Responsibilities of an Operations Manager

As the name suggests, the job of an operations manager in any organization is to design and manage the day-to-day operations or activities in such a way, that the work productivity of the employees goes up as well as maximum utilization of the physical resources of the organization can be achieved.

It is one of the main responsibilities of an operations manager to ensure that the physical and human resources of the organization are able to produce the right quality and amount of goods and services at the right time and cost so that customer expectations and requirements can be met.

Leadership and management of resources and people employed is pivotal to the role of an operations manager, which also involves preparing the program budgets, managing the programs, supervising the employees' work, and finally, evaluating the employee performance.

• One of the responsibilities of an operations manager is to provide the employees of the organization with a proper working environment where creativity can be fostered and team spirit can be developed.
• For this, an operations manager has to be very good in the way he deals with people.

• He has to give time to all the departments and listen to any issues that they might be facing and offer a solution for the same.
• If there are any conflicts brewing among the employees, he has to resolve it in time and amicably.

• He has to conduct intra-department meetings as well as inter-department meetings on a regular basis to see to it that the departments not only function well within themselves, but there is smooth communication and working relationship among various departments.

• For any department (marketing/sales/accounts), to run efficiently in an organization, there are certain procedures and rules that have to be adhered to by the employees.

• The procedures may be pertaining to when and how a particular task has to be done, with whom an employee has to communicate about a particular issue, the employees work schedule, etc.
• Formulating all these rules is one of his main responsibilities.

• As mentioned earlier, it is one of the responsibilities of an operations manager to ensure that all resources of an organization are utilized to their maximum potential.
• By doing so, he keeps check on how much money is being spent on producing goods or providing services to the customers.

• An operations manager is able to make decisions such as how much of the budget is to be spent on new equipment or on hiring new employees, which will help in providing better quality products or services to the customers.

• The most important responsibility is to handle issues that arise everyday due to some discrepancies in following the set procedures of working or due to some unknown unforeseen cause.
• Some examples of such operational issues are delay in the shipment of goods, problems with the employees or conflict among them, dissatisfied customers, etc.

• When faced with such issues, the manager has to display the right leadership skills as well as decision-making skills so that the issues can be resolved quickly, and the operations of the company can again be restored back to normal and run smoothly.

As an operations manager's role in an organization is of utmost importance, his salary is in accordance with them too. The salaries will vary from person to person, according to a person's skills, work experience and qualification.

Yet on an average, an operations manager salary range in the United States is anywhere between USD 44,000 to USD 157,000 per year. Thus, operation management is a lucrative career, provided one is ready to do the hard work and take up all the above mentioned responsibilities.