About us: For over 90 years, Save the Children has been making a difference in children’s lives in more than 120 countries.
We are the world’s largest independent child rights organization, underpinned by a vision in a world in which every child attains the right to survival, protection, development and participation.
Our mission to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives.
Save the Children is an organization for talented people with different backgrounds and perspectives. We are proud that our people are representative of the children we work with and we thrive on our diversity.
We are an equal opportunity organization dedicated to our core values of Accountability, Ambition, Collaboration, Creativity and Integrity.
Our culture is embedded in these values, along with a strong commitment to our Child Safeguarding Protocol, ensuring that all representatives of Save the Children demonstrate the highest standards of behaviour towards children both in their private and professional lives.
Save the Children International is looking to recruit for the following positions:
Title: Operations Support Advisor
Team / Programme: Operations Support Team
Location: Nairobi, any East Africa country office. With circa 35% travel
Grade: 2
Contract Length: Fixed Term
Child Safeguarding: Level 3: the role holder will have contact with children and/or young people either frequently (e.g. once a week or more) or intensively (e.g. four days in one month or more or overnight) because they work in country programs; or are visiting country programs; or because they are responsible for implementing the police checking/vetting process staff.
Role Purpose: The role holder will provide consistent operational support to targeted country programmes (South Sudan, Ethiopia and Mozambique) to improve operational delivery by supporting the strengthening of leadership, management capability, structure and systems (through the coordination of Operations Platform Strengthening (OPS) plans), operations advisory support and direct support.
S/he will also support country offices and regional offices in the management of the OPS budgets.
Scope of Role:
Reports to: Regional Operations Director
Number of direct reports: None
Budget Responsibilities: None
Dimensions: Multiple stakeholder engagement at Centre, Region and Country level, with interaction at SMT and SLT levels. The post holder is also expected to engage and manage relationships with members of the Save The Children movement.
Key Areas of Accountability:
Operations Platform Strengthening Plans:
- Organise and conduct organisational capacity reviews in ‘group A’ countries (those considered to present the highest risk and need) in conjunction with regional and country offices
- Support the development and delivery of operations strengthening support packages for targeted country programmes based on the findings of the capacity review process (including Planning, implementation and budget monitoring of the OPS plans)
- Provide in-country advisory support, including designing bespoke solutions to identified gaps (e.g. support an organisational structure review; facilitate a strategic planning exercise; streamlining core processes; etc…)
- Provide strategic direction to country management teams and supporting key planning processes especially during restructure and rightsizing processes.
- Support continuous improvement and development and implementation of Country Offices improvement plans
- Support systems development and process mapping for project management
- Provide change management support to country programmes during internal change processes
- Support the implementation as of global priority projects in Group A countries
- Working with country management teams to determine how best to improve the overall quality of leadership in order to improve operational delivery, through guided discussions and action planning
- Support the development of operational management guides
Workshop Facilitation, Training and Capacity Building:
- Work with the country programme team to identify core learning needs and together develop a programme of training to fulfil these needs as part of the operations strengthening plans developed with the regional offices
- Work with the Regional Office and country operations director and others to identify required content for operations training
- Coordinate with colleagues to identify resources, potential trainers and coaches to provide bespoke training and coaching support.
- Act as a facilitator and deliver training as required with senior and mid-level management teams. This can include training on, working better together, field operations management, emergency preparedness and response, project cycle management, etc
- Ensure effective evaluation and follow up work takes place to highlight impact of the training and continuing capacity building requirements
- Deliver the “Working better Together” product to support matrix working between teams
Monitoring and reporting:
- Ensure that all interventions undertaken are reported on and where possible evidence of impact is gathered to enable greater advocacy to take place.
- Assess progress and demonstrate impact against the quality standards established by Save the Children.
- Contribute to “lessons learnt” across the organisation
Behaviours (Values in Practice)
Accountability:
- Holds herself/himself self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
- Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities – giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.
Ambition:
- Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same
- Widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
- Future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.
Collaboration:
- Builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters
- Values diversity, sees it as a source of competitive strength
- Approachable, good listener, easy to talk to.
Creativity:
- Develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
- Willing to take disciplined risks.
Integrity:
- Honest, encourages openness and transparency; demonstrates highest levels of integrity
Qualifications
- Relevant academic qualification (Masters or equivalent) in the field of international development or social/political science.
Experience
Essential
- Experience of senior operations management, (Operations Director or Country Director level), with extensive people management experience, and core processes (project, awards, finance, logistics) management, including in insecure, fragile and/or emergency contexts
- Excellent analytical and strategic planning skills
- Experience in change management, organisational development or management consultancy
- Substantial experience of capacity building and coaching in an INGO, ideally at both HQ and programme levels, and familiarity with a range of approaches
- Excellent representational, influencing and diplomatic skills to enable the post holder to operate effectively within Save the Children and support in-country change management
- Excellent project management skills, including proven track record of resource management and managing concurrent activities/deadlines
- Proven writing and numerical skills and experience in budget monitoring, editing of learning materials and drafting of summary reports and briefing documents
- Proven attention for detail and ability to effectively manage a high volume of data and information
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in order to deal tactfully and sensitively with a wide range of people in a large organisation, very often at a distance
- Collaborative with a strong interest in providing support to others
- Willingness and ability to travel abroad for up to 35% of the time, sometimes at short notice
Desirable
- A second language, preferably French or Portuguese is highly desirable
- Experience of implementing continuous improvement or knowledge management initiatives in a large organisation will be a strong asset
Equal Opportunities: The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the SCI Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.
Health and Safety: The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with SCI Health and Safety policies and procedures.
Application information
If you are interested in this position, please email a cover letter and up-to-date CV as a single document to EA.recruitment@savethechildren.org with Subject heading “(Operations Support Advisor)”.
We thank all applicants for their interest, however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.
Application closes 6th June 2016
We work with children, communities and governments all over the world and we believe in the right person for the job regardless of where you come from and how you identify yourself. We need to keep children safe so our selection process reflects our commitment to ensuring that only those who are suitable to work with children are considered for these posts.
All successful applicants will therefore be required to complete a Police Check and must sign onto our Child Safeguarding Policy and organizational Code of Conduct..
Disclaimer: Save the Children International does not charge any kind of fee at whichever stage of the recruitment process and does not act through recruitment agents