Operation Assistant

Are you interested in worker-owned cooperatives?  Do you like talking with people?  Are you also good at word processing, writing emails, and on-line scheduling?

Safi Home Works, A Tucson network of worker-owned cleaning and home maintenance cooperatives, is looking for someone to work in our tiny central office.

Please read the job description below.  If you don’t meet all the requirements, but wish you did and want to commit long-term to a worker-owned cooperative, please be in touch anyway.  Right now we have a job for an operations assistant who can understand and speak at least very basic Spanish.   If you are interested in working part-time as a cleaner, let us know, as there may be space for you in an affiliate soon.

Safi Home Works, LLC Operations Assistant Job description.

• Pay Rate
• Brief Description
• Responsibilities & Expectations
• Requirements to qualify for this position
• This job description is subject to change and is a general overview.

Pay Rate

$16 during training period (first 50-200 hours, depending on experience and ability), then $18/hr for the next 5-12 months.  Within 12 months of employment, you will be offered the opportunity to become an Operations Coordinator, and/or a co-owner, at which point pay rate is renegotiated.  Owners receive “guaranteed payments” instead of hourly wages.

We are a tiny company. Hours offered may change over the course of the year to account for varying cashflow and business. This position at this time is for part time, about 12-20 hours per week.  We are looking for someone who is available on weekday afternoons or early evenings.

 

Brief Description

Safi Home Works, LLC  (SHW) is the central customer service, marketing, sales and office support hub for a network or worker-owned cooperatives who offer clients “truly nontoxic” residential and commercial cleaning services, interior house painting, and yard work.

The Operations Assistants work as a team. The work of the Operations Team is the majority of the work that SHW does.  The Operations Coordinators are diplomats and planners who ensure the smooth flow of operation and communication between our clients and our affiliates, and within SHW.  The job, located in Tucson, AZ, is primarily done on-site but some small parts can be done remotely.

The OT  are at the center of all the services that we provide to our affiliates and our clients including:

• Scheduling (of all client services, SHW meetings, sales meetings, trainings, publicity events,community-facing events, etc)
• Dispatching (assigning jobs to teams and answering their requests for information)
• Translation/interpretation
• Customer service (including invoicing and some aspects of sales)
• Note taking and record keeping
• Meeting facilitation
• Safi Standards compliance
• Training
• Sales

The Operations Team assists with new business, ongoing customer service and support for our Safi affiliates. Operations Assistants,  “manage” the client’s satisfaction from start to finish, as well as responding to Affiliate needs with useful solutions.  Both clients and affiliates should have a feeling they are being taken care of from the very beginning, as well as ongoing.

This position is critically important to sales because OC’s are often the first person the prospective client speaks with during their evaluation of service companies.  The Operations Team are also the people that the affiliates connect with most often, via weekly meetings and daily phone calls and text.

The position is also critical to accounting, as the OT creates and send invoices to clients, making possible a sustainable cash flow

The OT cares about everyone’s needs and asks questions, always taking time to listen.

Responsibilities & Expectations of an Operations Assistant

Customer service:

• Appropriately answer calls, text and email
• Manage client complaints to complete satisfaction including follow up calls and working with teams to ensure problems are truly resolved.
• Handle damage complaints, including working with the insurance company
• Communication with clients about schedule changes, trainees, etc.
• Periodically and proactively reach out to clients to confirm their satisfaction
• Work with the affiliates (at least weekly, possibly daily) to keep client information up to date and share all pertinent new client information with affiliates in a timely manner
• Keep all client information up to date in files with changes and notes on what makes the client happy, or at least satisfied within the quality standards of the service that we provide.

Sales and Marketing:

• Consult with new clients, following the scripts provided in training, and convert them to regular clients
• Follow up with one-time-only clients
• Attend residential bid visits when necessary, assisting affiliate members in making bids,with communicating in English, and training them to make bids themselves
• Ask clients for online reviews so our business can get a high volume of positive reviews
• Promote our referral program with current clients
  Provide stories or photos for submission to website, etc.

Scheduling:

• Schedule and set up client jobs & bids using our systems and protocols
• Daily manage the team’s routes to respond changes from last-minute call-outs or client changes
• Work with the affiliates (at least weekly) to ensure that work schedules (going forward two weeks or more) are fuel efficient, and reasonably timed
• Send appointment reminders to clients 2 days ahead of time.
  Schedules internal meetings within SHW; meetings with affiliates;  and vendors; marketing and affiliate support events;

Dispatching, Teaching, and Affiliate Support:

• Work with cleaning teams to support them with problems they have in the field
• Translating and interpreting between
• Meet weekly with affiliates to share information, help settle or pre-empt problems within the team, and promote Safi Standards.
  Help affiliates train new members, either through direct support in the field, at the SHW office, and/or by organizing trainings with outside teachers
• Offer community referrals when possible that support affiliate members

Minimal Requirements:

• Perfect or nearly perfect command of spoken and English
  Clear speaking voice
• Ability to compose clear emails and business letters
  Be a good listener.
• Experience working or living with people of a variety of cultures and backgrounds
• Punctual and reliable.
• Agree with Safi Standards
• Enjoy talking with new people and helping them
• Mostly happy and engaging. You are the face of our business.
  Good arithmetic skills
• Strong ability to prioritize
• Ability to complete daily tasks with a minimum of supervision
• Ability to collect and organize data
• Willingness, skill and ability to work at a computer
• Experience using Google Calendar
• Experience working with other people in a team
• Commitment to worker-owned cooperatives
• Commitment towards a truly nontoxic lifestyle
• Commitment to being scent-free at work
• An ability to commit for more than 2 years

Currently, the position we have open is for someone who can:

• Speak and easily understand basic spoken Spanish, including over the phone.

Ideal Operations Assistants will have:

• Professional experience cleaning and/or painting or other manual labor
• Desire to join a worker-owned cooperative
• Professional experience and knowledge in sustainability
• Experience teaching or in sales
• Good business sense
• Good driving record
• A network of contacts in Tucson
• An ability to commit for more than 3 years

Note:  SHW is a drug-free work environment.  Drug intoxication at work is not tolerated.

To apply:

Please send an email to  safihomeworks@gmail.com.  In your email please describe in detail why you meet the qualifications and why you want to work with us.  After we have received your email we will call you to set up a phone interview, followed by an in-person interview.  You will shadow someone for half a day, and then commence paid training.

Please study our website www.safihomeworks.com and look over the website of the US Federation of Worker-owned Cooperatives prior to contacting us.