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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Operations Team Manager

💰 $ - $

OperationsManagementTeam LeadershipProcess Improvement

🎯 Role Definition

The Operations Team Manager is a hands-on leader responsible for driving operational excellence across daily workflows, team performance, and cross-functional delivery. This role blends people management, process optimization, and data-driven decision making to ensure service-level agreements (SLAs) and business outcomes are consistently met. The ideal candidate will design scalable processes, coach frontline leaders, manage stakeholder expectations, and continuously improve throughput, quality, cost, and customer satisfaction metrics.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Operations Analyst or Operations Supervisor
  • Team Lead — Customer Service or Fulfillment
  • Process Improvement Specialist / Continuous Improvement Coordinator

Advancement To:

  • Head of Operations / Director of Operations
  • Senior Program Manager, Operational Excellence
  • VP of Operations or Global Operations Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • Supply Chain Manager
  • Service Delivery Manager
  • Product Operations Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead a multi-disciplinary operations team (typically 8–30 direct and indirect reports) by setting clear priorities, defining KPIs, and implementing weekly and monthly performance reviews to hit SLA, quality, and throughput targets.
  • Design, document, and standardize end-to-end operational processes—create SOPs, RACI matrices, and playbooks to reduce variability and enable scale while ensuring alignment with corporate compliance and audit requirements.
  • Drive continuous improvement initiatives (Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma practices) to increase efficiency, reduce cycle time, and lower operational cost per transaction; sponsor root-cause analysis (RCA) and corrective action plans.
  • Own day-to-day capacity planning, workforce scheduling, and resource allocation; forecast staffing needs, manage overtime budgets, and optimize labor productivity to meet seasonal and ad hoc volume fluctuations.
  • Monitor and report on operational metrics (e.g., SLA attainment, cycle time, throughput, error rate, cost per order) via dashboards and weekly exec-ready summaries; translate data into actionable plans for process owners.
  • Manage cross-functional projects (process launches, system migrations, service rollouts) end-to-end—define scope, timelines, dependencies, and ensure on-time delivery with minimal disruption to operations.
  • Implement and govern quality assurance and control frameworks; perform regular audits, quality sampling, and coach teams on remediation to drive measurable quality improvements.
  • Lead vendor and third-party service provider relationships: set KPIs, conduct performance reviews, enforce contractual SLAs, and coordinate corrective actions to protect business continuity.
  • Implement automation and tooling improvements by collaborating with IT and engineering (RPA, workflow systems, WMS, TMS, CRM) to reduce manual work, improve accuracy, and accelerate throughput.
  • Manage departmental P&L inputs and contribute to annual budgeting and forecasting cycles; identify cost savings opportunities and quantify ROI for process investments.
  • Coach, mentor, and build high-performing teams through career development plans, regular 1:1s, performance calibration, hiring, and retention strategies that fit business objectives.
  • Lead incident response and escalation procedures—coordinate cross-functional triage, communicate timely status updates to stakeholders, and drive post-incident reviews with remediation timelines.
  • Ensure compliance with regulatory, safety, and company policy requirements (data protection, health & safety, SOX controls where applicable), and prepare teams for internal and external audits.
  • Partner with Customer Success, Sales, Product, and Finance to resolve escalations, align operational capacity with go-to-market plans, and support new product launches or promotions operationally.
  • Drive continuous data hygiene and operational reporting accuracy—define ownership for master data, implement validation rules, and reduce reporting discrepancies across systems.
  • Build and maintain an operational risk register, proactively identifying process failure modes, implementing mitigations, and elevating critical risks to leadership.
  • Design incentive programs and recognition mechanisms to align frontline behaviors with business objectives, increase engagement, and reduce attrition.
  • Oversee onboarding and training programs for new hires and role changes; develop competency matrices and certification pathways for key operational roles.
  • Use performance management tools to address underperformance—apply coaching, performance improvement plans, and hire replacements where necessary to maintain team productivity and morale.
  • Execute capacity and contingency planning (disaster recovery, surge planning) to ensure business resilience during peak demand, system outages, or supply chain disruption.
  • Translate strategic goals into operational roadmaps and sprint plans; maintain a backlog of process improvements, prioritize initiatives by business impact, and track delivery against milestones.
  • Champion a culture of operational excellence by facilitating cross-functional workshops, retrospective reviews, and lessons-learned sessions to institutionalize best practices.
  • Negotiate and manage internal SLAs between operations and partner teams (IT, Legal, Finance), ensuring agreed handoffs are measurable, documented, and met consistently.
  • Design and implement customer-focused KPIs (NPS, CSAT, first contact resolution) and partner with support teams to reduce escalations and improve end-to-end customer experience.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Operational leadership and team management across distributed or hybrid work environments.
  • Process improvement methodologies: Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma (Yellow/Green/Black Belt experience desirable).
  • Strong analytics: advanced Excel, SQL, and experience building or interpreting dashboards in Power BI, Tableau, or Looker.
  • Workforce planning and scheduling tools; experience with WFM/WMS/TMS/ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Workday, Kronos).
  • Project management fundamentals with experience using Jira, Asana, MS Project, or similar tools to manage cross-functional initiatives.
  • KPI definition and dashboard design: SLA management, throughput, cycle time, quality metrics, and cost-per-unit analysis.
  • Financial acumen: budgeting, forecasting, cost control, and P&L impact analysis for operational decisions.
  • Automation and tooling knowledge: RPA, workflow automation platforms, API integrations, and process orchestration basics.
  • Vendor and contract management: SLAs, SOWs, KPIs, and vendor performance reviews.
  • Compliance and risk management: regulatory controls, audit readiness, and incident management frameworks.
  • Data governance and master data management fundamentals.
  • Familiarity with customer support systems (Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud) or order management platforms.

Soft Skills

  • Strong leadership and people development skills with a coaching mindset.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication; able to present operational insights to C-level stakeholders.
  • Problem-solving and structured thinking; ability to perform root-cause analysis and drive fact-based decisions.
  • Stakeholder management and influence across cross-functional teams.
  • Time management and prioritization in high-throughput, fast-changing environments.
  • Change management and the ability to lead teams through transformation.
  • Conflict resolution and negotiation skills.
  • Resilience and adaptability in ambiguous situations.
  • Strategic thinking balanced with hands-on execution.
  • Customer-centric mindset focused on reducing friction and improving experience.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Operations Management, Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain Management, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree (MBA or MS in Operations/Industrial Engineering) or relevant professional certifications (PMP, Six Sigma Green/Black Belt).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Operations Management
  • Industrial/Systems Engineering
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Business Administration
  • Data Analytics / Information Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 5–10+ years in operations or process-driven roles with at least 2–4 years in a managerial or team lead capacity.

Preferred:

  • Demonstrated track record managing operational teams in high-volume, SLA-driven environments (e-commerce, logistics, customer support, manufacturing, or financial operations).
  • Experience implementing automation, process improvement programs, and cross-functional change initiatives.
  • Proven success in hitting operational KPIs, reducing costs, and improving quality and customer satisfaction.
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