Why Hiring an Operations Manager Could Sabotage Your Efficiency Goals

Running a business is like juggling—there are always multiple balls in the air, and it takes skill to keep them all moving smoothly. As your business grows, you might feel the need to streamline your operations to keep things efficient.

The common solution? Hiring an Operations Manager.

But here’s the catch: this might be a big mistake.

Let’s break down why.

Optimisation vs. Maintenance: Two Sides of the Coin

First, let’s get clear on the difference between optimising operations and maintaining them.

Optimising means making big changes to improve efficiency. It’s about stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, understanding the business and it’s goals, looking at your processes, identifying what’s not working, and coming up with better ways to do things.

On the other hand, maintaining operations is about keeping those processes running smoothly day in and day out.

Skills Needed for Optimisation

To really streamline your operations, you need someone with a specific skill set.

Here’s what they need:

• Strategic Thinking: Understanding how business works and what drives sustainable profit in your business. The ability to prioritise high-impact changes that improve operations over the long term.
• People Skills: The capacity to draw out the true picture from people and create an environment where individuals feel comfortable sharing, making accurate diagnoses feasible.
• Analytical Skills: Diving into complex data to pinpoint inefficiencies and understanding how data tracking can be set up and managed.
• Project Management: Managing large-scale changes and ensuring they are implemented effectively.
• Change Management: A solid understanding of change management, including how to ensure that the team is motivated to get on board and stay committed.
• Forward Thinking: Using experience to predict the best implementation strategies, future-proofing plans, and anticipating potential challenges.

Skills Needed for Maintenance

Maintaining operations is a different ball game. Here are the key skills:

• Consistency and Reliability: Ensuring processes are followed without fail.
• Monitoring and Supervision: Keeping a close eye on daily operations to ensure everything runs smoothly.
• Problem-Solving: Quickly addressing any issues that arise.
• Attention to Detail: Making sure standards and quality are always maintained.
• Escalation: Identifying when issues need to be red flagged for senior management

It's Rare to Find Both Skill Sets in One Person

Now, here’s where things get tricky. Finding someone who excels at both optimisation and maintenance is like finding a unicorn. People who are great at making big changes (optimisers) are often not the same people who excel at keeping things running smoothly (maintainers). Each role requires a different mindset and skill set.

Imagine hiring a master chef to revamp your restaurant’s menu. They’re fantastic at creating new dishes and improving the overall dining experience. But you wouldn’t expect them to handle the daily tasks of running the kitchen efficiently day after day, right? The same logic applies here.

The Consequences of a Misaligned Role

It Costs More and Wastes Money

Hiring an experienced Operations Manager who can handle both roles is expensive. These professionals command high salaries because of their extensive experience and broad skill set.

Alternatively you pitch the salary too low and find yourself in the position of someone maintaining bad processes for you, which is just as much of a waste of money.

The New Hire is Miserable and The Current Team is Annoyed

Being hired into the wrong role guarantees that you won’t be able to do it well. When you can’t perform well, you feel deflated and then employee morale is a slippery slope.

Most businesses that hire an Operations Manager have teams sitting eagerly awaiting their arrival – finally things are going to get easier and clearer around here – when they don’t it is worse that it was before anything changed.

Do you Have the Management Capacity to Spare?

You could hire the maintenance profile operations manager and train them into the optimisation role, assuming they had the aptitude, but who’s going to train them and how are they going to train them if they don’t know the best practices?

Can You Afford Sub Par Business Impact?

If your Operations Manager is great at maintaining but maintains bad practice you are still facing the growing inefficiencies you sought to solve in the first place.

Practical Solutions

Instead of putting all your eggs in one basket, consider these alternatives:

• Hire a Consultant or Specialist for Optimisation: Bring in a consultant or temporary specialist to focus on streamlining your operations. They can make the necessary changes and then step back once the processes are optimised.
• Hire a Separate Manager for Maintenance: Once your operations are optimised, hire someone who excels at maintaining them. This person can ensure everything runs smoothly and address any issues that come up.

Or Win – Win

• Hire me to Optimise your Operations and then mentor your new Operations Manager as they settle into the role: Best of both worlds, you get an experienced consultant to streamline your operations and an experienced leader to help ensure your new Operations Manager is off to a flying start.

Remember, running a business is like juggling, and sometimes, it’s better to have a team of skilled jugglers rather than relying on one person to do it all.

I've worked with small business who have made this mistake and it's hard to untangle. If you want to chat about how I can help or simply want to chat through how you can avoid making this mistake, please do DM me, I'd love to chat.