Operations managers play a significant role in any company because of their independent oversight of employee supervision and productivity. As an operations manager or chief operations officer (COO), it is essential to assess your skill set to demonstrate to potential employers you are an excellent candidate with managerial and leadership experience. Here are a few pro tips for aspiring operations managers and COOs that will help measure your abilities.
Have a Clear Understanding of Business Operations
Not only should an operations manager know about employee performance, but one should also understand how each department operates. Having the ability to think on one’s feet and implement strategies quickly to improve product or service accessibility is a significant part of measurable value delivery management. As an example, an operations manager who works in manufacturing might find contaminant buildup on their process rollers, which would cause a high rate of product defects and employee downtime. By implementing heat shrinkable roll covers policy and procedure, the operations manager would singularly resolve the machine downtime problem quickly.
Strategic Market Positioning
All COOs must strategically implement policy and procedure for market positioning of one’s brand and company identity as consumer perception boosts product positioning against the competition. A well-seasoned operations manager will have a clear understanding of product benefits, costs, quality and uses to fully implement policies and employment practices that best align with those of their customer base. Other companies will also strive to compete with your company because of similar branding ideas.
Alignment of Core Company Values
Operations managers and COOs hold great responsibility within any company infrastructure. It takes more than attention to detail and operations oversight. The right candidate must also be aware of competitive positioning, customer care, information technology, costs, product availability and employee productivity, which all must all align with core values.
Effective Communication Skills
While communication is a skill that has widespread appeal for any manager, an operations manager or COO is in a unique position that requires one to communicate with CEOs, staff and customers throughout the workday. The ability to speak, write and use body language is also critical. A COO will find that he or she will have to wear many hats including talking with superiors about financial projections, motivating employees to improve productivity or building client rapport, which are skills managers must possess.
Advantageously Measures Performance
Operations managers and COOs have direct responsibility for financial performance including setting clear objectives for sales projections, productivity losses and product planning. Establishing clear workplace objectives for each team also allows you to measure progress and track workplace performance of your personnel, which helps you to evaluate and provide constructive criticism. The ability to measure performance also allows an operations manager or COO the opportunity to enhance workplace goals by investing in human capital for training new hires and labor practices or procedures.
Identifying your abilities as well as innovative workplace procedures will address staff needs. As operations managers and COOs are experienced at strategic team building and long-term development of healthy relationships that benefit an organization as well as team members.
