Instructional Design Lead. at Village Enterprise

Position Type: Full time

Reports to: Vice President of Programs

Location: Soroti/ Gulu/ Kitale

Organization Overview: Village Enterprise’s mission is to end extreme poverty in rural Africa through entrepreneurship and innovation. Village Enterprise targets the poor, provides business training, seed capital/startup funds and on-going mentoring to over 10,000 new entrepreneurs to start 3,000 enterprises each year. Since its inception in 1987, Village Enterprise has started over 40,000 micro-enterprises.

Position Overview:

Are you passionate about ending extreme poverty in our lifetimes?  Are you experienced in working with marginalized communities and helping them create lasting change in their lives and those of their families?  Are you a creative person with the ability to think both big picture and small details?  If so, this position could be for you!

Village Enterprise is looking for an Instructional Designer to support the success of our microenterprise development program. This individual will ensure that the training and mentoring content and its delivery is exceptional, and that it ultimately supports Village Enterprise Entrepreneurs to establish and run successful microenterprises and increase the income, savings, and assets for their families.

Core Responsibilities

Training and Mentoring quality and Impact –The Instructional Design Lead will work collaboratively with different team leads to organize learning activities and experiences that set our Field Associates and Business Mentors on the best possible path to succeed to deliver the best possible training and mentoring for our entrepreneurs.  This will be in two parts:

1. The actual training and mentoring that our staff provide to our entrepreneurs
2. The training that our field staff require to achieve number one

Content Design – The Instructional Design Lead will be responsible for keeping up with latest trends in training methodologies, learning technologies, practices and using those in collaboration with subject-matter experts.  They will apply these to continually adapt training and mentoring content. 

Innovations and Performance management – The Instructional Design Lead will use both qualitative and quantitative data from Village Enterprise adaptive management systems to identify and implement innovations which steer Village Enterprise towards greater success.  They will also collaboratively design or support the creation of mentoring sessions to support staff with capacity gaps, working closely with HR and direct reports to achieve the organization’s overall goals and targets around training and mentoring success.

Specific Responsibilities Include:

Design, lead, support, and facilitate ‘Trainer of Trainers’ (TOT) workshops for Field Associates and Business Mentors to ensure they deliver exceptional training and mentoring that puts entrepreneurs on the pathway out of extreme poverty. (50%)

• Design and coordinate onboarding of new FAs and BMs around the training and mentoring curriculum to ensure they are ready for field delivery.
• Design, coordinate and conduct ToT for the Field Associates and Business Mentors on training and mentoring methodologies.
• Work cooperatively with team leads to efficiently and effectively facilitate training on key performance improvement areas, new products and other topics.
• Ensure that training programs are executed properly and at an accurate time, while also providing updates or reports to the senior management on the progress of programs.
• Provide exercises and activities that enhance the learning process
• Develop modes of assessment, such as tests or quizzes and meaningful course interactions, to increase learning and retention, and measure the effectiveness of the course

Lead a team of matrixed indirect reports to continually analyze, design and develop Village Enterprise training and mentoring content to ensure it improves performance and impact (30%)

• Set instructional end goals and create/ restructure content that matches them
• Create engaging learning activities and compelling course content
• Work with subject matter experts to identify Business Owner and Staff training needs & develop content around it. E.g., Conservation and Gender Equity.
• Visualize and develop/guide development of instructional graphics, the user interface and the finished product
• Analyze and apply trends and best practices in learning technologies and instructional design
• Create supporting material/media (audio, video, simulations, role plays, games etc.)
• Maintain project documentation and course folders
• Use PowerPoint to draft screen layouts, graphics and interactions appropriate to the content.
• Write the audio script for each course and work with subject matter expert and voice

talent to ensure proper pronunciation and style.

Gather, analyze and act on quantitative and qualitative training and mentoring performance data at Village Enterprise (20%)

• Work with field leads to develop performance indicators around training and mentoring quality for Field Associates and Businesses Mentors.
• Working with Vice President of Programs, Country Directors, Field Associates & Business Mentors to ensure that the training and mentoring provided is satisfying and addresses the needs of Village Enterprise entrepreneurs.  
• Undertake key research to understand the entrepreneurs and staff training needs and facilitate learning and training adaptations, and potential opportunities for partnerships around training and mentoring.
• Responsible for assuring data flows to the appropriate decision makers connected directly to our training and mentoring success (primarily our Field Associates and Business Mentors).
• Analyze and act on training and mentoring quality performance data through creating feedback loops and interventions that ensure our staff and entrepreneurs are being fully supported to being successful.
• Support on an as needed basis high value proposals and or projects at Village Enterprise.

Safeguarding Expectations

• Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility at Village Enterprise, and it begins with me
• Continuously sensitize program participants on safeguarding.
• Ensure compliance with Village Enterprise’s safeguarding policies
• Report any incident of safeguarding in program operations for appropriate action/follow up.

Key Performance Indicators for the role:

1. Staff comprehension of training and mentoring content (Test / quiz results)
2. Training and Mentoring quality and outcomes
3. Entrepreneur satisfaction

Core Competencies

• In-depth knowledge of learning theories and instructional design models -Visual design skills using Adobe Creative Suite
• Experience with developing engaging content for the extreme poor and familiarity with Poverty Graduation approach
• Knowledge & application of adult learning principles
• Excellent collaboration skills, including the ability to exercise diplomacy and tact as demonstrated in previous roles that required communication with a broad and diverse set of stakeholders.
• Outstanding communication skills, both in writing, in person, and via other forms of communication.
• Computer literate – ability to write effective copy, instructional text, audio and video scripts; familiarity and experience with project management software, Wrike, CRM (specifically Salesforce) and cloud storage platforms etc.
• Ability to use and interpret data for decision making and enhancing overall organizational performance and business success.

Qualifications

• University degree in instructional design, educational technology or similar relevant filed, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Minimum four years working in an instructional design program for an international organization.
• Formal training in instructional design and/or adult learning
• Experience developing and conducting instructor-led training, either live or via webcast
• Experience working with multiple countries in sub-Sahara Africa is desirable
• Fluency in English is a must.Strong written and verbal English grammar, spelling, punctuation, usage & pronunciation
• Ability to work independently while coordination with teams a cross discipline.