VP for Contact Center Operations

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by diversity and inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health equity on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

 

The Vice-President for Contact Center Operations is a critical leadership role and a significant asset in the Optum Global Advantage (OGA) leadership team. This leader will be a key contributor to the growth of the organization by pulling levers on Operations performance and best-in-class customer and employee engagement.

 

The role is responsible for contact center operations for various business segments across all OGA geographies including the Philippines, India, Puerto Rico, as well as other future growth areas – from a strategy, execution/delivery and oversight perspective. S/he will build and demonstrate an understanding of relevant business areas’ leadership, structure, responsibilities, and workflow.  S/he will enable operational growth, align with customer needs and standards, implement these through local teams and focus on how to attract, retain and develop great talent.

 

The individual would directly control operations strategy, planning, and execution. S/he will partner with OGA enabling teams to strengthen workforce planning and execution,  implement continuous improvement (six sigma, industrial engineering, project management, etc.) in operational quality and financial performance; and incorporate operational performance data into strategic and business planning.  S/he will also, directly, set performance targets and monitor these through MBOs, create and manage a talent strategy in sync with OGA and Enterprise approach, the People Team, and workforce management. S/he will lead and spearhead engagement and/or communication to enhance internal and external employer brand.

 

Primary Responsibilities:

• Be a high-energy leader, responsible for providing leadership and building a high-performance, agile work environment. S/he will be responsible for developing, translating and communicating the group’s strategic vision and the resultant plans to the local teams. S/he will be actively involved in building strong relationship with the customers and Enterprise leaders to collaborate, co-innovate and support group level priorities
• The leader will bring the leadership and experience necessary to elevate operational performance that effectively delivers strategic value and positions the contact center operations for sustained growth. S/he will be highly effective at collaborative working with senior customer leaders and have outstanding communication and management skills, be comfortable with working at every level of the organization, be accustomed to managing high-pressure environments, have a keen ability to multi-task, and be comfortable in a “sleeves rolled up” role in a 24/7 environment
• Have ownership and accountability for the financial performance of contact center operations of various business segments. S/he will, therefore, bring an understanding of budgeting and forecasting tools, and processes to analyze the budgetary performance and variances throughout the fiscal year, and recommend and/or make necessary adjustments and corrections
•  Drive productivity and efficiency across locations and lines of business that s/he manages.  S/he will drive efficient and effective, agile processes to deliver quality solutions on time and within budget; facilitate deliverables prioritization and use of resources and implement best practices to improve productivity. S/he will work on managing resource allocation based on customer priorities and budgetary requirements, and on ensuring that a suitable operating discipline is established and maintained – processes, controls and metrics are adhered to and in driving change across the organization, focused on bringing in productivity enhancements through automation, tools, simplification and more
• Build and effectively manage partnerships and customer relationships. S/he will bring an innovation-oriented mind-set to identify and appropriately build transformation capabilities, automation, smart applications to further develop the capabilities in the operations businesses
• Partner with the people function and build capability and management depth to meet the pressing demands of growth. The individual will need to ensure that the leadership team is being developed, coached and mentored to scale and build out its competencies. A critical part of his/her role will be to manage talent through strong succession planning, management training and effectiveness, and to build diversity and bench strength at all levels. Very importantly, s/he will need to ensure that the right people are in the right positions and to conduct timely reviews to identify and bridge gaps in performance. S/he should be an inspiring leader who leads by example, builds high integrity within the team, and champions a strong commitment to the company’s values and long-term vision
• Comply with the terms and conditions of the employment contract, company policies and procedures, and any and all directives (such as, but not limited to, transfer and/or re-assignment to different work locations, change in teams and/or work shifts, policies in regards to flexibility of work benefits and/or work environment, alternative work arrangements, and other decisions that may arise due to the changing business environment). The Company may adopt, vary or rescind these policies and directives in its absolute discretion and without any limitation (implied or otherwise) on its ability to do so

Required Qualifications:

