Senior Associate, Operations
About Global Schools Forum
Global Schools Forum (GSF) is a collaborative community of non-state organisations working to improve education at scale for underserved children in low and middle-income countries through:
- Strengthening and growing a global, interconnected learning community;
- Testing promising solutions and diffusing evidence; and
- Partnering strategically to shape policy and scale solutions.
Our vision is that all children can realise their potential through safe access to quality education.
Our community of 111 organisations spans 60 countries, collectively running or supporting over 236,000 schools who provide education to nearly 20 million children. Our community comprises standalone schools, such as MAIA Impact working with Mayan girls in Guatemala; a diverse set of school networks working within or across countries, including organisations like Hippocampus working in India or United World Schools working in Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal and Madagascar; or organisations providing core support services to non-state schools, such as EdPartners Africa that provides financial services to schools in Kenya or Instill Education that provides a variety of teacher development offers across Africa.
GSF’s strategy currently covers three activity areas:
Strengthening and growing a global, interconnected learning community. We are continuously expanding our community of mission-aligned, non-state organisations across Asia, Africa, and South America. We provide opportunities for our community of leaders to collaborate and learn from each other as they confront shared operational and pedagogical challenges. Based on the needs and challenges of the community, we curate an annual programme of events and communities of practice.
Testing promising solutions and diffusing evidence. We fund and support education entrepreneurs to develop, test and scale promising education approaches. We generate and share evidence on ‘what works’ in education and what makes organisations more effective.
Partnering strategically to shape policy and scale solutions. We enable our community to engage in the strengthening of education systems by engaging in global policy processes, and with support in forging partnerships with other organisations, funders, and policymakers.
Role Purpose
GSF is an ambitious global education organisation with a remote-first global team. We have evolved fast since we were founded in 2017 and spun out as a fully independent organisation in 2021.
Now entering our next phase of development, we are looking for someone passionate about developing effective systems, processes and ways of working for a remote-first team that will support us in taking in our delivery and impact to the next level.
As an integral member of a growing entrepreneurial team no task will be too big or small. You will work closely with the Operations Director and the small people and operations team and play a key role in supporting the smooth running of GSF. You will be creating, reviewing and updating workflows and ways of working to ensure smooth collaboration within and between teams.
You will ensure IT and information management systems are fit for purpose and will work across the team to spot and propose solutions to IT and software issues, working alongside our outsourced IT provider, and in particular will support the implementation and maintenance of new CRM and project management systems across GSF.
Requirements
Key Responsibilities
Operational Process Development & Improvement
- Working across GSF teams to map, streamline and document key processes and workflows for use by the current team and to onboard new joiners.
- Creating SOPS, how to guides, videos and training as relevant to ensure workflows are understood and implemented consistently across GSF.
- Supporting with the development of operational policies and standards (e.g. data protection, GDPR compliance), including ensuring effective dissemination and implementation.
Information management
- Owning and maintaining GSF’s document management system (MS SharePoint) and managing internal and external access
- Maintaining the SharePoint guide including overall architecture, permission levels, naming conventions, retention and archiving guidelines.
- Organising and maintaining digital files, documents, templates and tools for easy retrieval and reference.
- Creating and maintaining a GSF Annual Calendar with key dates from across functions
Software and hardware management
- Managing relationship, contract and costs with external IT service providers (Penelope).
- Working with Penelope to maintain GSF hardware and software suite (MS 365 based), and managing subscriptions, costs, usage and logins for internally managed software, ensuring all are up to date and fit for purpose for our remote-first team.
- Researching, testing and implementing new software and systems as appropriate to meet the evolving needs of the GSF team
- Working with Penelope to ensure cyber security and data protection advice are implemented effectively across GSF and that software, systems and the team’s usage of them are compliant with relevant data protection legislation.
- Researching and identifying providers and managing relationships with partners and suppliers as necessary to support the operational functions of GSF.
CRM and project management systems
- Working with external consultants and across the GSF team to support the scoping, development and implementation of GSF CRM and project management systems.
