Member Services & Communications Manager

Essential duties/responsibilities/functions (include, but not limited to the following)

• Oversees all Member Services and Communications NBU staff to ensure the duties of their positions are met in an effective and efficient manner.  Provides coaching and professional development opportunities for staff, supports succession planning, and holds employees accountable for performance while promoting a respectful, collaborative, and high-performing work environment.
• Works closely with the President & CEO, the Board of Directors, and Senior Management to ensure the Member Services and Communications departments’ initiatives align with KIUC’s mission and objectives.
• Develops strategies and advises executive management regarding controversial, politically sensitive, legally sensitive, or high-profile matters involving KIUC, its members, regulators, government officials, media, community stakeholders, or other external parties.
• Leads KIUC’s government affairs and public policy activities, including monitoring legislative, regulatory and governmental developments; evaluating potential impacts to KIUC; assisting in the development of organizational policy positions and advocacy strategies; and maintaining effective relationships with elected officials, government agencies, regulators, and other public-sector stakeholders. Represents KIUC before legislative and governmental bodies and provides or coordinates testimony, presentations, written comments, and other communications concerning matters affecting KIUC and its members.
• Directs KIUC’s internal and external communications strategy, including traditional and digital communications, media relations, member communications, community outreach, executive communications, website and social media communications, brand management, and reputation management.
• Develops and directs crisis and emergency communications strategies and plans. Leads or coordinates communications during outages, natural disasters, public safety events, cybersecurity incidents, operational emergencies, and other significant events in coordination with Operations, Safety, Legal, Information Technology, Senior Management, governmental agencies, and other appropriate parties.
• Develops and strengthens relationships with key community organizations, media representatives, government officials, members, business leaders, industry counterparts, and other stakeholders. Ensures KIUC is represented at public events, community activities, industry forums, governmental proceedings, and other stakeholder activities as needed. Provides broad oversight of Member Services functions to include operations, credit and collections, meter reading, mail processing, billing, call center, computer systems upgrades and maintenance, patronage capital distribution and maintenance.
• Provides strategic oversight and guidance for KIUC’s Key Accounts/Top 100 program, Energy Services initiatives, Demand Side Management programs, and related member engagement programs.
• Establishes and monitors member service standards, departmental performance measures, and continuous-improvement initiatives designed to enhance member satisfaction, responsiveness, service quality, and organizational effectiveness. Ensures department operations are conducted in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, tariffs, policies, procedures, safety requirements, and organizational standards. Manages O&M and capital budgets for both Member Services and Communications. Assists direct reports with budgetary and goal preplanning. Monitors progress and costs incurred to carry out departmental plans and provides regular reports to the President & CEO to assure compliance with goals & budgetary constraints.
• Engaged in long-term planning; responsible for departmental strategy and mission attainment through the development of goals and objectives for both Member Services and Communications departments. Establishes departmental performance measures and service standards, evaluates results, and implements corrective actions or continuous-improvement initiatives when appropriate.
• Provides recommendations regarding Member Services and Communications systems, technologies, equipment, and process improvements, including customer information systems, metering systems, communications platforms, and other department-related technologies. Oversees contracts with third-party vendors such as Pioneer Utility Resources (PUR), Cooperative Resource Corporation (CRC) and Everbridge.
• Administers KIUC policies in a fair, consistent and equitable manner.
• Performs other duties as assigned by the President & CEO.

Job Specifications

Knowledge/Education/Certification/License Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Journalism, Communications, Marketing, Public Relations, or related field, or any equivalent combination of education and experience is required.
• Must possess, or be able to obtain, a valid State of Hawaii Driver's License.
• Additional training in marketing, supervision, digital communications, social media, executive communications, analytics, and contemporary communications technology is highly desirable.

Kind and Length of Experience:

• Minimum eight (8) years’ experience in a progressively responsible customer service and/or communications position is preferred.
• Minimum six (6) years’ experience in a leadership role which required good decision-making, problem solving, and conflict management/resolution skills required.
• Experience working with elected officials, governmental agencies, regulatory organizations, community stakeholders, media, or other public-facing constituencies is strongly preferred.
• Experience in the electric utility industry, an electric cooperative, or another highly regulated and publicly visible organization is preferred.
• Significant experience in positive handling of high-profile and crisis communications issues, demonstrating sound judgment and persuasive counseling to Senior Management required.
• Demonstrated leadership, initiative, quality management, goal setting, results attainment, relationship building, shared decision-making, teamwork, and media & community relations experience required.

