What Does a Director of Operations Do?
A director of operations oversees daily operations within a company, keeping everyone organized. They are expert reviewers and communicators with a natural talent for leadership.
Directors of operations use their expertise to make educated judgments about communication and efficiency within a company.
A director’s work will often include collaborating with the human resources department about hiring, developing operational policies and staff evaluations, overseeing budgets and revenues of divisions, delegating tasks, checking that clients are supported, predicting and analyzing growth trajectory, and acting as a liaison for higher-level executives.
Directors of operations will incorporate people skills, negotiation, performance metrics, and organization into the job to display their well-roundedness. While the specific responsibilities of a director of operations may vary depending on the size and type of organization they work for, they are excellent observers, allowing them to gain insight into employees, processes, and workplace dynamics. This allows them to troubleshoot and problem-solve to ensure the company is performing at its peak potential.
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National Average Salary
Director of operations salaries vary by experience, industry, organization size, and geography. To explore salary ranges by local market, please visit our sister site zengig.com.
The average U.S. salary for a Director of Operations is:
$90,530
Director of Operations Job Descriptions
Crafting the perfect job description may be the key to finding an exceptional director of operations. To help you with your recruiting search, our team has put together some examples from past openings.
Example 1
[Your Company Name] is an industry leader that needs a go-getter and professional director of operations to join our team. We believe that transparency and communication have played a huge role in our success, and we are looking for someone to help continue driving this success. As an ideal candidate, you have proven expertise in a management role, including overseeing staff, performing evaluations, and carrying out training and onboarding programs. Your ability to evaluate and analyze complex situations and finances should be top priority, and you have a natural desire to organize and make sure that things are running smoothly.
Typical duties and responsibilities
- Plan and monitor department day-to-day tasks
- Supervise staff from other departments and give constructive feedback
- Ensure that clients and customers receive the support that is necessary
- Develop, implement, and communicate business and financial strategies to guarantee long-term success
- Study data and perform analyses on differing department operations
- Work closely with human resources to interview and train new staff and set them up for success
- Manage relationships with external partners
- Communicate relevant information from department heads and executives to employees
- Review financial plans, manage budgets, and strategize for long-term growth
Education and experience
- Bachelor’s degree in business administration or a relevant field, master’s degree preferred
- 5 years of related experience and diverse background
Required skills and qualifications
- Understanding of workplace policies, strategy, business, and finance
- Excellent attention to detail
- Proficiency using Microsoft Office Suite, Google, and Dropbox
- Ability to analyze data and translate inferences from said data
- Excellent oversight and organization skills
Preferred qualifications
- Experience working in human resources and familiarity with payroll databases
- Experience working with safety teams and knowledge of workplace safety policies
- Experience working in a fast paced environment with effectiveness and efficiency
- Experience with shared calendar and project management software
- Experience in labor law or labor economics
- Experience creating presentations or write-ups to display information from prior data analyses
Example 2
Duties
- Marketing and outreach strategy: Lead the conception and refinement of our consumer marketing and outreach strategy, including product and vendor recommendations, and develop appropriate annual goals and range of activities that reflect and support this strategy
- Marketing operations: Manage the marketing operations and work with the marketing team, IT, and external vendors to complete tasks in an efficient and organized manner
- Reporting: Develop marketing intelligence by collecting and analyzing data around marketing performance to drive better decision-making and more success. Own ad hoc reporting on campaign performance (using existing and new analytic tools)
- Marketing automation: Serve as the driver for all marketing tech questions, implementation, and idealization and implementing of new tools as they are introduced
- Help improve our marketing automation strategy and process
- Work with a core team of subject matter experts to design, deploy, monitor, and optimize campaigns, supporting specific stages of the customer journey
- Monitor and engage our customers with relevant personalized and timely “Path to Homeownership” at each stage in the customer journey
- Assist in the technical conceptualization of demand creation, including how marketing and communications can help to turn leads into customers
- Oversee the enhancement of our email list, including targeted segmentation. Ensure list maintenance improves email deliverability and minimizes opt-outs
- End-to-end email campaign development: Oversee HTML creation, testing, data segmentation, deployment, and performance analysis.
