The console opens in one of two modes, decided by who you are. There is no switch, and that is deliberate.

Every application arrives waiting for the Head of Operations. You decide ONE thing: does it go forward for review?

Each card shows the colleague, their current role and length of service, and why they applied, in their own words. Read that first.

Opening an application slides out a panel in a fixed order, because that is the order the decision is actually made in:

1. Who they are
2. Why they applied, and why they say they are suitable, in full
3. Their record: service, access level, whether their head of department knows
4. The next thing to do, named in a sentence, with one button
5. Stage, documents, timeline, and internal notes

Internal notes stay on this console. Nothing is sent to the colleague unless you explicitly choose to share it.

Stages run in order and cannot be skipped. The panel names the next one and does the work when you confirm.

Opening the review panel records that you have read the colleague’s reason, which is what unlocks shortlisting. Interviews need a date, a start time and a platform before the stage can be left. A contract must be signed by both parties before anyone can be appointed.

Choose a reason from the list, which changes to suit the stage the application has reached, and write a note. The note is required.

Share this note with the colleague is OFF by default. Turn it on and you see a preview of exactly what they will read, word for word, before anything is sent. Read it before you confirm.

Appointing asks for an effective date and shows you the countdown in plain words, a before and after of everything that changes, the access being granted and removed, the post being vacated and the post being filled, and exactly who will be told.

Nothing changes on the day you appoint. The colleague keeps their current role and access until the effective date, when the change applies automatically and their new tools appear the next time they sign in.

Internal Opportunities lists roles that are open to people already serving in the organisation. It is separate from the public volunteer route: nothing here is advertised outside, and the people who process it are not the HR team.

Roles are published by IT and Digital Infrastructure. Applications are checked first by the Head of Operations, then decided and processed by the Office of the Secretary General.

Open a role and the page tells you plainly whether you can apply for it. There are three answers:

Two questions matter, and both need at least 120 characters:

Availability and supporting documents are optional, as is telling us your head of department knows. That last one does not affect your application, it only helps plan your release if you are appointed.

On submitting you are given a reference that looks like DITN-2026-00001-XY. Keep it. It is in your confirmation email, it appears in everything else we send you about that application, and it is how you and the Office of the Secretary General refer to the same thing.

My applications shows every application you have made, where each one has reached, and what happens next. You can also paste a reference into Track an application to jump straight to it.

You will be emailed at every step, so you never have to check the page to find out something changed.

You may withdraw at any point up to accepting an offer. Withdrawing closes the application and does not affect your current role in any way.

If an application is not progressed, you are told, and where the decision maker has chosen to share a note you will see it. Your current role and standing are completely unaffected, and applying again later is welcomed.

If you are appointed, you receive a conditional offer, then a contract to sign. Your new role takes effect on an agreed date, and you will be told how many days away that is. Nothing about your access changes until that date.

The organisation keeps a registered Organisational Structure and Contact Appendix (RN: 8583605). This page is that document, held as live data rather than a PDF, so it is correct on the day you read it instead of on the day it was printed.

Every registered member can open it. It is read only: nobody can change a post from this page.

The search box covers post titles, people, departments and mailboxes at once. Type head of it or part of an address and select a result to open the post.

Select any post to see its full detail: department, reporting line, mailbox, responsibilities, the teams reporting into it, and a link to that department’s guide where one exists.

A vacant post shows one of three things:

The Safeguarding, Abuse and Reports Department is drawn to one side of the chart and connected to the Board of Directors, not to the Chief Operating Officer. That placement is deliberate and it matters: the department operates as an independent unit, outside the operational reporting line.

All reports and disclosures are managed with strict confidentiality and processed in accordance with the safeguarding and reporting protocols, alongside the investigative guidelines in the Disciplinary and Conduct Policy.

The Office of the Secretary General maintains this structure and publishes updates as appointments are made. Nobody else can change it, including department heads and IT.

The version and effective date are shown at the top of the page, and What changed lists recent updates. Always work from the version shown there. A published version is never edited after the fact: a correction is issued as a new version, so the record of what the structure was on a given date stays intact.

For clarification on any section, or for guidance on reporting lines and departmental responsibilities, contact your department head or the Office of the Secretary General.

The Ops Dashboard is the operational control centre for the Head of Operations. It is accessible via the main portal dashboard and requires the isHeadOfOperations flag on your user account or SuperAdmin access.

All sections are accessible via the left sidebar. On mobile, the sidebar collapses — tap the hamburger icon to expand. Your last-visited section is restored automatically on page reload.

