Practice Operations Manager

The Role - Hout Bay, Cape Town

This role in a healthcare practice centres on outstanding people management: building trust, setting clear expectations and holding people accountable with confidence, fairness and respect. You will work closely with the practice leadership and practice team, keeping people aligned and bringing them through change. You will also oversee day-to-day practice operations, team administration and financial processes.

How You Work

We hire for values first. Skills can be taught, and systems can be learned.

You are direct and firm, stay calm under pressure and read people and situations well. You can handle strong personalities and difficult conversations without taking disagreement personally.

·      You notice people. You remember birthdays, and you say thank you specifically.

·      You are organised to the point that others rely on it.

·      You are calm when a day goes sideways.

·      You bring problems forward early rather than hoping they resolve themselves.

·      You would rather fix the system than blame the person.

·      You ask for help early. Pulling in the right team is a strength here, not an admission.

·      You are a good listener who writes things down. Ideas that reach you do not evaporate.

Experience and Skills Required

• Outstanding people management skills, with the confidence to lead experienced professionals, handle resistance and maintain clear standards.
• Sound judgement, resilience and the ability to build trust while maintaining professional boundaries.
• 5+ Years managing a busy operation – it could be in hospitality, with strong responsibility for people and day-to-day operations.
• Experience handling demanding customers, strong personalities and sensitive staff issues with firmness, tact and composure.
• A track record of managing and developing a team, including holding people to standards.
• Comfort with operational systems and the ability to learn new software.
• Confidence working with senior professionals as a peer. You will need to have hard conversations with senior people.
• Strong numeracy. You should be able to read a debtors' age analysis and know what to do about it.
• Own transport and a valid driver's licence.

You Will Stand Out If You Have:

·      Successfully led a team through change, maintaining trust, cooperation and performance.

·      Led a software implementation or a significant workflow redesign.

·      Worked with Asana or a comparable project and task management tool.

Key Responsibilities

People, culture and recognition

·      Lead the day-to-day working relationship with the practice leadership and employees, balancing different working styles and keeping the team focused on shared standards.

·      Address concerns and conflict promptly, fairly and calmly; give clear feedback and follow through on agreed actions.

·      Prepare and support the team through changes to working practices, explaining the reasons, listening to concerns and maintaining accountability.

·      Share positive feedback and compliments with the team weekly.

·      Own day-to-day team wellbeing: rosters, leave, cover, onboarding, and the ordinary problems that get in the way of good work.

·      Champion the growth ambitions people have already voiced.

·      You will be the person who notices good work and says so, in front of others, without being asked.

·      Restart performance reviews and growth conversations on a fixed cycle.

Manage Flow and Utilisation

·      Build and hold the master schedule, working with different working styles and preferences.

·      Drive optimal utilisation: minimal gaps, minimal overruns.

·      Eliminate double bookings and incorrect appointment times.

·      Make the next-day sheet a fixed, owned, non-negotiable end-of-day routine.

·      Agree and hold a practice-wide punctuality and start-time standard.

Systems and Change

·      Capture team feedback, practical needs and system issues clearly; communicate them to IT and software support, and keep the team informed of progress and outcomes.

·      Support the team in adopting new systems and ways of working. Ensure every person is trained properly and feels supported through change.

·      Bring people with you through change: explain the reasons, listen to concerns and introduce improvements in manageable stages.

Finance Adminstration

·      Resolve service and payment queries quickly and courteously.

·      Fix the billing bottleneck. Time the current process end to end, find where it stalls, and determine whether it is a software, staffing or workflow problem.

·      Monitor and drive cash collections. Own the debtors book, the follow-up cadence and the escalation path.

Compliance, Facilities and Assets

·      Keep practice compliance, safety requirements and renewals up to date.

·      Keep equipment and assets serviced and maintained.

·      Own facilities upkeep: repairs, maintenance and renovations.

Coordination and Support

·      Act as the link between the practice and central support teams, drawing on operations, IT, software, marketing, finance and people support as needed.

·      Make sure group projects are implemented at practice level, on time and properly adopted.

·      Raise practice-level issues early, involve the right support and follow through to resolution.

Our Values

1.     Do what you say, and say what you do.

2.     We treat all people with equal openness and respect.

3.     We seek different opinions and resolve differences through thoughtful dialogue.

4.     We believe in giving feedback promptly and receiving it gratefully.

5.     We are obsessed with our practices and their patients, and care about understanding and responding to their concerns.

6.     We care deeply about our people and create an environment where we expect them to take ownership and perform extraordinarily.

7.     We operate at the highest ethical and professional standards at all times.