Operations Associate

About Our Organization:

At Youth Guidance, we believe that no matter what challenges a young person faces, they are more likely to succeed when they have caring adults in their lives. Our highly trained staff guides kids to overcome the life and academic challenges facing youth. We meet kids where they are — physically and emotionally — to help them focus on their education, make positive choices, and remain on the right path toward life success.

Founded in 1924, and still relevant today, Youth Guidance is a leading provider of outcomes-driven programs and capacity-building initiatives, directly serving more than 13,000 youth in Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Washington DC, Chicago, and Allegheny County, PA in 2023.

Position Summary: The Operations Associate will help to improve program implementation by supporting effective processes, maintaining partnerships, and supporting the overall work of the Program Operations Team.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities:

• Program Event Assistance – Assist with the planning of program events by providing

vendor, process, and other supports

• Partnership Coordination for Program Opportunities – Student-related events, tickets, relationship support, and collecting staff requests
• Internal communication coordination – external opportunities, program updates, information, maintaining calendar invites
• Facilitates and supports program-related staff expenditures by supporting staff in navigation and successful completion of vendor and internal workflows
• Coordinates program material bulk ordering and distribution
• Program External Inquiry Supports– responding to requests (phone/e-mail), application for programs, and responds to external inquiries related to all programs
• Knowledge Maintenance – maintain the Program Operations SharePoint site and assist with maintaining the library of the Program Operations team documents and files.
• Assists with contracts to meet all terms and deliverables
• Performs other duties as assigned

Minimum Qualifications

Education/Experience/Training

• Bachelor’s degree required in public/non-profit administration, business, social work, human services, or a related area from an accredited university program
• Minimum of two years of experience in the education, human service, youth development, criminal justice, or social service field
• Advanced competency/training in Microsoft Office Suite, Formstack, SmartSheet, com or other comparable software is preferred
• Minimum of two years experience in relationship management

Skills/Abilities

• Effectively manage budgets and contracts preferred
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills are required. Writes and presents effectively; adjusts to fit the audience and the message; strongly gets a message across
• Interpersonal skills that excel in cultural sensitivity and respect for differences
• Proven ability to be self-initiating, energetic, and innovative
• Strong analytical skills

Competencies

• Communication: Able to use effective written and oral communication with internal and external audiences and stakeholders; demonstrates empathy and listening
• Client orientation: Can recognize the needs of diverse stakeholders and approaches relationships with a service orientation to ultimately maximize the impact
• Equity mindset: Understands and is committed to goals of equity; consistently brings an equity mindset to the organization’s work and workplace
• Growth mindset: Views growth as important for personal and professional development; seeks out opportunities to expand skills, even if a change is required; Demonstrated ability to be solutions-focused, self-reflective, and dedicated to the continuous improvement of service quality
• Ownership and quality of work: Effectively manages own work and work of teams ensuring delivery of high-quality Proven ability to be innovative and a self-starter
• Supervisory skills: effectively manages and develops others
• Mission-driven: demonstrates a commitment to the mission of the organization as a whole and alignment with organizational values

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to frequently talk and hear.
• The employee frequently is required to sit and stand for sustained periods of time; walk; use hands and fingers to handle or feel; and reach with hands and
• The employee may occasionally lift and/or move up to 20

Work Environment

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

• This job operates in a professional office environment, COVID-19 vaccination is required.
• This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers, filing cabinets, and fax
• Occasional local

What Youth Guidance offers:

We offer a robust package for eligible candidates including:

• A hiring incentive of $250 for part-time and $750 for full-time
• A retention incentive of $250 after 90 days of continuous service.
• A competitive benefit package. Even though healthcare costs have gone up, we have not passed along those increases to our staff.
• If you are pursuing your social services licensure, we can help you by providing licensure test study support. Licensing test reimbursement. Assistance in attaining licensure supervision hours.

DEI Statement

At Youth Guidance, we understand that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are fundamental to realizing our vision of bright and successful futures for all young people. We celebrate the diversity of youth and recognize them as empowered leaders, problem-solvers, and experts of their own experiences. At the same time, we acknowledge that many systems and institutions meant to support youth are inequitable and unjust.

As such, we are committed to advancing DE&I through our words and our actions, both internally and externally, by:

• Strengthening cultural competence as well as policies, practices, and organizational structures that foster belonging and leverage the unique backgrounds and talents of staff;
• Offering youth-centered programs that are accessible and responsive to people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, abilities, sexual identity, gender identity and expression, language, and cultural and religious beliefs and practices;
• Influencing systems that youth, their families, and communities are impacted by, such as schools, organizational networks, governmental bodies, researchers, and the funding community, to apply approaches that embrace DEI in addressing the needs and supporting the aspirations of young people.

Youth Guidance is an equal-opportunity employer and proudly values diversity. Youth Guidance does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law and is committed to creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity along all of these lines. People of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.