Competencies
- Strategic Thinking: able to diagnose internal and external factors, make recommendations, and adapt and evolve plans to help drive the business
- Flexible and Adaptable: Able to take constructive criticism, hear alternative points of view, and not get defensive. Nimble and able to adapt to changing conditions
- Organization: Thinks and plans logically; Ability to thrive while maintaining multiple work streams in a detail-oriented manner
- Process-driven: Affinity for documenting, executing, and optimizing processes in a scalable way
- Innovative: Proactive and creative; willing to build systems not yet in place and continuously improve the way we do things
- Confident, independent action, initiative, and sense of urgency. The ability to make decisions and take responsibility for them
- Results-Oriented: Prioritizes and aligns work of self and others with a results-oriented focus on achieving business goals and objectives
- Interpersonal Skills: A well-organized and self-directed individual who is “politically savvy” and a team player
- Experienced Manager: Adept at strategic initiative development, team building, self-motivation, and collaborative management practices
Education and experience
- Bachelor’s degree in a related field
- 7+ years of progressive Marketing experience
- 3+ years of consumer marketing using digital advertising (Facebook, Google, Instagram)
- 4+ years of content and marketing automation experience (including Salesforce integration and tools such as Marketing Cloud, Marketo, or Hubspot)
- Strong digital performance analytics and project management skills are required
- Demonstrated excellence in written and verbal communication skills
Work schedule
- Ability to travel as needed
- Must be able to work flexible hours, including evenings or weekends
Example 3
The Operations Director is the functional leader, provide overall direction for the department, and ensure teams are properly skilled and deployed to meet the client team needs. They also provide deep and meaningful analysis and evaluation of agency operations that is easily understandable and digestible.
Responsibilities
- Provide guidance and leadership for the Operations department
- Break down complex sets of data into relevant insights for client teams and executive leadership
- Lead, manage and develop direct reports
- Generate job numbers and grant appropriate access within SAP
- Create SAP and status reports
- Support ongoing RAFT maintenance
- Consolidate and streamline repeatable tasks to develop process efficiencies
- Resource to Revenue Management
- Continuously develop expertise in all internal systems
- Other responsibilities as assigned
Required skills & experience
- Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Finance, or relevant field
- 5-7 years relevant experience in advertising or marketing
- Advanced understanding of internal systems and Business Intelligence Software. i.e. Tableau, Power BI
- Experience leading a team
- Ability to work in a team environment
- Strong organizational skills
Example 4
Qualifications
- The position encompasses a wide range of activities with involvement in all phases of administration, personnel, finances, facilities, and business systems. We need someone with the experience and maturity to work closely with the Owner and key staff on strategy, policy, problem-solving, and decision-making. This position will be responsible for planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the day-to-day operations of the Firm, and for directing the implementation of Firm policies. We are building a firm where systems run the business, and people run the systems. This position is responsible for improving both our people and our systems.
Responsibilities
- You must be able to show evidence of your prior success with:
- Playing a role in management of teams of 30+ people and budgets of $10,000,000 or more
- Systems management and process refinement to ensure matters are handled appropriately so that client needs are met, legal & ethical requirements are met, and clients receive excellent service
- Employee engagement and leadership, supervision, and termination
- Measuring what matters and using common financial reports to make business decisions (budget variance, P&L, cashflow forecast)
- Managing vendors such as bookkeepers, accountants, and technology services. We care about skills and experience. We care just as much about your behaviors, habits, and attitudes.
- The right person for this role must:
- Lead change – drive it and thrive in it
- Talk more about the solution than the problem
- Equally embrace both aspects of the “work/life balance”
- Never hesitate to praise when deserved and correct when needed
- Have thick skin and high empathy
- Have keen conflict resolution skills (not conflict avoidance skills)
Candidate Certifications to Look For
- Project Management Professional ®. This can really take a candidate’s career to the next level. There is enormous room for growth in this job, which means more on people’s plates, including more projects. Directors of operations in many different fields can benefit from a Project Management Professional certification. The industries that have the greatest demand for this are manufacturing, construction, editing and publishing, IT, finance, and healthcare.
- Certified Scrum Master ®. This certification sees the greatest demand in the information technology industry. This field provides its employees with a lot of project work, so it is very helpful to have a director of operations with this certification. In order to become certified, candidates should develop strengths in adapting focus and being flexible.
- AMA ® Certificate in Analytical Skills. Every single thing that a company does produces data in some way. Operations directors are oftentimes in charge of analyzing and communicating this data for their team. Earning a certificate in Analytical Skills is a good idea since employers will see that candidates have already developed this skillset. This certification gives them the foundation of knowledge they need for the use of many different software.
Sample Interview Questions
- How did you become interested in operations management?
- How would you define the key skills necessary to succeed in this role?
- Is there any experience you have managing complex projects or operations?
- In order to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs, what strategies do you use?
- As an operations manager, can you give an example of a time when you had to make a difficult decision?
- In your daily responsibilities, how do you ensure compliance with regulatory and legal requirements?
- In order to measure the success of internal operations, what metrics are most critical to track?
- What are your communication and collaboration strategies with other departments or stakeholders?
- What was the most challenging situation you had to navigate with a team member or colleague?
- What strategies do you use to keep up with industry trends and emerging technologies?