Operations Officer

The Degrees Initiative is a UK-based NGO that builds the capacity of developing countries to evaluate solar radiation management (SRM), a controversial proposal for reducing some impacts of climate change by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. 

The Operations Officer role offers a fantastic opportunity for the right candidate to advance while helping scale-up the organisation’s operations. They will get to work with some the world’s leading SRM experts both inside and outside of Degrees and play a central role in building an initiative that is changing the field of SRM. 

Joining a growing team, the Operations Officer will work closely with the Chief Operations Officer (COO) and the Executive Support Manager to support and improve the finance and operations of the charity. This role will be suitable for an operations generalist as it will involve a variety of projects and tasks spanning finance, HR, IT, operations and governance, including administrative support to help the rest of the team deliver its work. We are looking for someone dynamic, with a keen desire to help the COO improve and streamline processes across the organisation as it grows. Specific responsibilities will include, but are not limited to: 

• Working on a variety of operational projects such as ensuring compliance with GDPR regulations and improving our cyber security; 

• Organising and improving operational procedures, with an eye to using new software solutions where suitable; 

• Supporting financial administration by liaising with the external finance provider; 

• Managing payments, payroll, expenses, and processing supplier invoices and credit card reconciliations; 

• Assisting in the completion of the charity’s annual report, and other management and donor reporting;  

• Supporting the day-to-day human resources and recruitment process for new roles; 

• Helping improve our hiring processes and HR recording keeping; 

• Managing the induction processes for new joiners including oversight of employee contracts and offer letters; 

• Maintaining the staff handbook and relevant HR processes and procedures; 

• Being the contact point with the charity’s outsourced IT provider; 

• Conducting routine administrative and documentation duties such as managing charity correspondence; 

• Maintaining systems for the retention, protection, retrieval, transfer and disposal of documents and records; 

• Managing the charity’s email inboxes, answering/forwarding/filing/deleting as applicable; 

• Maintaining regulatory filings and other compliance matters with HMRC, Companies House, the Charity Commission, etc.; 

• Liaising with the Board for administrative purposes, supporting the Executive Support Manager where appropriate; 

• Liaising with insurance providers to maintain adequate business insurance;  

• Arranging travel for staff and other participants as required, including reimbursements; 

• Providing other administrative support, as necessary, to support staff.