Illustration Operations Manager

Twinkl Educational Publishing; Sheffield; On-site; GBP 29,000 - 35,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Westfield Health

33 days annual leave (pro-rata)

Flexible working policy (work fromHome

Twinkl subscriptions

Cycle-to-work scheme

Job summary

Twinkl Educational Publishing is recruiting an Illustration Operations Manager in the United Kingdom to drive continuous performance improvements across the illustration team. The role focuses on data-driven decision making, monitoring production quality and reducing end-to-end lead times while maintaining Twinkl’s high standards.

You will line manage the Illustration Development Manager, the Illustration Training Coordinator, and the AI Illustration Coordinator, collaborating with senior

Qualifications

• Understanding of the illustration process.
• Analytical mindset for large data sets.
• Strong communication with leaders and SLT.
• Persuasion skills to drive changes and change management.
• Ability to take projects from ideation to completion and measure impact.
• Multitasking and prioritisation to meet business needs.
• Holistic approach to improving the department.
• Proactive collaboration across the department.

Responsibilities

• Analyse Illustration Production Data to identify high-value improvements.
• Collaborate with department leaders to unblock teams and gather ground information.
• Lead Illustration TLs to shorten end-to-end lead times and review systems.
• Identify high-impact projects for efficiency and quality improvements.

Skills

Team leadership

Illustration process

Project management

Process improvement

Google Sheets

Tableau

Automation & AI interest

Tools

Google Sheets

Tableau

Job description

Location: United Kingdom

Annual Salary: £32,000

Hours of work: 37.5

Contract: 12 months fixed term

Line Manager: Senior Production Operations Manager

About the role

We are recruiting an Illustration Operations Manager to drive measurable business impact through continuous performance improvement, quality output and illustration team capability.

If you are a proactive, data-focused individual who has a strong interest in efficiency and problem-solving, we would love to hear from you. The role sits within the Production Operations team. This team is focused on making continuous improvements to the production processes and practices that will help drive the business forward, by getting resources and products out to customers as quickly as possible, while maintaining Twinkl’s high quality standards that our users need.

As the Illustration Operations Manager, you will take ownership of collecting and analysing production data, to spot opportunities for improvements. You will suggest and follow through with regular process improvements for Illustrators working across all territories. As such, you will work closely with leaders across different departments to understand where they require support, and to understand the impact of changes being implemented.

Alongside this, you will line manage and support the Illustration Development Manager, the Illustration Training Coordinator, and the AI Illustration Coordinator, to ensure that operational improvements are being implemented across the board. The team will also be key to supporting Country Managers, Production Managers and Team Leaders across any teams working on Production, who may need support with the technicalities of developing their illustrator skills.

You will work on a wide variety of projects, all with a focus on continuous improvement of the team, content lines and customer experience. This role will give you the opportunity to develop your skills across many different areas, working on widescale impactful improvements to individual teams, as well as implementing high level changes that will deliver results for our customer. You will work closely with the Teaching and Design Operations Managers to ensure that key improvements are adding value across the whole department.

Ongoing Projects / How You’ll Spend Your Day

• WoW/MoM collection and analysis of Illustration Production Data, identifying opportunities to create high value impact for the business.
• Working closely with leaders across to get on the ground information about blockers that are occurring within their teams.
• Leading Illustration TLs to enable shorter E2E lead times, supporting team allocation, identifying process improvements and reviewing existing systems and tracking.
• Leading Illustration Operations team to identify high impact projects for efficiency and quality improvements and improving existing systems, tracking and reporting.

To succeed in the role, you will:

• Have an understanding of the digital illustration process.
• Have an analytical mindset, with the ability to collect and understand large data sets.
• Be a strong communicator, and be confident when speaking with leaders and SLT.
• Have strong persuasion skills, with the ability to influence leaders into making key changes and improvements. You will also have a good understanding of change management techniques.
• Have the ability to see projects through from ideation to completion, as well as measuring and understanding the impact of projects worked on.
• Be able to multitask and prioritise to meet the needs of the business.
• Have the ability to take a holistic approach to the improvement of the department.
• Be proactive, and good at identifying where collaboration across the department would result in higher impact improvements.

You’ll work with:

• Laurel Wilkinson, Head of Content Development
• Helen Sushams, Senior Production Operations Manager
• The Production Operations team, and Teaching and Design Operations Managers.
• A variety of leaders within UKI and International.

We're interested in anyone who meets one of, or a combination of, the following:

• Experience in leading a team.
• Has a strong understanding of the illustration process.
• Has a strong understanding of project management.
• Has a strong understanding of process improvement.
• Intermediate or advanced level ability to use Google Sheets and Tableau.
• Experienced and/or keen interest in learning about automations, operational tooling and AI.

In return for everything you can bring, we can offer you an exciting role in a fast-growing and dynamic business, with plenty of career opportunities.

Here’s a couple of the things that make Twinkl a great place to be:

• A friendly, welcoming and supportive culture. We believe work should be fun and always put people before the process
• Diversity, inclusion and belonging - our Employee Network Program includes working groups for LGBTQ+, People of Colour, Disabilities (visible and invisible), Women in Tech and Working Parents.
• From day 1 - Westfield Health, 33 annual leave days per year (pro-rata) inclusive bank holidays, a "Me" day each year, a charity day each year, flexible working policy with opportunities to work from home and Twinkl subscriptions.
• Quarterly company awards programme
• Seasonal events
• Referral scheme
• Cervical and Prostate screening
• Company sick pay after 3 months of service
• After probation - cycle-to-work scheme
• Long-term service reward - Life insurance, enhanced pension contribution, enhanced maternity pay, enhanced adoption pay and enhanced paternity pay, long service award, long service annual leave