Earlybird Educare@Work is hiring an Operations Associate
About Us
Earlybird is a social enterprise that seeks to address the shortage of high-quality Early Childhood Development (ECD) services in South Africa. Earlybird uses two delivery channels to tackle this challenge. Firstly, Earlybird partners with large corporates to provide world-class, workplace-based ECD services on-site for their employees’ children (we work with children aged 4-months to 5-years). This employee wellness offering not only benefits the enrolled children by setting them on a path to success in school and life but also helps our corporate partners attract and retain valuable female talent. Secondly, Earlybird partners franchisees to set up community-based educare centres that implement our high-quality ECD offering. We use an innovative cross-subsidisation model to support the franchisees’ fidelity to our education and administrative systems while ensuring that school fees remain affordable to families living in the immediate surrounds of their centre.
Earlybird has offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg and is majority owned by the Innovation Edge, a grant making and investment platform with a social impact agenda.
Our team has spent the past two years working intensively to build a scalable, high-quality educare model for the South African context. We have designed a programme which aims to ensure that all children in our centres receive developmentally appropriate, sensitive and responsive caregiving that helps them progress along their individual learning and development path. We are opening 4 new educare centres in Gauteng in 2020.
About the Position
We are looking for a dynamic problem-solver capable of engaging in big-picture strategic thinking as well as detail-oriented implementation to join our management team as a full-time Operations Associate. If you believe in our mission and are looking for a rewarding, challenging, flexible working environment with plenty of opportunities to learn, then please get in touch with us! We are targeting a total cost-to-company (i.e. gross) monthly salary range of R30,000 -R34,000.
The successful candidate will take on the following core responsibilities (among other ad hoc contributions):
Project Management of Educare Centre Openings
- Supervising contractors in the renovation and fitting out of each of our new educare centres during the months leading up to their opening dates.
- Procurement of educational supplies and furnishings for educare centres and development of a procurement database and ordering system.
- Working with our Head of Training and School Management on recruitment and hiring of principals and teachers.
- Running parent enrolment drives ahead of centre openings and during the early months of operation.
- Liaising with parents during their enrolment process.
- Managing compliance: required construction certificates, Department of Social Development registration.
Ongoing Educare Centre Management Support
- Working with our Head of Finance and centre principals to implement an efficient monthly financial management process for our centres (using standard accounting software such as Xero and Receipt Bank).
- Managing orders of food and perishable/consumable educational materials for our centres on an ongoing basis.
- Working with CEO to develop and implement HR systems and supporting principals in HR management at a centre-level and playing an arbitration role where necessary.
- Contributing to creation of risk assessment frameworks and associated implementation (including monitoring adherence to health and safety protocols).
- Coordination of teacher and principal mentorship and training.
- Maintenance of positive relationship between centre-level (educare) and central support team (head office) staff with educare centre principals as direct reports.
- Providing oversight and support for family engagement endeavours run by principals and teaching staff.
About You
(i) Minimum of three years’ work experience in a management role (specifically in the fields of HR, communications, and/or early education).
(ii) Hold a Bachelors degree or higher.
(iii) Possess strong project- and people- management skills, including the ability to manage multiple and overlapping deadlines almost exclusively on one’s own. Reliably sets and meets expectations.
(iv) Willing and able to gain a working knowledge of concepts in the fields of early education, innovative finance, and education technology.
(v) Personable, reliable, organised, motivated by impactful work.
(vi) A creative problem-solver who is undaunted by the inevitable challenges that will crop up as we work to break new ground in South Africa’s under-developed Early Childhood Development sector.
(vii) Based in Johannesburg. Available to start 1 June 2020 or sooner.
If you feel this position is a good fit for you please submit a cover letter and your CV to info@earlybirdeducare.co.za before COB on Friday 27 April 2020.