding key matter relating to their employment, collaborating with HR where relevant
• ​Assume responsibility for ensuring that the disciplines and employees (where relevant) understand and adhere to the boundaries, policies, and processes in which we operate
• ​Performance management, appraisal, and career progression guidance of artists in consultation with the HoD, Supervisors, Leads and PMs ensuring artist performance has been assessed correctly and feedback communicated.
• ​In conjunction with the HoD, identify skill gaps and high potential employees within the team; helping to ensure we have right team in the right place at the right time
• ​Work with Production, Resourcing and HR to manage high volume cycle of artists' contracts ending/renewals; reviewing contract end dates in the context of changing work demands and crewing options in order to communicate changes to artists.
• Scheduling and Team Set Up
• ​Attend meetings to assess quota performance and work with the show and production teams to address performance
• ​Review anticipated schedules & quotas to agree and determine resource requirements with the Producers and PMs
• ​Run weekly meetings with producers to review their publishes and address any challenges in resource
• ​Work with production and HoD to ensure artist teams are appropriately assigned work by the department coords and show teams
• ​In conjunction with the HoD, assign individuals to show teams and ensure team dynamics are effective
• ​Manage and report on team overtime and TOIL requests with HoD and HR
• ​Manage the department production team (coordinators and assistants) to maintain department schedules and track assignments and statuses of tasks.

​Hiring Management
• ​Manage hiring requests in line with show demand
• ​Oversee recruiting activities and the hiring process for the team ensuring there is a commercial balance between skills and cost, and a fast-decision-making process.
• ​Advise on interview/hiring processes and ensure diversity and equality KPI's are met
• ​Ensure all hires are process within 100% budget spend
• ​Conduct interviews, and introduce effective processes for ensuring the scalability of the interviewing process as the team grows

​Financial Management
• ​Work with HR and Head of Production Operations to manage salary levels and Department Salary Spreadsheet (DSS) reporting ensuring each discipline is in a cost positive position, and any proposals or decisions account for how commercially viable they are
• ​Plan and balance promotion and retention spend in line with external hiring
• ​Oversee other spend such as overtime and understand financial impact

​Engagement and Proposition
• ​Champion a positive and creative culture of high performance, supporting the brand as a global industry leader in visual effects
• ​Work with the Head of Production Operations to propose and introduce initiatives to support the culture and values
• ​Manage reward and recognition activities, ensuring that the appropriate people are selected in line with MPC culture
• ​Work with the Head of Production Operations to adopt, embed and roll out company initiatives within the team
• ​Oversee the management of new starters ensuring a positive experience into the studio and team, including making sure they have the appropriate discipline onboarding to make sure that have the information/training need to perform their role
• ​Support MPC's external positioning by actively sharing social posts

Key Performance Indicators
• ​Happy engaged team
• ​Maximise retention. < 10% attrition
• ​Valid operational schedules within department
• ​Within compliance measures
• ​Department crew are effectively skill matched to the tasks/show (casting)
• ​Allocated crew are effectively tasked
• ​Schedule maintained and task statuses correct
• ​Resource Management
• ​IDL show spend within agreed budgets
• ​Maintain agreed average salaries
• ​Utilisation - headcount assigned to shows – above 80%
• ​EFF% - Bid Vs Actual – above 85%
• ​Timesheet compliance – 100%

​Department Manager governance checklist
• Supply Management - Have resources been appropriately allocated across projects?
• Sourcing resources - Working within TCS standards with recruitment and WFP
• Project performance - Are artists assigned to projects performing to expectation?

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-rzz102-18-191-18-87-42 in your application.