We are looking for an Apprentice Financial Inclusion Assistant – (2 posts) to join our Income and Financial Inclusion team. In this role you will work with the Financial Inclusion Specialists to build relationships with external partner organisations to ensure customers have access to all available support and advice in their communities to manage their finances.

This role is home based role, where there is no daily requirement to attend an office with the flexibility to attend as required.

You will develop skills and knowledge to assist the Financial Inclusion team to manage financial inclusion referral casework.  Providing administrative support to triage incoming referrals into the team, assisting with the initial contact with customers before passing the case on to be managed by the Financial Inclusion Specialist along with assisting with capturing and inputting of case outcomes.

You will be required to work closely with the Neighbourhoods and Specialist Living teams to support the pre-tenancy to ensure that customers are given the right level of support during the early stages of their tenancies and will get involved with initiatives and campaigns to raise awareness of our services to our customers.

After a period of training, you will progress towards assisting in the delivering training to other colleagues across the business on financial inclusion topics, such as Universal Credit, debt awareness, and energy advice.

Work collaboratively with colleagues across Onward to develop knowledge and to support a one organisation approach you will also assist in the achievement of the team’s objectives and key performance indicators by having a can-do attitude and working proactively with colleagues.

Over an 18 month period, you will complete a course of study and be working towards a Chartered Institute in Housing Level 3, Housing and Property Management apprenticeship with the training provider Learning Curve.

What are we looking for?

It is essential that you are educated to GCSE standard and have a minimum of Level 2 (GSCE C or above) in English and Maths. You will have good customer service and communication skills and the ability to organise your work and record keeping.  You must also be able to work on your own initiative within defined guidelines and have Microsoft office skills to Intermediate level.

You must have the commitment to being accountable for own knowledge, skills and personal development – including developing an understanding of the social, economic and political context in the neighbourhoods in which we operate.

What you can expect from us

We offer a ‘Real Living Wage’, a generous annual leave entitlement of 31 days plus bank holidays and a pension scheme with employer matched contributions of up to 10%. Your wellbeing matters to us, and we offer a health cash plan where you can claim back money for health care, access to a GP service and an employee assistance programme, along with access to discounts for you and your family to enjoy outside of work.

We are passionate about our people, enabling their development, with learning opportunities to progress both personally and professionally. This includes access to volunteer in our local communities or learn a new skill outside of work.

About Onward

Onward Homes is one of the largest registered providers of social housing in the North West, with 35,000 properties across the region.

We believe that everyone deserves a place to call their own, which is why we’re committed to building 500 new homes each year. We do more than just provide a roof over our customers’ heads, we’re here to make a real difference.

In addition to creating positive spaces for our customers we continuously strive to create a positive and progressive workspace to enable our colleagues to achieve their full potential.

We embrace diversity and strive for diverse teams to create an inclusive culture which enables Onward to thrive and be representative of the communities that we serve. We want to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to be part of our recruitment processes and will therefore make reasonable adjustments to accommodate our candidates. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to assist you with our recruitment process via the email address below.

If candidates have any concerns / questions in relation to Covid-19 and the role at any stage of the recruitment and selection process they can contact the HR team on [email protected] and a member of the HR Team will be in touch.

Please note that we reserve the right to close the vacancy early prior to the closing date.