Continuous Improvement Analyst III

Americo Services Inc; Kansas City (MO); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Americo Services Inc. seeks a Continuous Improvement Analyst III to lead end-to-end improvement engagements, translating complex business issues into measurable operational gains.

You will drive cross-functional collaboration, analyze processes, and ensure deployment delivers real cost reductions and efficiency gains. The role emphasizes liaison with enterprise leadership, governance of improvement initiatives, and advocacy for automation through robotic process automation and workflow design.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in the insurance industry or related field.
• Extensive experience with operational process work spanning multiple departments.
• Ability to assess processes, develop recommendations, and drive deployment to realized benefits.
• Ability to lead and facilitate across teams without direct supervision.
• Working knowledge of data analytics and production automation options, including RPA.

Responsibilities

• Initiates, plans, and leads continuous improvement engagements from start to post-assessment.
• Evaluates process flows, identifies objectives/constraints, and designs efficiency improvements.
• Coordinates enterprise-level projects with upstream and downstream stakeholders.
• Performs data analysis and process mapping to identify obstacles and opportunities.
• Ensures approved recommendations are deployed to production and realized benefits.
• Maintains stakeholder updates and serves as liaison for audits, timing studies, and training.
• Applies automation and workflow redesign insights where viable to improve outcomes.

Skills

Process Improvement

Stakeholder Engagement

Cross-Functional Leadership

Data Analysis

Education

Bachelor's degree in business or related field

Tools

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Workflow Design

Data Analytics Tools

Job description

A Continuous Improvement Analyst III initiates, leads, and deploys continuous improvement engagements end to end, from opportunity identification through production deployment, while serving as the department's primary liaison for cross-functional and enterprise-level process work. This role carries the greatest independent ownership within the analyst track, translating ambiguous business problems into measurable operational improvement.

Core Responsibilities

• Engagement Leadership: Initiates, plans, and manages continuous improvement engagements from preparation through post-engagement assessment, applying facilitation, presentation, and documentation skills throughout.
• Process Optimization Ownership: Evaluates process flows for improvement, identifies objective functions and constraints, and crafts strategies that improve organizational efficiency and reduce operational cost.
• Enterprise Coordination: Assists with business process and enterprise-level projects in a planning, initiation, analysis, and evaluation capacity, realizing change impacts across upstream and downstream stakeholders.
• Advanced Analysis and Reporting: Conducts data analysis and process mapping to identify obstacles and opportunities, monitors the effectiveness of implemented changes against key performance indicators, and adjusts recommendations accordingly.
• Deployment Accountability: Executes approved recommendations through to successful production deployment and confirms that expected benefits are realized.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Updates stakeholders regularly on engagement decisions, gathers feedback and concerns, and serves as department liaison for audits, timing studies, training, and coaching. Serves as a formal liaison with the host business unit for questions, clarity, and concerns.
• Automation Enablement: Applies working knowledge of robotic process automation, workflow design, and analytics to inform solution recommendations where automation is a viable improvement path.
• Production Oversight: Maintains a smaller, targeted production contribution while ensuring it does not compromise the quality of improvement engagement work.

Experience and Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in the insurance industry, with extensive experience in operational process work spanning multiple departments.
• Extensive knowledge of Americo's business process systems and formal system testing and process-improvement concepts and philosophies.
• Demonstrated ability to assess a process or problem accurately, develop an effective recommendation, and execute it through to successful, benefit-realizing deployment.
• Ability to manage and facilitate others toward a shared objective, working through people across departments without direct supervision.
• Working knowledge of data analytic tools and production automation alternatives, including robotic process automation and workflow development.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for engaging stakeholders at all levels, including department and enterprise leadership.

Decision Making Authority

• Independently determines the scope, strategy, and sequencing of continuous improvement engagements, including which processes to prioritize.
• Owns the deployment decision for approved process changes and is accountable for confirming that expected benefits are realized in production.
• Facilitates cross-departmental decisions on behalf of the Continuous Improvement function without requiring supervisor involvement in day-to-day facilitation.
• Escalates only enterprise-level policy commitments or decisions requiring executive sponsorship or capital investment.
• Promote Innovation: Identifies and champions process automation and workflow redesign opportunities that were not previously considered viable.
• Stretch without Fear of Failure: Takes ownership of engagements with ambiguous scope and no established precedent, committing to a recommendation and standing behind its deployment.
• Embrace Change: Leads colleagues and business partners through process change as a source of opportunity, rather than treating it as disruption to be managed.

Leveling Signals

• Independently carries an engagement from initial scoping through production deployment without requiring a senior analyst or manager to direct the approach.
• Is sought out by other departments as the go-to resource for evaluating process risk and improvement opportunity, without prompting from leadership.
• Demonstrates the vision to plan improvement work on a large scale, connecting individual process fixes to broader organizational efficiency goals.