WHAT DOES A DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS DO?
Published: Dec 04, 2023 - The Director of Operations drives a culture of excellence, focusing on safety, quality, and continuous operational improvement. Communicates effectively to convey company goals and policies, ensuring all team members are aligned and informed. Facilitates equitable treatment and professional development, guiding team leaders in conflict resolution and fostering a supportive environment for skill enhancement and problem-solving.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Director of Operations
1. Director of Operations Duties
- Philanthropic Development: Increase philanthropic support for basic scientific research.
- Diversity and Inclusion Management: Foster a diverse, multicultural workforce and equitable, inclusive environment that is sensitive to and appreciative of cultural differences.
- Team Performance Management: Cultivate a focused, high-performing, accountable, collaborative, and metrics/outcomes-oriented team.
- Change Leadership: Lead through change with sensitivity, clear vision, excellent communication, and strong emotional and social intelligence.
- Culture Promotion: Promote a culture of collaboration, learning, continuous improvement, and excellence.
- Process Improvement Leadership: Assess the organization's challenges and lead business process improvement.
- Talent Management: Attract, develop, cultivate, and manage a high-performing team.
- Team Empowerment: Empower and inspire team members while providing the right balance of mentorship and leadership in a virtual and partially remote environment.
- Budget Administration: Administer the budget of an operation the size of the Alliance.
- Strategic Analysis: Develop and analyze reports that inform strategic decision-making.
- Consensus Building: Build consensus and effectively facilitate meetings.
- Project Management: Lead and manage multiple concurrent projects and prioritize accordingly.
- Relationship Building: Create and foster effective interpersonal relationships.
- Planning and Organizing: Construct plans and adhere to deadlines with appropriate attention to detail.
- Communication Skills: Communicate effectively orally and in writing.
- Influential Management: Manage through influence using interpersonal/emotional intelligence skills and political acumen respectfully and diplomatically.
- Networking and Influence: Cultivate a broad network of critical relationships and influence key external partners at senior and executive levels.
2. Director of Operations Details
- Leadership and Management: Responsible for the management and leadership of site-specific and divisional manufacturing operations.
- Coordination: Day-to-day guidance and coordination with the site’s various support functions.
- Operational Oversight: Oversee manufacturing and review the resolution of operational, manufacturing, and facility problems to ensure minimum costs, prevent operational delays, and achieve future growth targets.
- Process Improvement: Propose improvements/expansion as necessary and champion lean manufacturing and related process improvement techniques throughout the facility.
- Safety and Compliance: Review and support the Environmental, Health, and Safety team to support training, make improvements, and ensure compliance with company, customer, and governmental requirements to maintain a safe and healthy work environment.
- Engineering Support: Review and support engineering to oversee design concepts that support new/existing products, improvements, and ensure cost reductions, improved performance, and/or safety.
- Strategic Financial Management: Develop and implement short-term and long-range plans and programs to manage and coordinate budget requirements and financial estimates to meet/exceed business and profitability growth objectives.
- Performance Analysis: Analyze the manufacturing activities, costs, operations, and forecast data to determine the site’s progress toward stated goals and objectives.
- Strategic Planning: Key contributor to the development and implementation of the business strategic plan for the division, including sales, financial performance, and new product development.
3. Director of Operations Responsibilities
- Culture Leadership: Drive to achieve a culture of excellence that includes safety, quality, continuous improvement, and operational effectiveness.
- Leadership Communication: Convey company goals and policies to subordinates through effective leadership and communication skills.
- Employee Fairness: Ensure fair and equitable treatment of all employees in the facility.
- Conflict Resolution Guidance: Guide subordinate supervision in the resolution of personnel/customer relationship concerns.
- Skill Profiling: Develop a skill profile for each position.
- Goal Setting: Create goals and objectives for each person.
- Development Plan Management: Ensure each person takes ownership of their development plan, implement training, cross-training, and mentoring to ensure that development plans succeed.
- Team Development: Develop the team to have a thorough understanding of how KPP products are manufactured.
- Process Feedback Collection: Assemble input from the teams on critical processes and identify problem areas.
- Problem Analysis: Analyze the root cause of problems.
