Description

Bridge Kenya

Bridge Kenya is a life-changing community school program. It is one of four community school programmes run as part of NewGlobe’s education portfolio.

Bridge Kenya opened its first school in Nairobi’s Mukuru Kwa Njenga, in 2009. Now, it supports community schools across 43 of the 47 counties. Bridge Kenya partners with communities, parents and teachers to deliver life-changing education and provide a gateway to success for underserved families. 

Since 2015, Bridge Kenya’s national (KCPE) exam results have continued to prove academic excellence, significantly outperforming national averages. Community school graduates have gone to top secondary schools and universities; both within Kenya and the US.
 

About the Role

The Construction Supervisor is responsible for the construction activities for the allocated school sites. This includes ensuring that prior arrangements are made for effective project start up, smooth work progress and payments, effective decision making and finalized project close-out. You will also be responsible for the liaison between the school sites and the headquarters in terms of information flows and record keeping. This is a full time fixed term role.

What You Will Do

• Site Appraisal: Carry out initial site visit, document the site characteristics, evaluate the implications of site conditions to construction and prepare a report.
• Project Start-up: Carry out all tasks that are necessary for the construction to commence effectively and complete the start-up checklist for approval.
• Contract management: Prepare standard contract for site specific issues, discuss it with headquarters and manage it throughout the construction period.
• Materials management: Prepare the standard schedule of materials, prepare materials requisitions, confirm orders and deliveries, ensure proper materials acceptance procedures are duly applied, retrieve from site and forward to headquarters the delivery notes and invoices, request payments and file away the payment acknowledgement.
• Labour management: Source qualified skilled and unskilled laborers, manage labour records, manage labour payments, retrieve from site and forward to headquarters the invoices and time sheets, request payments and file away the payment acknowledgement.
• Programme Management: Carry out day-to-day monitoring of progress of work on site, such as repairs, demolitions, tracking to ensure project targets are met, planning and implementing remedial measures in case of programme slippage, including feedback information for programme improvement. Carry out early morning daily calls, prepare daily email reports and prepare weekly work programmes.
• Workmanship and Quality Control: Communicate the quality standards, implement procedures to ensure that work meets them, monitor and provide feedback information for improved quality.
• Payments: Compute or modify budget estimates for approval, prepare payment requests for approval, confirm and record payments completed and balances and file away the payment acknowledgement.
• Records Management: Implement the proper entering and updating of site records including the site book, invoices, time sheets and prepare summary reports as required.
• Labour Relations: Ensure the employment of only desirable workers on the school sites, maintain smooth labour relations and provide feedback information for improved quality.

What You Should Have

• Bachelor Degree or Higher Diploma in Building, Construction Management, Civil Engineering, Quantity Surveying or related field.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in site supervision on busy sites preferably in labour intensive project.
• Should have good knowledge of basic construction technology and practices.
• Should be a good planner, well organized and able to carry out simple analysis tasks.
• Should be able to source skilled labour locally and handle labour-related issues arising on site from time to time.
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills are required.
• Good people management skills that result in timely meeting of deadlines.
• Ability and willingness to accept instructions, accept criticism and positive feedback, while being very adaptable and flexible.
• Flexibility and willingness to travel to various school sites across Kenya.

You’re also

• A detailed doer – You have a track record of getting things done. You’re organized and responsive. You take ownership of every idea you touch and execute it to a fine level of detail, setting targets, engaging others, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. You can multi-task dozens of such projects at once and never lose sight of the details. Likely, you have some experience in a start-up or other rapid-growth company.
• A creative problem-solver – Growing any business from scratch comes with massive and constant challenges. On top of that, Bridge works in often fragile, sometimes volatile low-resource communities and with complex government systems. You need to be flexible and ready to get everything done effectively, quickly, and affordably with the materials at hand.
• A relentless advocate – The children we serve and teachers we empower never leave your mind. You know them, get them, have shared a meal with them (or would be happy to in the future). You would never shrink back from shaking a parent’s hand or picking up a crying child, no matter what the person was wearing or looked like. Every decision you make considers their benefit, experience, and value.
• A malleable learner – You believe you can always do better. You welcome constructive criticism and provide it freely to others. You know you only get better tomorrow when others point out where you’ve missed things or failed today.
• A data-driven decision-maker – When making decisions, you don’t rely on your intuition alone. You collect data, you analyze it and make decisions with clear justifications.
• A curious investigator – You ask why a lot. You don’t just take what you see and accept it. You wonder why it is that way, and are aware that the world we see is created by human choices and actions – and it could be different. You wonder, and see the world as wonderful even when you want to change a part of it that is unjust.