As your business grows, so too does its number of personnel. The complexity of managing your employees doesn’t just scale linearly and will get a lot harder quickly. You want to scale up your business though, so these business challenges are something you will likely have to face. This article explores some of the challenges and how a Part-time Operations Manager might be the thing you need to help you face them.
How an Operations Director can help
A great entrepreneur needs a certain set of talents and skills. One of those skills is the ability to recognise when seeking expert support is the right approach to a problem. You know how to run your business, but your board could benefit from the presence of an Operations Director to make sure your employees see the same quality of management as you can give the business as a whole.
If you’re growing, or planning to grow, to more than a handful of employees, then these are some operational challenges that you might face.
1. Review existing structures
As you evolve from having specific employees that handle each area of your business to entire teams, your operational procedures may no longer be suitable. An Operations Director could get to work straight away by reviewing your business’ procedures, finding any inefficiencies that may have developed. They can give you the advice to take your growth forward without false starts.
2. Overseeing day-to-day
A CEO works on the business, in charge of the strategy and direction of everyone. Getting bogged down in the day-to-day details of running the business isn’t going to help achieve that goal. An Operations Director can ensure that everyone is working at the same level across all the departments, without favouring any one part.
3. Personal development opportunities
You can never stop learning and improving, even at the highest levels. Whether it’s for the board, developing promising managerial candidates, or for general employees, there’s always some training that could help. Their experience across all aspects of business will have given an Operations Director the knowledge of a range of training options to give your company the skill boosts it needs.
4. Maintaining company culture
When you started the business, you probably had a vision in mind for what you wanted it to be. There are certain ways you like to work and certain values you want your business to uphold. If you’re no longer hiring and working with every new person to join, it can be hard to ensure your culture exists throughout the business.
This is especially important when considering the managers that may one day move up to run the business after you exit. At every level, engaged employees mean better results, and you want to look after those that make your business what it is. By building a work environment that naturally encourages values that suit your company culture, an Operations Manager can help you achieve that vision.
5. Strategising for growth
Are your sales and marketing teams separate or is there something you want to stop outsourcing and make internal? If your next step needs your business to grow by whole teams and not just individuals, then thorough planning needs to be worked into your strategy. Providing advice and support, an Operations Director can help to ensure your next expansions run smoothly and no inefficiencies arise in any cross-departmental cooperation.
Why a Part-time Operations Director could be what you need
A business’ operations are a lot to keep track of and a Full-time Executive Director will often have a waiting period of a few months before they can start, and come with a large financial commitment when they do. If you want the support they bring sooner and at a fraction of the price, a Part-time Operations Director could be what your business needs.
They could be with you the next day to lead you through the review process and leave at the end, or stay with your board once a month or even once a quarter to keep working at your operations objectives. A Part-time Operations manager will give you the flexibility to find the relationship that suits your business and still gain access to a wealth of knowledge and expertise.
If you think a Part-time Operations Manager might be right for you, get in touch and talk to one of our Regional Directors to see how we can help you.
