Senior Visitor Experience Officer

Job Description

Summary As one of the National Trust’s flagship properties in the East of England, we have big plans to take our visitor engagement to a whole new level and we need someone fantastic to help us deliver this. It is an exciting time at Wimpole: we have just completely revolutionised the visitor journey on site, spending £6m on a new car park and visitor welcome and we’re just about to embark on the delivery of a £1.36m Green Recovery Project. You will be a vital part of ensuring that we deliver an emotive experience through our programmed activities and work with partners both inside and outside of the National Trust. We want to look after this special place, for everyone, forever, and you will lead the Programming and Partnerships team to help achieve this ambition. You will have fantastic opportunities to engage and inspire our visitors to really understand the work we do across the whole of Wimpole Estate. So if you want to lead a team who will share their exceptional skill and creativity every day, for every visitor, come join us.This is a fixed term contractuntil 01 June 2023. What its like to work here More than your average National Trust site, Wimpole combines Hall, Gardens, Parkland and Farm in an amazing, complete working estate. The fertility of the land and ingenuity of people, over thousands of years, has made Wimpole what it is today. Its grandness in size and sometimes formality, belies Wimpole’s fundamental values of nourishment, purposefulness and sustainability. The stately mansion at its heart boasts one of the most significant libraries in the National Trust’s care, a striking Soane bathhouse and evocative basements. A favourite with families, Home Farm is unique in the National Trust, getting visitors up close to our animals, learning about food, historic farming and farming today. The 2,500 acre estate includes tenanted farms and cottages in addition to the in-hand arable land and grazed historic park. Our peaceful pleasure grounds host a collection of specimen trees while our Parterre provides pomp and the productive walled garden grows seasonal produce for our restaurants. We welcome over 350,000 visitors every year, and have the potential to reach more than 400,000. To make this happen, a team of around 100 staff and over 500 volunteers work here, in a wide range of roles: from farming to retail, catering to forestry, collections conservation to gardening, facilities management to visitor engagement. We’re proud of what we do. Our catering, retail and membership performance make us a flagship National Trust site, and together with money raised from tickets and events, every penny is reinvested in conservation, restoration and keeping Wimpole open for people to enjoy.Click here for more information about this location What youll be doing Wimpole is genuine, active, bustling, practical; a working estate. We celebrate both the natural and designed beauty of the estate and our work enhances it. We want to share our space, our stories and our work with our visitors, through demonstration and participation and your work will be instrumental in helping us to realise this vision.This role is responsible for the visitor journey and smooth operational running of Wimpole- from high standards of presentation, orientation and service, to the telling of Wimpole’s story through core interpretation. You will lead and inspire a team of Service Assistants and a Business Services Coordinator as well as be responsible for the development of a team of volunteers to help ensure that every visitor feels welcome and has a wonderful day with us. You will also work as part of the wider Visitor Operations and Experience team as well as with the wider Estate team to bring the vital work that the Wimpole teams do to life for our visitors.You will develop a thorough understanding of our audiences and deliver engagement that will influence behaviours and help manage risk. This role will have Duty Management responsibility, working 1 in 3/4 weekends with some evening work required for events and wider estate management.There will be 3 rounds of interviews for this role on 26th of May (phone), and 2nd or 3rd of June (online) and 7th of June in person with the Wimpole team. p>Please also read the full role profile, attached to the end of this advert. Who were looking for This job is all about providing a service. To be fantastic in this role, you’ll need to;

Experience of delivering inspirational engagement activities

Have good people skills, enabling good working relationships with those in your team and across the property

Understanding of how to interpret significant collections to varied audiences.

Excellent organisational skills, and the ability to time manage projects successfully

Have good interpersonal skills, able to deal with visitors in a variety of situations

Have a flexible customer focused approach with experience in delivering high standards of customer service

Experience of working with and supervising volunteers

Empathy with aims of the National Trust, with genuine interest and knowledge of the work of the Trust

The package Benefits for working at the National Trust:

Flexible working whenever possible

Free parking at most locations

Discounts in high street stores, cinemas, National Trust properties and cafes.

Free entry to our properties for you, a guest and your children (under 18)

Generous annual leave

Subsidised health cash plan

Free 24-hour support service

Substantial pension scheme of up to 10% basic salary

Training & Development tailored to you

Up to 5 days of paid volunteering for you.

Click here to find out more about the benefits we offer to support you.