Business Operations Manager Flexible

About Babyzone

Babyzone is a brand new charity which aims to support to families with babies and toddlers. We’re focused on breaking down the barriers that many parents face in accessing high quality early years offers. We’re an ambitious charity working with OnSide Youth Zones and backed by philanthropists.

Babyzones are currently delivered each week in Youth Zones where we run free exploratory play and evidence-based early years classes in a clean, safe and welcoming environment. We design our approach around the needs of lower income families, but are open to all. Parents don’t sign up in advance, there’s no timetable and we don’t take names and personal details from our families. We believe that by removing barriers we are creating a fully accessible, inclusive place for parents and carers to bring their children to play, read, chat and sing together.

Our office is based in West London at Scale Space, and we work in amazing Youth Zones to deliver Babyzone. This role is a great opportunity to join us at the start of our journey and really make a difference to how Babyzone grows and the families we support. We reach between 250-300 families per week across both Babyzones. Around 60% of the families who visit us come from low income families. We want to reach more of the families who need us around the country. We’ll do this by creating more Babyzones, but also by showing others how to remove barriers.

Being relatively new, we’re learning as we go, and we’re excited for what comes next. This role will be integral to our knowledge development and our growth.

The purpose of the role

The Business Operations Manager will have responsibility for setting up the Babyzone operations to ensure the smooth running of the Babyzone charity. This role will be across all of our operations so that we learn, develop and grow in accordance with our strategy. This is an exciting role. The Business & Operations Manager will be central to setting up how we work, making sure we’re a brilliant organisation to work for and with and be valuable support to our tiny team and board

Responsibilities

Many of the processes and policies listed below that Babyzone needs to function are not yet in place. The Business & Operations Manager will be critical in setting this up, working closely with the Chief Executive and board of trustees.

Data

• Responsible for ensuring that our data dashboards (currently in excel) are working and showing an accurate picture of our weekly progress
• Working with the Heads of local Babyzones to make sure data is accurate
• Reviewing the data each week with the Chief Executive for our weekly report
• Finding and implementing new ways to present our knowledge, which could be looking at how we calculate numbers, learn about the families who visit Babyzone or infographics which present to funders and partners what our impact is
• Managing the contract with our data partner and sharing with the Babyzone team what we learn from their insights

Board support

• Providing administrative support for the board of trustees including supporting board recruitment activities
• Minute taking at quarterly board meetings.

Operations

• Overall responsibility for the management of the ‘back office’ function, including ensuring resources (such as IT) are in place to support the team to work effectively
• Establishing and maintaining appropriate office administrative systems and related policies
• Managing Babyzone’s communications (phone, letter, email and website) and providing administrative support for the team, especially around events and fundraising.

HR

• Responsible for HR administration
• Administration for the end-to-end recruitment process from setting up advertisements to issuing contracts and onboarding (DBS, payroll etc)
• Supporting the Chief Executive/external HR provider to set up Babyzone’s family friendly policies and processes
• Liaising with an external HR provider where necessary
• Responsible for setting up and maintaining employee files in line with appropriate legislation
• Organising staff development, training, and all staff meetings.

Finance

• Responsible for basic finance functions such as book-keeping, paying invoices and invoicing
• Liaising with our suppliers to ensure that all our Babyzones have the equipment they need to run effectively at the high quality our families deserve.

Team working

• Working closely with the Chief Executive to support the team and Babyzone organisation
• Being an integral part of the management team; demonstrating and holding the Babyzone principles at the heart of how we work
• Working in a collaborative way with all Babyzone staff, trustees and partners.