Senior Staffing & Operations Manager

Organization Overview:

Tens of millions of people in the U.S. live with chronic financial insecurity, inadequate savings, and no meaningful wealth, with deeply harmful consequences for themselves, their children, families, communities, employers, and the economy.

Black, Latinx, and women-led households disproportionately experience financial insecurity due in large part to longstanding, systemic racism and gender discrimination. Addressing these issues is critical to Commonwealth’s work of making wealth possible for all.

For over two decades, Commonwealth’s fundamental purpose has remained to create a stronger and more prosperous society where everyone has financial opportunity. Our work has enabled over 2 million people to save nearly $8 billion on a path to greater financial security and wealth. We are now embarking on a new 4-year strategic plan that seeks greater impact and builds on our systems-focus to expand workplace benefits, strengthening partnerships with financial institutions and fintech partners, and exploring new frontiers like climate and generative AI.

Commonwealth strengthens the financial opportunity and security of financially vulnerable people by discovering ideas, piloting solutions, and driving innovations to scale. We understand broad change requires market players to act. That’s why we take a unique approach to collaborate with consumers, the financial services industry, employers, policymakers, and mission-driven organizations. The solutions we build are grounded in real life, based on our deep understanding of people who are financially vulnerable and how businesses can best serve them.

For more than 2 decades, we have moved employers to prioritize worker financial security, the financial service industry to bring products to market that better serve financially vulnerable people, and policymakers to pass legislation and take action to enable savings and financial security. To learn more about the organization, please visit buildcommonwealth.org.

Position Overview :

As we enter an exciting scale-up phase, we are focused on building a dynamic team of innovators and problem solvers to make wealth possible for all!

We’re looking for an experienced people and operations leader to join our team as The Senior Staffing & Operations Manager (SSOM) to help train and develop our talent team. The SSOM brings a strong learning and growth mindset, prior experience working in a matrix environment, navigating complex feedback loops, and a natural inclination to collaboratively problem-solve with others. This is a unique opportunity for a systems-thinker to build and strengthen workforce planning, facilitate training and development, and oversee internal personnel negotiations for project staffing.

We are committed to creating a diverse, dedicated, skilled, and collaborative environment, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Commonwealth recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected statuses.

You are an ideal candidate for this role if you are a skilled relationship builder, stellar project manager, and confident negotiator. We are seeking someone that embraces the power of “no” as an advocate to uplift the strengths, capabilities, and capacity limits of others to tackle staffing needs in an agency-like working environment.

Salary Range: $85,000 - $95,000 commensurate with experience and qualifications. This is a temporary position for 8 months with a strong likelihood of an employment extension based on performance and grant funding. A temporary evaluation process will be launched at the 7 month to provide notice and transition time if the employment agreement ends.

KEY OUTCOMES:

• Forecast and report on business metrics to inform staffing decisions & build project teams
• Monitor productivity/performance outputs of the Commonwealth team and provide feedback to project teams to improve performance
• Design and facilitate training programs to support skills development and application
• Assess existing systems and identify opportunities for improvement and automation
• Analyze historical trends and future projections to create forecasting, scheduling, and staffing plans

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Organizational Leadership, Advocacy, & Negotiation

• Build and nurture a culture of knowledge exchange, coaching, and training to engage and develop the workforce at all levels
• Partner with the Senior Leadership Team and other identified stakeholders to establish and implement organizational development and design strategies, including (but not limited to) workforce planning, succession planning, retention, and staff development
• Drive business outcomes through organizational and leadership development & the strategic assignment of our diverse workforce (inclusive of permanent, part-time, and temporary employees as well as contractors) to high-functioning project teams
• Collaborate across the organization to identify, design, and implement Commonwealth’s talent management strategy, programs, and processes to include: Project Team Assignments, Communities of Practice (Skill-Building), Internal Capacity & Skill Set Assessments, Performance Management to drive organizational learning & performance

Workforce Planning & Process Management

• Create, implement, and evaluate leadership and technical competency models that will facilitate the growth and enable the success of our employees & project team success
• Generate and implement solutions to engage and retain employees in partnership with the SVP of People, Culture, & Finance
• Establish a strategic talent planning process including identifying critical positions, determining talent gaps, assessing internal as well as external talent pools, and bridging the workforce gaps
• Provide direction for recruiting efforts to build productive and sustainable sources of talent aligned with Commonwealth’s objectives in collaboration with the Senior People and Systems Manager and the outsourced HR team (NonprofitHR)
• Build and implement succession plans, staff development initiatives, and manage talent pipelines for key roles throughout the organization in partnership with the Senior Leadership Team
• Leverage internal and external analytics to assess programs, process performance, and business needs

Strategic Talent Assessment & Development

• Coach, develop, and mentor Project Owners, Project Managers, and Executive Leaders deliver high-quality project outcomes
• Support the talent development processes including goal setting, talent review, succession & development planning, and performance review process
• Align training, coaching, professional development, and experiential (stretch) assignments in support of Commonwealth’s leadership development strategy
• Develop and implement upskilling and reskilling training, learning & development plans, and solutions to promote individual growth/organizational development in support of strategic business initiatives
• Partner with the Senior Leadership team define career paths and programs required to enable success & high performance
• Serve as a talent subject matter expert and coach to employees at all levels of the organization

QUALIFICATIONS:

• 5+ years of progressive experience including talent management, training and development, and organizational design
• Previous budget and staff management experience
• Exceptional project management and organizational skills, resourceful, and demonstrated ability to take initiative
• Comfort navigating change, ambiguity, and planning for contingencies
• Creative thinker and results-oriented; able to see possibilities others may overlook
• Approaches challenges with a “can-do” attitude and "hands-on" approach
• Strong relationship builder with excellence stakeholder management experience, adept at engaging staff from multiple cultures and across lines of difference
• Highly credible, trustworthy; able to operate without formal authority with colleagues of varying levels of seniority
• Demonstrated strategic thinking skills with a proven ability to enhance organizational priorities and manage people systems
• Proven conflict resolution, advocacy, and negotiation skills
• Ability to synthesize complex information and present to diverse audiences
• Tech-savvy; ability to effectively navigate various software platforms: HRIS, LMS, project management (Asana, Monday, etc.) and communication platforms
• Passionate about the mission of the organization and a belief that wealth is possible for all