Operations Officer at Allan Gray Orbis Foundation

Purpose of Role    

• Support operational planning and organisation performance measurement, translating the organization strategy into operational plans and budgets, measuring performance against the plan throughout the year, feeding back into strategy capability for monitoring.

Objectives of Role    
Strategic Support

• Collaborate with Senior Manager in setting and driving organizational vision, into operational plans and organisation resource model,defined as required budget and people / service providers required to meet operational plan.
• Support the drive towards organisational excellence and efficiency through active oversight of the organisation architecture enabling delivery. This architecture comprises of organisation processes, IT & systems architecture and job architecture.
• Oversee and review and alignment of organisation capabilities, decision rights (PACE), culture and people strategy to the organisation strategy and desired impact.

Strategy Execution

• Support in the translation of strategy into actionable steps for growth, implementing organization-wide goal setting, performance management, and annual operations planning.
• Define, manage, communicate and monitor enablement support offering for Programme Development and Implementation across HR, marketing, procurement, finance, data processing and IT management.
• Oversee events and logistics service on behalf of the Allan Gray Makers
• Ensure update of programme data as required.
• Support Senior Manager in the development of organisation process architecture continuously aligning change and efficiency improvements. Develop & implement efficiency of business process and provides support to process owners in improvements.
• Support Senior Manager in consultation with HR Business partner in the development and maintenance of job architecture.
• Support Senior Manager to liase and coordinate with IT Shared services around infrastructure and systems in the context of the organisational goals and ensuring efficiency in partnership with IT Shared services.
• Ensure compliance with national and local regulations, and take appropriate action when necessary, including establishing policies, standard operating procedures (SOP) and continually monitoring proper implementation of them, and reporting to the relevant bodies.
• With Support of Senior Manager Operational Risk management across functional areas, working with managers to identify, evaluate and mitigate risks, escalating where necessary.

Monitoring and Reporting

• Support the definition, monitoring and analysis of operational effectiveness metrics.
• Support Senior manager in developing continuous learning and improvement cycles that enable Allan Gray Makers to be a learning organisation that continuously improves the way it works and its effectiveness in delivering against desired outcomes.
• Analyse and report on internal operations and areas for improvement .

Stakeholder Management

• Liase and coordinate internal stakeholders shared services, with a focus on understanding and addressing needs.

Service Provider Management

• Oversee and manager and implement procure-to-pay framework, standards and processes, including vendor / service provider management.
• Manage service provider service level agreements, contracts and performance .

Professional Knowledge

• Attend knowledge forums to continually evolve and develop the body of knowledge required to execute on daily tasks. Keep up to date with leading industry practices, norms and regulations.

Adhoc

• Supporting the Senior Manager with their tasks and activities where required.
• Support facilitation and coaching where possible

Experience and Qualifications    
Minimum qualification and experience:

• Relevant degree in business administration
• 2-3 years relevant experience in similar environment with Experience in overseeing or playing a supportive function in the operations of an organisation or programme. 
• Passion for involvement in Philanthropy mission and experience in entrepreneurial development and/or enterprise development.
• Organisational Strengths such as project management, planning, budget development and tracking, report writing, problem solving, capacity to develop processes and systems, detail orientation.
• Strong inter-personal skills including stakeholder relationship building, verbal and written communication, media engagement, public speaking, facilitation and coaching.
• Project Management experience
• Strong partnership development abilities
• Ability to work effectively in a team environment.
• Willingness to travel to implementation sites in South Africa

Preferred qualification and experience:

• Relevant degree in business administration, or another relevant field.
• 2-3 years’ experience in overseeing or playing a supportive function in the operations of an organisation or programme operating in complex environments. 

Competencies    

• Business Operations Optimisation - Establish controls to discover critical operational processes for optimisation to operate at maximum efficiency, create operational value and eliminate operational waste.
• Compliance and operational risk knowledge – Knowledge and understanding of regulatory requirements and how to meet these on a day-to-day basis. It is also about understanding the concept of operational risk and how this is controlled within organisations.
• Efficiency Improvement - The ability to improve the operational efficiencies within an organisation.
• Financial management – Ability to enable financial resource for delivery and plan and control the finances, as part of the organisation’s overall financial management.
• Collaboration - Accept and appreciate other people; demonstrate courtesy and compassion; support, encourage, and thank others; consult, listen, and understand others; promote diversity and build morale, team cohesion, and collaboration.
• Communication - Understand spoken information; speak clearly and understandably; present with confidence; gauge audience reaction, interest, and understanding, and adjust communication style or content accordingly.
• Problem Solving - Gain an understanding of the situation or problem; evaluate, integrate, and categorise information to identify issues, patterns, trends, and relationships; challenge assumptions and draw informed conclusions that enable effective approaches and solutions.
• Decision-making - Make prompt decisions, even when they involve risk; make difficult decisions, even when they involve tough choices; make well-informed and considered decisions; take responsibility for results.
• Flexibility - The ability to manage well in an unstructured (start-up), complex and fast-paced environment.