About the Role

We’re looking for an experienced and people-focused Financial Assistance Team Leader to lead our Case Management team across our Sydney and Manila offices.

This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll oversee the day-to-day operations of a team of Collections and Hardship Officers, driving strong team performance while ensuring positive and meaningful customer outcomes.

You’ll coach and develop your team, identify opportunities to improve processes and systems, and work closely with internal and external stakeholders to find appropriate solutions for customers experiencing arrears or financial hardship.

A key focus of the role will be ensuring customers are treated fairly, respectfully and with empathy, particularly those experiencing vulnerability or other challenging circumstances.

What You’ll Do

- Lead, coach and motivate a team of Financial Assistance Officers across Sydney and Manila
- Identify individual development needs and deliver targeted coaching and training
- Conduct quality assurance reviews across calls and written communications, ensuring compliance with relevant regulatory requirements
- Review and improve collections and hardship processes to deliver strong customer outcomes
- Monitor daily, weekly and monthly performance and provide accurate KPI reporting
- Develop and implement strategies to improve contact rates, cure rates and roll rates
- Lead reward and recognition initiatives and build strong engagement across a geographically dispersed team
- Manage team escalations, including account settlements, enforcement costs, legal matters and IDR/EDR complaints
- Partner with internal teams and external vendors to implement best-practice collections and hardship processes
- Identify opportunities to improve systems, processes and service delivery
- Step in to support customers directly via phone,



email and webchat when required
- Promote a customer-first culture while maintaining appropriate commercial and compliance outcomes

What Success Looks Like in Your First 6 Months

- You’ve built robust relationships across the team and have a clear understanding of individual strengths, development needs and performance opportunities
- Your coaching and leadership are making a measurable difference to team performance and customer outcomes
- You’ve reviewed existing collections and hardship processes, identified gaps and implemented or progressed meaningful improvements
- Contact rates, cure rates and roll rates are trending positively
- Your team is engaged, accountable and supported, with positive feedback on your leadership and coaching approach
- You’re recognised as a trusted subject matter expert in collections, hardship and customer assistance

About You

You’re an experienced people leader with a strong background in collections, financial assistance or hardship within financial services, ideally across consumer lending.

You’ll have a sound understanding of hardship obligations, responsible lending principles and the regulatory environment governing collections and financial assistance, including the NCCP Act, Australian Privacy Principles, debt collection requirements and the credit reporting framework.

More importantly, you’re a genuine people leader. You know how to coach and develop others,



have confident performance conversations and create a team culture that balances accountability with empathy and support.

You’re comfortable working in a fast-paced, multi-location environment and can manage competing priorities while keeping the customer at the centre of your decisions.

You’ll Also Have

- Demonstrated experience leading a collections, hardship or financial assistance team
- Experience supporting customers experiencing financial hardship or vulnerability, including situations involving domestic and family violence
- Strong understanding of contact centre operations, processes and technologies
- Experience using data and reporting to monitor team performance and identify improvement opportunities
- Sound Excel skills, with experience using tools such as Tableau and Google Sheets highly regarded
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to build relationships across multiple functions
- High emotional intelligence, with genuine patience, empathy and care for customers and colleagues
- A strong understanding of compliance, risk and customer outcomes
- A hands-on leadership style and willingness to lead by example
- A genuine commitment to developing people and building high-performing, customer-focused teams

Why Join Us?

This is an opportunity to take ownership of a high-impact Financial Assistance function, develop a geographically dispersed team and play a key role in improving both customer outcomes and business performance.

If you’re an experienced collections or hardship leader who enjoys coaching people, improving processes and making a genuine difference for customers, we’d love to hear from you.

If you’re passionate about helping customers and developing high-performing teams, we’d love to hear from you! APPLY NOW!

📌 Financial Assistance Team Leader (Sydney)
🏢 The Recruitment Company - AU
📍 Sydney