Laboratory Team Leader; Pre-Analytics

Pre-Analytics Team Leader

(Internal Only)

Responsible to:
Laboratory Operations Manager

The Pre-Analytics Team Leader supports the effective day-to-day operation of the laboratory by coordinating pre-analytical staffing and workloads, monitoring team performance, and promoting staff wellbeing and engagement. The role provides an additional point of contact for staff and helps identify and elevate issues that may affect service delivery, productivity, quality or team culture.
This is an additional responsibility on top of the candidate’s substantive role on an approximate 80/20 (substantive role/team leader) split.

Team Leader activities 20% of working week (subject to review)/80% substantive role. 37.5 hours over 5 days per week on rotation Mon-Fri/Tues-Sat between the hours of 7am to 7pm.

About this role:

This is an amazing development opportunity for an established colleague to take their first steps into people and performance management, whilst maintaining their core operational skills.

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• Plan and carry out scheduled staff performance reviews, using agreed objectives, performance data and documented examples.
• Provide constructive, balanced feedback and agree appropriate actions to support performance and development.
• Monitor individual and team performance against agreed productivity, quality and working-practice expectations.
• Identify recurring underperformance, training needs or concerns affecting team effectiveness and elevate these to the Laboratory Operations Manager.
• Recognise positive contributions and encourage accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Maintain accurate, confidential records of performance reviews and agreed actions in line with company procedures.

• Create and maintain pre-analytical laboratory rotas in line with operational requirements, staffing levels, skills and competency requirements.
• Aim to distribute shifts and duties fairly and consistently, taking account of agreed working patterns and service needs.
• Identify potential gaps in cover, capacity constraints or rota risks and discuss proposed solutions with the Laboratory Operations Manager.
• Communicate rota arrangements and changes clearly and in a timely manner.

• Act as a designated point of contact for staff to telephone when reporting sickness absence, in accordance with the organisation’s absence-reporting procedure.
• Record and communicate relevant absence information promptly to the appropriate manager and operational contacts.
• Support the identification of immediate staffing and workload implications arising from sickness absence, including amending rotas to ensure operational delivery.
• Escalate repeated absence concerns, failure to follow reporting procedures or other attendance-management matters to the Laboratory Operations Manager.
• Oversight of lab team attendance and punctuality – reporting any failure to uphold contracted working times to the laboratory operations manager.

• Review pre-analytical workload, staffing and performance information to identify operational pressures or emerging risks.
• Escalate Pre-Analytics Team underperformance, recurring productivity concerns and failure to meet agreed targets to the Laboratory Operations Manager.
• Identify and elevate operational issues, bottlenecks, backlogs, resource constraints and workflow interruptions that may affect service delivery.
• Escalate quality, safety, equipment or service risks promptly to the laboratory operations manager.