Operations Associate Job at One Acre Fund

Early-career professionals with 2-5+ years work experience to join our Operations team in a position that combines both field and management experience in Kenya.

Job Location

Kakamega, Kenya  (English required)

Duration

Minimum 2 years commitment, full-time job.

Job Description

One Acre Fund’s Kenya program grows in scope and complexity each year. We add new products, services, and input distributions; new ways of collecting repayment and enrolling clients; and new policies and procedures to incentivize and enforce good performance. Our program size roughly triples every two years.

The Operations Division – a collection of back-office functions including Logistics, Customer Engagement, Orders, Collections, Print, and Internal Investigations – works to (re)design and execute the processes necessary to keep up with program change, growth, and innovation. We live on the edge of what’s possible, and accept significant executional risk and technical debt to increase the total amount of social good that we produce, through more impact per client and more total clients. The result is a fast-paced, constantly evolving and growing work environment. We seek individuals who are excited by BIG challenges and comfortable building structure where we haven’t yet placed it.

We place a heavy emphasis on both execution and staff growth and development. We strive to create a safe learning environment that is forgiving of internal mistakes, with safety mechanisms to catch any errors before they ripple outside of our division. Simultaneously, we offer stretch-projects to all staff because we believe that growth comes through practice. We seek team members who are eager to embrace both of these important priorities.

As the Kenya Operations Associate/Manager, your duties will include:

• Supporting one or more teams within the operations division.
• Mentoring and developing key team leaders.
• Working closely with our Field Program and Innovations teams to support program impact assessments – For each proposed programmatic change, what existing processes will shift and what additional short and long-term support is needed.
• Managing operations projects – Some examples include:
  • Identifying, codifying, and documenting mature processes – How we execute the routine stuff to run our program, like servicing product warranties, allocating field staff to operational geographies, disbursing refunds, issuing client repayment incentives, etc. etc. etc.
  • Formalizing QC processes and checklists to deskill our entry-level roles.
  • Supporting the development and maintenance of a simple country-wide “Service Catalog” that outlines the services each One Acre Fund team offers.
• Managing operations innovations – some examples include:
  • Migrating existing paper processes to tablets, speeding the flow of data from field to office and back.
  • Professionalizing our Customer Service team’s call routing, call volume projections, case tracking, and associated reporting.
  • Preparing for “rolling” program enrollment and deliveries if and as we move away from a highly seasonal program.
• Building bridges between our Field Program leadership and our back-office.
• Humbly and cheerfully doing whatever unexpected work is necessary to keep the ship afloat and strengthen it against future unexpected icebergs.