Production / Operations Executive

Part-time Production/Operations Executive (20 hours a week)

Company Information

First Group Enterprise Ltd launched First News in 2006 as a weekly newspaper for children in the UK and has grown to an audience of more than 2 million readers. First News is a weekly newspaper aimed at 7 to 14-year-olds that aims to get kids talking about the news in an easy to understand and non-threatening way. We cover issues which are relevant to children and which specifically affect them.

We are looking for a part-time Production and Operations Executive to support the Head of Operations. The role is split between print production and fulfilment (50%) and customer service support (50%) with some office admin when the office reopens. The position is 20 hours a week spread across 5 days (hours to be agreed). We are currently working remotely, with a likely return to some office-based work in February/March 2022 at our office in Southwark, London.

Print production duties:

• Producing the weekly print order, collecting data from internal teams as well as from subs bureaus and uploading internal data to the mailing house FTP.

• Sign off weekly instructions sent by the mailing house, crosschecking document against the print order. • Helping to plan special issues and supplements, keeping the issue dates document up to date and accurate.

• Liaising with suppliers to obtain print quotes and schedule jobs ensuring that work is placed with the most suitable supplier. Implementing deadlines with the team, creating and monitoring schedules and progressing print jobs in trello. Ensuring materials are delivered on time and to agreed specs.

• Follow the quality control checks of all print jobs and keep a file copy of all printed items. Escalate any supplier quality control issues to the Head of Operations.

• Liasing with suppliers to manage/alter production schedules during bank holidays/Christmas. • Setting up free subscriptions with the subscription house and updating corresponding google doc.

• Working with the Head of Education to agree the school issue dates of First News for the academic year.

• Arranging deliveries of inserts with the marketing and advertising team ensuring that the correct quantities are being delivered.

• Logging the First News print run data in relevant google doc.

• Checking and coding invoices for payment.

Customer service duties:

• Monitoring the customer service inboxes, using internal systems to investigate queries and respond to customers.

• Liaising with the external customer service team regarding escalated First News customer service queries to find a prompt solution. 

Build up bank of email templates to allow you to quickly answer most frequent customer queries.

• Learning and understanding the customer service processes in place with our external customer service team. Suggesting improvements and maintaining best working practices.

Fulfilment duties:  

 Monitoring ecommerce one off purchases across all sales platforms to ensure orders are feeding through the correct channels and being dispatched in a timely manner.

• Monitor listings on Amazon Business account and arrange for products to be replenished as needed.

• Ensuring that the mailing house has all relevant information to fulfill jobs and ensuring that data is supplied in the correct format.

• Arranging deliveries and stock for marketing events during the year.

Skills/Experience: • Previous publishing experience within a production or operations role. • Previous customer service experience.• Good knowledge of Microsoft packages including word and excel. • Excellent planning, organisational and time management skills with the ability to work towards tight deadlines. • Experience of producing schedules. • Resourceful with a desire to improve processes and offer solutions. • Ability to build good working relationships with colleagues and external suppliers. • Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

Please send your CV with a covering letter to [email protected] and [email protected]