Welfare Rights Apprentice Remote
Job description
Fixed Term Contract (15 months – apprenticeship programme)
Full Time (34.5 hours, Monday-Friday)
Salary: £20,500
Location: Home-based
Are you looking for a rewarding career in the charity sector that makes a positive financial impact for people living with cancer? Would you like to learn and develop skills in welfare policy, supporting benefit claims, and challenging social injustice? Do you have compassion, determination, and resilience which will come into its own while completing a customer service qualification alongside your role? If so, this could be the role for you!
About the Role
This role forms part of our Welfare Rights team based on the Macmillan Support Line. As a part of the team, you will be responsible for helping us support more people affected by the financial impact of cancer. This includes providing information around benefits entitlement or supporting people through each stage of the claim process. This is often at a time where people are under increased stress and may not be aware of the support available or have the energy to engage with it, making our role even more vital as we provide support when they need it most.
To give you an idea of the significant impact our team makes, in 2022 we were responsible for uncovering £99 million of unclaimed benefits for people living with cancer, and aim to reach even more people who need our help in 2023, we would love your help in achieving this.
This role forms part of our Welfare Rights Team based on the Macmillan Support Line. You will form a cohort of apprentices who will be fully supported in this role by our team and the apprenticeship provider while you work towards completing a Level 2 Customer Service qualification. Approximately 80% of time will be on-the-job training whilst 20% of your time will be spent working for your professional qualification.
We will help you to develop the interpersonal skills needed to handle emotional and complex situations and in understanding the technical knowledge required to navigate, provide advice and support around the welfare benefits system. Your work will be a mixture of classroom-based activities and live telephony interactions with our customers.
On completion of the apprenticeship programme, you will become a permanent Welfare Rights Adviser (subject to performance) providing multi-channel advice via telephone, webchat and written enquiries on our national Macmillan Support Line.
During the programme there will be an opportunity to attend training events at our Shipley offices and other in-person Macmillan events.
About You
We are looking for individuals who would pride themselves on delivering exceptional customer service through a variety of communication channels and whose personal values align to ours.
You will be flexible, open to feedback and have the drive and determination to learn and develop the key skills and knowledge needed for this role.
To be accepted onto the apprenticeship programme you must:
- live in England
- not already hold any qualification in Customer Services
- already hold a GCSE qualification (or equivalent) in Maths and English grade A-C.
As this apprenticeship post is covered by the government apprenticeship levy you will need to live in England to be accepted onto the apprenticeship programme and not already hold any qualification in Customer Services.
As this is a home-based role you will need:
- A reliable broadband connection with upload and download speeds of at least 3mbps.
- To comply with strict data protection rules you must have a private confidential space to work from.
We will provide all IT equipment needed for the role.
About Us
We help millions of people with cancer across the UK live life as fully as they can through physical, emotional and financial support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions. Together, we do whatever it takes for people living with cancer; with heart, with strength and with ambition.
We commit to actively developing you and offer benefits including private medical insurance, life assurance, pension, generous annual leave, and interest free loans for season ticket, gym membership and a vast range of discounts via our benefit platform which helps make our employees’ money go further.
We welcome applications from everyone who meet the criteria and strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Macmillan. Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee representation body, ‘Our Voice’ and 8 Employee Network groups help us promote fairness and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people.
We want to make our recruitment processes accessible to everyone, so if there is any way that we can support you to be the best you can be, including any adjustments to our recruitment processes, please contact the Macmillan People Services Team at [email protected].
Working Hours
Whilst on the apprenticeship programme you will work 34.5 hours per week from 9am - 5pm Monday to Thursday and 9am-4.30pm on Friday.
On completion of the programme, the service operates 365 days per year and your working hours will be scheduled on a six weekly rota system between 08:00-20:15, Monday – Sunday.
Recruitment Process
The application deadline is June 4th, 2023 at midnight.
If shortlisted you will be invited to take part in a screening process with our training partner, Remit, to ensure you meet the apprenticeship provider’s criteria for the course. We will be running two virtual engagement sessions via MS Teams on 7/8th June to explain this process and to enable you to find out more about the role.
Interviews for eligible candidates will then take place via MS Teams on June 19th, 20th, 21st, 2023.
The planned start date for this role is September 4th, 2023.
Please submit your application as soon as possible, as it is likely that this role will be closed early due to a high number of applications.
If you have any queries before applying, please contact Caroline Payne ([email protected]) who will be happy to help you.
Any offers on this role are made subject to a criminal records disclosure check or equivalent.
In order to ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all of our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed so that shortlisting is based solely upon the suitability of the candidate’s experience.
We aim to encourage a culture where people can be themselves and be valued for their strengths. We seek to attract and employ the best people from the widest talent pool, reflecting the diverse range of people we support.