Specialized Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Ability to understand electric utility operations, industry terminology, regulatory requirements, and issues sufficiently to communicate effectively with members, government officials, media, regulators, employees, and other stakeholders.
• Demonstrated executive-level judgment, strategic thinking, leadership, and organizational awareness.
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships with Senior Management, effectively manage differences in opinions, and interface effectively with internal and external stakeholders.
• Effective team player, with well-honed listening skills and the ability to work calmly in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. Ability to train, mentor and influence leaders and team members towards more effective project and change management approaches.
• Ability to make sound decisions quickly and efficiently. Exhibits capacity to embrace change and quickly adapt to new situations, changes in direction and altering priorities.
• Thorough working knowledge of desktop publishing, media communication techniques, marketing, advertising public and media relations, public speaking, copywriting and publication editing is preferred.
• Must be detail-oriented and possess strong time management skills, with the ability to effectively prioritize and execute multiple concurrent priorities and projects.
• Demonstrated experience with budget management, strong decision-making and problem-solving skills required.
• Must be able to consistently and fairly enforce KIUC safety rules and policies, and to handle private, sensitive and confidential information within KIUC guidelines.
• Proficiency with computers, and applications particularly Microsoft office products.
• Must possess the ability to speak effectively to large groups.
• Ability to work with and direct personnel to include motivation, training and leading in a positive manner by creating a respectful work environment.

Language Skills:

• Ability to read, analyze and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals, technical procedures, or governmental regulations.
• Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals.
• Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions from the Board of Directors, Senior Management, employees, customers, vendors, contractors, the media, and the public.
• Ability to effectively communicate with employees, and to provide guidance and direction as needed.

Mathematical Skills:

• Ability to apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios and proportions to practical situations.
• Ability to analyze financial and accounting statements as pertains to budgets.

Reasoning Ability:

• Ability to define problems, collect and analyze data, establish facts, draw valid conclusions, and communicate required corrective action.
• Ability to interpret an extensive variety of technical instructions in mathematical or diagram form and deal with several abstract and concrete variables.

Physical Requirements: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of the job.

• Works in an office environment, frequently sitting or standing to use a computer and attend meetings, moving around a multi-story building to access files or equipment, and using standard office machinery.
• Frequently communicates and exchanges accurate information and ideas with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders.
• Constantly requires close visual acuity for extensive reading, document preparation, and spreadsheet data analysis on computer monitors.
• Maintains the visual capability and physical awareness necessary to safely navigate variable indoor or outdoor terrain and operate a motor vehicle for business purposes.
• Occasionally moves, positions, or transports parcels, boxes, and office materials weighing up to 45 pounds.
• Frequent exposure to standard indoor office environments, with occasional exposure to typical outdoor weather, dust, varying temperatures, and industrial noise during off-site travel.
• Occasionally requires working flexible or extended hours and traveling locally or off-island to attend training or represent the business.

Safety Responsibilities:

• Follow all OSHA safety standards, company safety policies, procedures, and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Perform work in a safe manner and use required personal protective equipment (PPE) when applicable.
• Identify, report, and help mitigate unsafe conditions, hazards, near misses, and incidents.
• Participate in required safety training, meetings, and emergency preparedness activities.
• Maintain a clean, organized, and safe work environment.
• Promote a culture of safety by encouraging safe work practices and supporting continuous improvement initiatives.

Problem Solving

Typical Problems:

• Addresses multiple assigned projects simultaneously.
• Allocates limited resources over a wide range of projects.
• Maintains effective contact with members, media, and the community.
• Develops responses to inquiries on KIUC-related matters.
• Develops and manages KIUC’s communications plans, to include crisis-situations.

Most Complex Problems:

• Addresses a variety of member, media, community, and organizational concerns.
• Dealing with complex problems involving political, environmental, and/or legal constraints that impact members and regulatory entities.
• Developing and implementing KIUC’s communications response to crisis situations, emergencies, major outages, public safety events, or other significant organizational events.
• Implementing new department systems.
• Authoring new department policies and procedures to allow us to achieve our business goals, satisfy regulatory requirements and our members concurrently.
• Resolving member complaints filed through our local regulatory agency (the PUC).
• Aligns departmental goals with KIUC’s broader goals and mission.
• Develops methods for effective communication and new communication strategies.
• Develops strategies for KIUC’s response on controversial issues.

Authority and Decision Making

What typical decisions does this job have complete authority for making?

• Supervision and counseling of staff; resolving employee relations issues within the workplace.
• Most decisions regarding Member Services and Communications operations.
• Exceptions to KIUC policies and procedures in reference rendering service to members.
• Approval of purchases up to $25,000 per line item.
• Resolutions to unforeseen operational problems arising in Member Services or Communications.
• Support and enforcement of Company policies and procedures as a member of the Senior Management team.

What typical decisions must be referred to others for approval?  To whom do you refer these decisions?

The following decisions are referred to the President & CEO:

• Major contracts and purchases.
• Major deviations from KIUC policies and procedures.
• Capital improvement purchases and all purchases over $25,000.
• Final approval of O&M and Capital budgets.
• Recommendations involving disciplinary actions, additions/replacements, changes in salary of direct and indirect reports.

Salary : $25,000