- Leading on engaging the GSF team in the roll out of GSF CRM and project management systems and becoming the internal
- Training and supporting the GSF team in the use of CRM and project management systems
- Maintaining and continually improving CRM and project management systems ensuring they meet the evolving needs of the team
IT Training & Implementation
- Onboarding and offboarding GSF team members to all IT systems and software and supporting with ongoing training for team members as needed (in collaboration with Penelope)
- Developing and regularly updating GSF IT guide, including managing input from Penelope
- Being the first point of call for team IT issues and questions and working closely with Penelope to resolve them short term and implement changes as necessary to avoid them for the future
Additional responsibilities
- Additional responsibilities as may be required as part of a small dynamic team
Is this you?
Person Specification
- Passion and motivation – You’ll be passionate about education and making a difference, with a strong work ethic and willingness to get stuck in.
- Tech literacy – You’ll be proficient in working with the Microsoft 365 suite (SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint are the primary tools in use, but we are keen to utilise the suite further over time).
- Proactivity and problem-solving – You’ll be a self-starter, able to work independently and showing initiative in identifying areas for improvement and implementing solutions.
- Planning and organising – You’ll have strong planning and time management skills with the ability to effectively manage multiple priorities and stakeholders to meet deadlines.
- Attention-to-detail – You’ll be someone who prides yourself on getting the details right, with experience of managing high-volume workloads, without compromising on quality and accuracy.
- Communication and relationship management – You’ll have excellent written and oral communication skills, and solid experience building and maintaining relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
- Flexibility – You’ll be comfortable working in a young, rapidly changing organisation. You’ll be quick to adapt to changes in priorities and tasks, adjusting to new ways of working across teams.
- Pragmatic and practical – You are passionate about solving real business needs rather than using technology for technology’s sake
Terms and Conditions
Salary: Competitive within UK not for profit sector, adjusted based on location and experience.
Contract: Permanent. Consultancy agreements will be considered for candidates not based in the UK, where GSF is currently headquartered.
Hours: Full Time, typically 9-5 in your time zone but with significant flexibility. Given that we work across different time zones, some non-traditional hours for early or late calls may be required.
Location: We are a fully remote organisation. We welcome applications from anywhere in the world, with a preference for a time zone between GMT-2 to GMT+5:30. Local work authorisation is required. Some international travel may be required.
Responsible to: Operations Director.
Start Date: We would like the successful candidate to start as soon as possible, subject to any notice periods.
How to Apply
Application deadline: 9am BST, Monday 20th May
In order to apply for this role, we ask all candidates to provide a CV, and a cover letter and to apply through the job portal.
Interview Dates:
1st interview w/c 27th May
2nd Interview w/c 3rd June
Please note we will be reviewing applications as they are received, and you may hear from us before the application deadline or up to 10 days after the deadline.
Please include the following in the cover letter:
- What excites you about GSF as an organisation and about this role in particular?
- Share one example of a system or process you have developed or improved in a previous role
- What would you do in this role that would really make an impact?
- Where did you first hear about this opportunity?
Please note – we will not consider applications unless they include a CV, and a cover letter that responds to the points above and have been submitted through our application portal.
If you have any questions about the application process or the role, please contact us at info@globalschoolsforum.org (recruiters will be politely turned away).
If you apply, we will process your personal data for recruitment purposes only and in accordance with our Data Privacy Policy.
GSF is committed to cultivating a fair and inclusive workplace, where everyone can be themselves and thrive. We welcome applications from everyone regardless of race, age, disability, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or faith.
If this role isnʼt quite right for you but you like the idea of working at GSF, please submit your CV to stay in our talent pool and be the first to hear about new opportunities in future GSF Workable
Benefits
- 35 fully flexible holiday days (including flexible bank holidays)
- Flexible working – work from home or at a location that suits you and at the times that work best for you
- Co-working space allowance
- Personal learning and development budget
- Access to GSF events
- Access to Learning Platform iHasco
- Annual team retreat
- Employee pension scheme (only available to UK employees at present)