The National Aquarium protects, enhances and restores natural resources through education and engagement, habitat restoration, animal rescue and sustainable business practices, with its conservation work guided by three overarching goals—to combat climate change, save wildlife and habitats, and stop plastic pollution.
Director, Strategic Operations
The Director, Strategic Operations articulates, ensures stakeholder support, and drives effective implementation of strategic planning and results reporting, the overall strategy for the Aquarium's Operations group. They will also assist in the talent management processes, including Learning & Development, career planning and development, developmental 360 feedback and coaching for the department.
The Director, Strategic Operations oversees the Central Reservations group who is responsible for ensuring accurate, friendly, efficient service for our visitors who require reservations for immersion tours, classroom programs, and school groups. This team answers general visitor questions, manages ticket requests and directs calls to the proper internal employees. The Reservations team processes all membership, renewals and upgrades. Reservationists provide excellent customer service to all clients, internal and external.
Reporting to SVP, COFO, the Director, Strategic Operations ensures alignment and integration of all responsibilities and processes with the Aquarium's strategic framework, mission, vision, and values.
KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:
Operations Strategic Engagement:
- Develop and manage the Aquarium-wide strategic plan for organizational communications and people engagement initiatives to the Operations department.
- Build communication capacity throughout the organization through policy and support communications from leadership; create consistency in messaging across the department.
- Create and manage recognition opportunities throughout the organization through employer branding outlets, rewards and incentives, recognition programs, and manager skills to recognize employees proactively.
- Develop strategic programs designed to align culture and capacity of NA and improve people engagement.
- Deploy and manage pulse and long-form surveys to gather data insights and provide analytics to key stakeholders.
- Work with managers to formulate action plans for engagement to improve culture.
- Manage and cultivate content for operations communication efforts and trainings.
- Serve as the key stakeholder for AquaNet. Partner closely with IT to develop content strategies, encourage staff usage/engagement and oversee ongoing continual improvement of the site.
Organizational Development and Strategic Planning:
- Serve as the Operations Project Manager for strategic planning and results reporting, ensuring the development of annual priorities and action plans, key results identification and continuous planning capacity for the organization to continuously update a short-term planning vision every three to five years.
- Lead collaborative strategy planning work efforts across Director levels to ensure operational alignment.
- Ensure operational strategic alignment with organizational initiatives and strategic framework for long-range planning that supports the growth and overall impact of the Aquarium.
- Involvement in strategy-based talent initiatives including: employee value propositions, diversity and inclusion strategies, and change management.
- Ensure operational alignment of values and competencies for both current business needs and future business success.
- Oversee the development of best-in-class training content and materials (such as eLearning, webcasts, and gamification) including course design, delivery, instruction, program evaluations and learning reinforcement for the Operations department.
- Create initiatives that develop the workforce beyond formalized training sessions, such as coaching and mentoring, learning conversations, and on-the-job training.
- Assist in leadership of recommended strategy for Leadership Development efforts, including emerging leaders' program, Managing with Excellence. Ensure that the Aquarium's operations management training offerings are closely aligned with the overall talent management philosophy and business objectives.
- Provide OD and training support to change management activities, including assistance in conflict resolution, employee coaching and performance management, employee evaluation and strategic hiring, reorganizations, work redesign, team building, succession planning; problem solving, and meeting facilitation among the Operations department.
General Operations:
- Create and support a culture of accountability that lives the Aquarium's values daily.
- Develop and maintain best practices that align with the industry and the Aquarium's mission, values, and strategic priorities.
- Direct and support recruitment and on-the-job training for all direct and indirect reports in the Operations Group.
- Mentor and monitor the work of managers to ensure compliance with directives and established procedures.
- Communicate all National Aquarium business plans & strategic priorities, institutional directives, sales initiatives and policies.
- Incorporate Marketing initiatives and/or operational changes into the Operations best practices.
- Measure, analyze and report guest service satisfaction, online reputation, quality assurance and similar experiential performance metrics to leadership and cross-functional committees.
- Inspire staff to conduct daily operations with a guest-centric mindset, ensuring a positive lasting impression with each guest's experience at the Aquarium.
KEY COMPETENCIES:
- Strong ability to proactively assess needs.
- Expert technical knowledge in full utilization of information management.
- Excellent communication abilities, including outstanding written, articulation and listening skills.
- Commitment to customer service.
- Exceptional organizational skills with close attention to detail.
- Ability to work on-premises a minimum of 5 days per week.
QUALIFICATIONS:
- Bachelor's degree preferred.
- A minimum of 5-7 years of guest service operations or similar experience required.
- Excellent computer skills, including Microsoft Office.
- Expert knowledge in operations and management to foster a customer service-centric culture, as well as a culture of learning, sharing, cooperation, and teamwork that serves to organize repeatable processes to improve efficiency throughout the organization.
- Must have excellent organization skills, strong attention to detail, and the ability to prioritize multiple projects, often against tight deadlines.
- Excellent judgment and professionalism; must be comfortable building and maintaining relationships with internal and external customers at all levels.
- Ability to work well in a fast-paced environment, under pressure and have the capability to address issues that arise on-site with ease.
- Flexibility to adapt schedule to meet operational needs on minimal notice.
The National Aquarium is committed to diversity and invites individuals who bring a diversity of culture, experience and ideas to apply.
Medical, Dental, Vision, 401(K) match and more!
How to Apply
Interested and engaged applicants should apply through our website Requests for reasonable accommodation can be made by e-mailing ...@aqua.org.
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