• Experience in building centres, scaling, growing footprint and developing new capabilities
• Global experience, working in an international market
• Expertise in Operations
• Knowledge of leading operations at a multi-country level
• Knowledge of leading large teams ( ≥ 10,000 people)
• Knowledge of managing resources across multiple sites

 

The ideal candidate will be a senior leader with expertise in Operations and with considerable experience in leading large teams. S/he should possess commercial and business acumen, P&L oriented thinking, strategic vision, global outlook and the leadership to take on a role of this stature. S/he will ideally have a successful track record of managing and delivering on transformational engagements, driving complex operations delivery / timelines and building long-term stakeholder relationships. 

 

Experience in people management, leading teams from the front, and building organizational capability is critical for success in this position. It is important that the ideal candidate is extremely SLA / delivery oriented, strategically driven and commercially oriented. The ideal candidate is business-friendly and focuses on business outcomes for customer success.

 

You will be entrepreneurial, energetic with excellent executive presence and with solid visioning and strategic capabilities. A convincing executive presence, the credibility and stature to carry stakeholders through influence, and the highest standards of personal integrity and trust, are key attributes for this position. An impeccable focus on building breadth and depth of leadership, driving collaboration & partnerships, taking ownership and accountability and building effective teams is extremely essential for this position. 

 

It will be important that the individual bring the ability to dive deep into the details, while maintaining a strategic view of the business and its challenges and opportunities.  At the same time, s/he will be someone who is equally comfortable operating in the trenches with his/her team and has the ability to roll up his/her sleeves to get things done.  S/he will have a hands-on style and a flexible attitude to balance across and work with different set of stakeholders, and have strong interpersonal, influencing and relationship skills. S/he will have strong verbal and written communication skills, and the personal ability to collaborate and communicate effectively with a culturally diverse group of peers and colleagues.  Additionally, the ability to operate effectively with senior stakeholders, exert influence across boundaries, and ensure speed of action in a distributed environment will be critical success factors for the position.

 

The ideal candidate will demonstrate the following leadership practices

 

Vision and Strategy Formulation: S/he will have the ability to assess the most likely future, partner with teams in developing and running scenarios. Have the ability to create the best strategic path, articulate vision and strategy and keep the plans on track.

 

Achievement Drive: S/he will set ambitious goals for the teams, would enable, and empower his/her team to show initiative and approach tasks with energy and confidence. The incumbent will be expected to motivate others with infectious enthusiasm and also partner effectively by deploying self against goals and objectives.

 

Developing Others: S/he will assemble aligned talent and clearly communicate goals and aspirations. The incumbent will be expected to create team accountability by leveraging best practice teaming processes. The incumbent will further the organization agenda by establishing a collaborative culture. Leading from the front, the incumbent would be expected to debrief team successes and failures.

 

Leading Change and Transitions: In a complex business environment, s/he will be expected to anticipate the need for change and times for transitions. To support the transition, the incumbent would need to develop detailed change plans ahead of the need and apply best practice change initiatives and techniques. The leader would help prepare people and groups for transition by understanding the emotions that groups/ individuals feel during change and transitions.

 

Motivating and Influencing: S/he will have a deeper understanding of what moves people to change, would have the interest and energy to deal with people individually and in teams. The leader will seek to inspire and motivate people by appealing to values, ideals and needs.

 

Uncertainty and Ambiguity Comfort: We work in an ever-evolving business environment and our leaders are expected to assess degrees of uncertainty and ambiguity related to key challenges. S/he will be expected to use probability thinking and language to communicate ambiguity and make uncertainty easier for others. Leading from the front, s/he will help others with the anxiety of ambiguity.

 

Systems Thinking: S/he will have the ability to see the bigger picture of how systems operate interdependently. Critical expectation will be to manage enterprise-wide alignment of organizational systems and utilize the right system for change and organizational functioning.

 

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone-of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income-deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes – an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.

 

 

Diversity creates a healthier atmosphere: Optum is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

 

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