Access the full guide library from the Ops Dashboard at any time — click the Guide or Help link in the sidebar. Each guide opens in a new browser tab so the dashboard remains open in the background.

The top strip surfaces real-time operational alerts — absence notifications, unapproved leave, sickness triggers, probation due dates, and DDCP conduct flags. Each alert shows the staff member, reason, and timestamp. Alerts auto-clear when resolved.

The overview section shows six key live metrics:

A live grid of all active staff showing real-time status across five dimensions simultaneously.

The search box narrows the grid on name, department or employee ID. Five filter chips sit above it: All Staff, On Leave, On Probation, On Shift and Sick. Each one is worked out live for today, so On Leave means an approved leave request covering today and On Shift means a shift running right now.

This section shows all pending leave requests across all departments. As Ops Head, you see the full leave queue and can approve or reject requests marked with the Ops Head / SA only approver tier.

1. 1Navigate to Leave Approvals in the sidebar. Cards with Approve / Reject buttons are within your approval tier.
2. 2Review the leave type, dates, duration, remaining annual leave balance, and any department conflict warnings (flagged in amber if ≥2 department members are on leave simultaneously).
3. 3Click Approve or Reject. A confirmation modal appears — add a note if rejecting.
4. 4The leave balance updates automatically and the staff member is notified.

Department heads may submit leave requests that require sign-off from the Head of Operations rather than HR. These appear in the Head Approvals section, separate from the general queue, to avoid them being actioned by HR staff.

The same Approve / Reject flow applies. Department heads cannot see their own request status in real time — they receive a notification once you act. Review promptly as these requests can block the head's calendar planning.

If a department head's leave is approved for 5+ days, their department members' leave requests automatically route to you (Ops Head) for the duration. This is applied automatically — you do not need to change any settings.

The Sickness section provides a full view of sickness absence across the organisation, including episode tracking and the Bradford Factor score per staff member.

B = S² × D — where S is the number of separate absence episodes and D is the total number of days absent in the rolling 12-month period. Frequent short absences score higher than one long absence, identifying repeat-pattern absenteeism.

Click any staff member's row to open their sickness episode detail — individual absences, dates, self-certification status, and Bradford score trend over 12 months.

As Head of Operations, you have full probation action rights. The Probation section has three tabs:

• Active — staff currently on probation, with days remaining and due date
• History — past reviews and decisions for each staff member
• Certificates — issued probation completion certificates

1. 1Navigate to Probation in the sidebar and open the Active tab.
2. 2Click Begin Review on the staff member's card. The probation review drawer opens on the right.
3. 3Select the outcome: Approve / Extend / EC / Fail.
4. 4If extending, select the extension duration (30, 60, or 90 days) from the dropdown that appears.
5. 5Add a review note (required for all outcomes). Add a feedback note for the staff member (optional).
6. 6Click Submit Review. The decision is written to Firestore and the History tab updates immediately.

A Kanban-style board showing active recruitment pipeline applicants across four columns:

Each card shows the applicant name, position applied for, current stage, and last-updated date.

Interview links on cards are masked for unauthorised viewers. Only the recruitment owner, team members, or granted users can see the full link. If you need access to a specific link, click Request Access on the card — the recruitment owner will be notified to grant or deny.

As Ops Head (alongside SA), you can unlock a stage that has been locked by the recruitment owner. Use this only when a stage lock is blocking legitimate progression and the owner is unavailable.

A searchable, filterable directory of all active staff with full contact details, department, role, contract type, and direct line information. Data is pulled live from Firestore — always current.

• Search by name, email, department, or role
• Filter by department or contract type
• Governance executives are excluded from the operational directory
• Profile photos are shown where available, with initials fallback

When a leave request, sickness case, or conduct matter needs to be escalated to HR for formal action, you use the Push to HR function. This creates a structured handover with an SLA deadline you set.

1. 1Locate the item and click Push to HR. A pre-filled modal opens showing the staff member, issue type, and current status — all locked (read-only).
2. 2Select the SLA Deadline date — the date by which HR must respond or resolve the matter.
3. 3Add a handover note (optional but strongly recommended for complex cases).
4. 4Click Submit to HR. The record is flagged with slaLockedByOps: true so HR cannot alter the SLA you set.

After pushing to HR, the item appears in the HR SLA Queue within HR Ops Monitor. You can monitor whether HR has acted on it from the same section in the Ops Dashboard — items nearing or past their SLA deadline are flagged in amber and red respectively.

A daily clock-in/clock-out register pulled from shiftLogs. Select a date using the date picker to view all staff who clocked in on that day.

The log defaults to today's date. Use the date picker to review historical attendance — data is available from the date the shift system was deployed. The log is read-only; corrections must be made by IT via the Shift Audit tool.

