| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Operations |
| Level | Manager |
| Reports to | Senior Operations Manager |
| Direct reports | Assistant Operations Manager, Operations Supervisor, Operations Executive |
| Experience | 7 to 10 years in operations, including 2 to 3 years leading supervisors or a team of 20 or more |
Operations Manager job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Operations Manager
Department: Operations
Reports to: Senior Operations Manager
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
An Operations Manager runs the daily operations of a team, process or site so that products or services go out on time, at the right quality and within budget. The role plans work and staffing, sets targets for supervisors, clears problems that stop the flow of work and reports results to senior management. Operations managers exist in almost every industry, from warehouses and factories to banks, hospitals and service companies.
Key responsibilities
- Plan weekly and daily work for the team or site based on orders, service requests or production schedules.
- Set shift targets for supervisors and assistant managers, and review them in a short start-of-shift meeting.
- Prepare rosters with the right skill mix on every shift, and approve overtime only when the backlog needs it.
- Watch output, turnaround time, quality and cost on a daily dashboard and take corrective action on every miss.
- Solve operational problems such as equipment breakdown, stock shortage or system downtime together with maintenance, stores or IT.
- Keep SOPs current and make sure every team member is trained on the version in use.
- Manage vendor services used by the team, such as transport, housekeeping or outsourced processing, against their SLAs.
- Handle customer and internal escalations, and fix the cause so the same complaint does not return.
- Run performance conversations, recognition and corrective action for team members together with HR.
- Send weekly and monthly reports on performance, cost and staffing to the senior operations manager.
Requirements
- Graduate in any discipline; engineering, commerce or management is common
- MBA or PGDM in operations is an advantage
- Green Belt training helps with the improvement side of the job
- 7 to 10 years in operations, including 2 to 3 years leading supervisors or a team of 20 or more
KRAs and KPIs for a Operations Manager
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Delivery | Orders or service requests completed within the agreed time on 95 percent of days |
| Quality | Customer-reported errors under the monthly target, with no repeat complaint on the same cause |
| Cost | Team operating cost, including overtime, within the monthly budget |
| Productivity | Output per person per day at or above the agreed norm |
| Safety and SOP compliance | No safety incident or SOP breach found in internal audit |
| People | Team absenteeism under 5 percent and all staff trained on current SOPs |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: MS Excel, ERP or operations system of the business, Roster and attendance reports, Ticketing or order management tool, Power BI dashboards.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Senior Operations Manager, Regional Operations Manager, Business Operations Manager
Interview questions for a Operations Manager
- Walk me through your first hour at work on a normal day.
- Your key machine or system is down for four hours during peak. How do you protect delivery?
- How do you build a roster when three people have asked for the same weekend off?
- Tell me about a vendor that kept missing SLA. What did you do?
- What would you do if a supervisor inflated the productivity numbers?
- Which five numbers tell you whether your operation had a good week?
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What does an operations manager do?
An operations manager makes sure the daily work of a team or site gets done on time, correctly and within budget. They plan work and rosters, set targets for supervisors, track output and quality, solve breakdowns and shortages, manage vendors, handle escalations and report results to senior management.
What skills does an operations manager need?
Key skills are planning, roster and shift management, reading a KPI dashboard, SOP management and vendor management. Equally important are people skills: running a team meeting, handling absenteeism and giving feedback. Good operations managers are decisive, calm during breakdowns and careful with data.
Who does an operations manager report to?
In larger companies an operations manager reports to a senior operations manager or DGM Operations. Smaller companies often have the operations manager answer straight to the head of operations, the general manager or the founder. Supervisors and assistant managers usually report to the operations manager.
What is the difference between an operations manager and a project manager?
An operations manager runs ongoing, repeating work with daily targets and no end date. A project manager delivers a one-time piece of work with a defined scope, budget and finish date, such as a new branch setup. Many projects hand their result over to an operations manager once complete.