State Coordinator, Program Operations

Position Overview :

The State Coordinator, Program Operations is responsible for Room to Read’s operations in a geographic area, a state in this case. The State Coordinator is primarily responsible for ensuring government relations at state level, timely and effective implementation of programs at the field office, including implementation, spending, hiring , local procurement, inventory management, distribution and logistical support.

The position is required to take initiative for project management, improving work approaches, partnerships, selection of projects sites, and ensuring adequate staff to work at the field level. They will work to strengthen coordination and collaboration within teams and across all CO (Country Office) program teams, maintaining and ensuring constructive communication, building team morale within individual teams and contributing to a positive working environment. State Coordinator will report to the Senior Manager, Program Operations and will have dotted line reporting to various stakeholders from the Country Leadership Team. The entire state team will report to State Coordinator.

Responsibilities :

System strengthening and system integration :

Working closely with State officials in ensuring government system strengthening and institutionalization of Room to Read's programs in the states.

Preparation of overall strategic plan, basis local context and Room to Read's Vision plan 2025 for the respective state and continuously reviewing the same.

Organizing various discussions / consultations with Government to work towards system strengthening and positioning Room to Read's as a thought leader in Literacy and Girls Education program.

Building body of evidence that can push appropriate policy / practice changes backed by robust evidence.

Support INCO (India Country office) Operations in proposal development and country growth plan as needed.

External Coordination, branding, and Networking :

Attends to donor affairs including hosting donor and project site visits in collaboration with programs staff.

Develop and lead media advocacy plan for the state.

Assist communication team in promotion of programs through active media liasioning in state in accordance with the strategy, policies and guidelines of the organization.

Scanning of education landscape in the state and positioning Room to Read's as a thought leader through strategic management.

Take lead in dissemination of program results, sharing program report to government and other agencies in suggestions with operations team.

Meets regularly with local government representatives, NGO partners, school administrators and parent groups to represent Room to Read.

Promotes and protects the reputation of Room to Read in external settings, ensuring that the organization’s experience and expertise is well communicated and consistently presented, and that we are looked upon as a professional Education organization.

Management and Coordination :

Ensures efficient and effective coordination across all elements of the Literacy Program and Girls’ Education Program in their region.

Supervises and oversees the work of the field staff and is responsible for optimizing their productivity through effective management and leadership techniques (i.e., coaching / advising).

Ensures staff are consistently complying and adhering to policies, procedures and guidelines articulated in the CO (Country Office) handbooks and facilitates the dissemination of information to all staff members to promote transparency.

Supports staff through consultation with CO-level technical team to regularly assess staff capacity building needs.

Ensures the performance management process is well-planned and conducted in a timely for all field staff. This includes setting performance goals, conducting progress check-ins, providing feedback, conducting year-end appraisals, and making recommendations for staff development and career advancement.

Collaborates with Human Resources to handle recruitment and training of staff according to need.

Leads and facilitates field staff in bi-weekly or monthly meetings to review progress against plans, find solutions to problems, share lessons learned, exchange expertise across programs, and to motivate and encourage teamwork.

Ensures that field-staff are aware of and understand the programs’ goals and objectives, working approaches and methodology, and have all necessary information related to annual plans, targets, and implementation calendars.

Conducts regular field visits to monitor and verify the programs’ progress and impact, understand the challenges, and needs of stakeholders (e.g., Room to Read’s staff, Social Mobilizers, Field Facilitators, communities, children, etc...), and suggest appropriate solutions.

Develop and implement plans for on-line material development in consultation with Country office as per the state specific context.

Perform other tasks as assigned by the Senior Manager, Operations and Country Management Team.

Financial management :

Supervises fund disbursement, reviews and approves the field monthly and quarterly financial expenses in accordance with financial and purchasing policy and procedures.

Timely submission of Cash forecast, booking of monthly bills and variance tracker

Monthly tracking of all expense vis-à-vis the budgets and flagging any deviations to concerned person.

Coordinates the timely completion of annual planning and budgeting.

Ensuring full utilization of respective budgets as per the financial guidelines.

Co-ordinate and answer any audit queries for the state.

Reporting and Documentation :

Develops high quality quarterly report for distributing to partners, if applicable.

Prepares high quality monthly and quarterly donor programmatic reports, coordinate with concerned Program, Finance and Operations department in INCO for finalizing and sharing the report on time.

Ensuring high level of data quality for all reporting purposes.

Preparation of appropriate case studies for submission to donors / communication team

Percentages of work of State Head :

Tasks for State Head Allocation of % on the tasks

System Integration and strengthening 30%

Management and Coordination 35%

Financial Management 25%

Monitoring, Donor Visit and Govt visits 2%

Training & Development 8%

Qualifications : Required :

Master’s in education / social sciences / management Social Work or equivalent.

Minimum 12 years of relevant experience and 5+ years of management experience of related sector.

Prior experience of community engagement / mobilization activities.

Command of the local language is preferred.

Compensation :

Room to Read offers a competitive salary with excellent benefits. Benefits include thirteenth month bonus, health insurance and a retirement plan. The non-monetary compensation includes a unique opportunity to be part of an innovative, meaningful, and rapidly growing organization that is changing transforming the lives of millions of children in developing countries on literacy and gender equality in education.

Room to Read is proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to identifying and continually developing the skills and leadership of people from diverse backgrounds.

Room to Read is a child-safe organization.