- Solution Implementation: Determine the best solution and implement product and process improvement sequence.
- Process/Product Follow-up: Follow up to ensure that the solution has improved the process/product.
- Equitable Treatment and Conflict Management: Ensure fair and equitable treatment of all employees in the facility, guide subordinate supervision in the resolution of personnel/customer relationship concerns.
4. Director of Operations Accountabilities
- Quality Assurance Collaboration: Collaborate with quality assurance staff to maintain required licensing and accreditation and prepare for all external accreditation reviews.
- Financial Management: In collaboration with the CFO, develop, administer, and monitor program budgets in accordance with agency policies and procedures and funder requirements.
- Employee Supervision: Supervise both supervisory and non-supervisory employees in accordance with the organization’s policies and applicable laws.
- Performance Management: Work closely with the COO and Human Resources to establish annual performance measures and development goals for each division team member, coordinate the division’s annual performance appraisal process, and conduct a timely annual performance appraisal for all direct reports.
- Discipline Management: Utilize a progressive discipline system to help division team members resolve performance issues.
- Skills Development Facilitation: Identify and facilitate skills development, training, and learning opportunities for division staff in alignment with division performance goals and objectives.
- Talent Recruitment and Retention: Work closely with Human Resources to recruit, hire, and retain qualified division staff.
- Financial Oversight: Review and approve staff timesheets and expense reports.
- Organizational Leadership: Promote the philosophy of the organization, ensuring proper implementation of accepted clinical practices strategies.
- Grant Writing Collaboration: Collaborate in the preparation of grant application renewals and new funding proposals including, but not limited to, drafting grant application content and developing budgets.
- Training and Meeting Participation: Attend all trainings and internal and external meetings.
- Change Leadership: Navigate a fast-paced environment and lead through change and growth.
- Communication Skills: Articulate complex concepts to cross-functional teams and external audiences.
5. Director of Operations Functions
- Strategic Planning: Collaborate with the Executive Management Team on an annual basis to plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate division performance goals and objectives.
- Operations Management: Effectively and efficiently manage the overall, day-to-day operations of the division including the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of division programs, policies, and procedures.
- Data Management and Analysis: Coordinate data collection for division’s programs, upload division’s program outcome data into the agency’s monthly KPI report in a timely manner, and utilize program and financial data/reports to analyze division operations, evaluate performance and determine areas of potential cost reduction, program improvement, and policy/procedure change.
- Project Management: Utilize project management best practices and tools and collaborate with cross-functional teams to plan, implement, monitor, and close out short-term projects and/or onboard new programs/initiatives.
- Policy Analysis and Development: Provide ongoing, high-level analysis of federal, state, and local legislation, public policy, market trends, and changes to professional standards that impact division programs and recommend strategies for growth and continual improvement.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Maintain effective working relationships with partner agencies, funders, and other external stakeholders, as well as state, local, and municipal government officials, represent the agency on state, city, and county taskforces and initiatives related to division programs.
- Resource Management: Stay abreast of, and work with the COO to secure, the IT, training, supplies, and other resources required for the division to achieve contract deliverables and outcomes.
- Report Writing and Presentation: Draft, prepare, and design internal and external program reports, presentations, and pitch decks.
- Quality Assurance and SOP Development: Work in close consultation with quality assurance staff to develop, implement, and update Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that align program with contract requirements and best practices for high-quality service delivery and ensure staff are trained on and adhere to SOPs.
- Performance Monitoring and Quality Control: Monitor program performance measures through internal and external databases and file audits, assist quality assurance staff in preparing program audits and implement corrective action to ensure changes in practices result in achieving the contract performance objectives.
- Operational Analysis and Improvement: Utilize program and financial data/reports to analyze division operations, evaluate performance and determine areas of potential cost reduction, program improvement, and policy/procedure change.
- Continuous Improvement: Implementation of improvement initiatives in areas of cost reduction, processes, quality, productivity, and inventory management.
- Time Management: Balance time across multiple, competing priorities.
- Consensus Building: Facilitate conversations with multiple stakeholders to build consensus and alignment.
- Project Continuity: Ensure overall continuity of activities and deliverables.