The Appraisals section shows all scheduled appraisals from the appraisalSchedules collection. This is a shared live view — the ops head sees the same appraisal calendar as HR to maintain operational alignment.

• Upcoming appraisals are highlighted (within 14 days)
• Overdue appraisals (past due date, status still pending) are flagged in red
• Completed appraisals show the outcome, score, and reviewer

While you cannot schedule appraisals directly, you can use the list to:

• Identify staff whose appraisals are due within 14 days and flag to the relevant department head
• Spot overdue appraisals and escalate to HR or the department head to rebook
• Cross-reference with leave approvals — avoid approving leave that would conflict with a scheduled appraisal date

When a staff member is leaving, an offboarding request runs through a sequence of departmental sign-offs. The Offboarding section lists every active and completed request, newest first, with the staff member's name, the reason, and where the request currently sits.

Operations is one of the sign-off steps. When a request is waiting on you, complete the operations checks (return of any operational equipment/access, handover of live work) and record your sign-off so the request can advance.

• Awaiting Operations — your sign-off is needed before the request moves on
• In progress — other departments (IT, HR) are still completing their steps
• Completed — all sign-offs in; the leaver's records are being finalised

Staff who are asked, or volunteer, to work on a recognised public holiday submit a Work on Public Holiday request. These land in the WOPH section for Operations to review and approve, so that the time is properly recognised.

Each request shows the staff member, the public holiday and date, and their reason. Review it, then decide:

1. 1Open the WOPH section and find the pending request.
2. 2Click Approve or Reject. A confirmation box opens.
3. 3Add an optional comment (recommended when rejecting, so the reason is on record), then click Confirm.

The Broadcast section lets Operations send an announcement to all staff or to a specific department. Use it for operational notices — schedule changes, reminders, holiday cover, and similar.

1. 1Open the Broadcast section and write your message, with a clear title.
2. 2Choose the audience — everyone, or a single department.
3. 3Send. The announcement appears in recipients' portal and is logged in the activity feed.

All staff are required to declare conflicts of interest. The COI Register shows all declarations, their status, and any review notes. As Ops Head, you have read access to the full register.

Certain high-impact COI declarations (e.g. involving a department head or contractor with significant scope) require joint review by SA and Ops Head. These are tagged in the register and will appear highlighted in your view. Co-ordinate with SA directly to action these.

The Analytics section aggregates operational data into visual summaries for reporting and trend spotting.

• Leave Trends — monthly leave usage by department and type (annual, sick, compassionate)
• Headcount — active vs. on-leave vs. on-probation counts over time
• Bradford Trend — sickness frequency changes over rolling 3-month windows
• Recruitment Pipeline — applicants by stage and time-to-hire per position
• Appraisal Completion Rate — % of appraisals completed on time vs. overdue

The analytics section is designed to support board-level and governance reporting. Screenshot the charts directly, or use the Print / Save as PDF function to capture a point-in-time view for records. The data behind each chart is live — take your capture at the time of reporting.

The Ops Dashboard contains many additional sections beyond the core workflows. This table summarises each one.

Inside the Recruitment section, a read-only VMEM Decisions panel mirrors the Volunteer Management & Engagement Manager's decisions on volunteer-role recruitment — so Operations can see where a volunteer request sits with the VMEM without leaving the dashboard. Volunteer-role recruitment headcount requires a VMEM capacity consultation before the request opens.

Leave Calendar. The Ops Leave Calendar section is an all-staff, organisation-wide view of approved leave (not a personal calendar), shown as a month grid colour-coded by leave type with UK public-holiday cells. It reads the org leave policy as the single source of truth, so the same balance and entitlement numbers appear everywhere across the portal.

Find it on your dashboard under Policy Doc Review. It mirrors, live and read-only, every amendment to the DDCP and other policies: the policy, the section being changed, and the current stage — Awaiting Secretary General, Approved · drafting, With Head of HR, Published, or Declined. Two KPI tiles show how many are in progress and how many have published. A recent-activity table lists each action with who took it and when (WAT).

This is visibility only — you do not act here. The Head of HR proposes and publishes; the Secretary General approves, declines, and releases. When the Secretary General approves an amendment, you receive an email and an in-portal notice that a policy change has started, and you can track it here. Where wording has been drafted, a Preview button opens the policy with the change applied in place (clearly marked "not yet live"), so you can read exactly what will publish.

Operations is kept in the loop on governance changes that affect the workforce without adding another approval step. Re-read any amended policy once it publishes — staff receive an all-staff notice at that point.