What does an operations coordinator do, and which duties can a system take?
An operations coordinator keeps the internal work moving: trackers and reports, written procedures, meeting follow-ups, vendor paperwork and chasing missing inputs. A system can take the repeated data moves, reminders and report pulls. Process calls, vendors and people stay with a person. The middle half of the nearest federal job category earns $47,820 to $75,000 a year in base pay.
You're thinking about hiring an operations coordinator because the admin around the work keeps landing on you. Before writing the job description, I read ten public postings for the role. Half came from marketing and creative agencies, and the rest from a film studio, a healthcare company, a restaurant brand, a tech company and a digital media company. Below is what they ask for, grouped by duty, with my split of which parts a system can run.
I build these systems, so weigh my split with that in mind. The postings are linked under Sources at the end of the page, with the date I read them. They were posted between August 2025 and October 2026, and some may have closed since.
What the postings ask an operations coordinator to do
| Duty | Postings that list it | Who should own it |
|---|---|---|
| Updating trackers, reports and records across tools, like the CRM, time tracking and shared sheets | Most | A system, with a person reading the result |
| Writing and keeping procedures, templates and the team wiki | More than half | A person |
| Scheduling meetings, taking notes and following up on action items | More than half | A person runs the meeting, and a system can file and chase the actions |
| Finding slow or broken steps and fixing the process | More than half | A person |
| Tracking deadlines and chasing missing inputs | Half | A system sends the reminders, and a person handles what stays stuck |
| Coordinating vendors and contractors, including their setup and exit | Half | A person, with a system for the paperwork |
| Collecting client files and assets, and managing access | A few | A system sets up the folders, and a person grants access |
| Processing invoices and matching them to orders | A few | A system matches them, and a person approves |
| Office, facility and supply tasks | A few | A person |
| Planning staff capacity and bookings across projects | One | A person |
What a system can take over
- Moving the same details between tools. When a new client, project or hour entry has to appear in the CRM, the project board and the time tracker, a system can copy it from the one tool you treat as the source of truth, so nobody types it three times.
- Recurring reports and trackers. When the weekly status sheet is built from figures that already live in other tools, a system can pull them on a schedule. A person still reads the sheet and decides what it means.
- Reminders and chasing. A system can send the nudge for a missing timesheet, form or file on a fixed schedule, then pass the ones still missing to a person after a set number of tries.
- Action items after a meeting. Once the notes name an owner and a date, a system can file each action as a task and remind the owner before it's due.
- Setup steps that repeat for every new client. A system I built creates the folder, the task list, the chat channel and the welcome email from one form on the day a client signs. So far it has run only on test workspaces I own.
What stays with a person, and why
- Deciding how the work should run. A system follows the procedure you give it. Spotting that a step is pointless, or that two teams use the same field in different ways, takes someone who sees the whole business.
- Vendors and contractors. Choosing them, agreeing terms and handling a late delivery are relationship calls. A system can send the forms and collect the signatures around them.
- Running meetings. Someone has to decide what gets discussed and push back when a decision is vague. A system can only file what was decided.
- Money and access. Approving an invoice, giving a contractor a login to client accounts and removing it when they leave should stay with a named person, even when a system prepares the request.
- The odd case. When a report looks wrong or a reminder gets an annoyed reply, a person has to look. Every system I build hands the cases it can't place to a person, with the context to decide.
What one operations coordinator costs a year
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has no job category called operations coordinator. The closest one it surveys is production, planning and expediting clerks, the people who coordinate the flow of work between departments. In May 2025 the middle half of them earned $47,820 to $75,000 a year in base pay.
Pay is only part of what a hire costs. Wages and salaries were 70% of what private employers spent on pay and benefits, so the fully loaded figure, my own arithmetic, comes to about $68,000 to $107,000 a year. Recruiting, a laptop, software seats and the weeks of training come on top of that.
Before you post the job
- 01Write down the weekList what the hire would do every day and every week, in the order it happens. The duty table above works as a checklist.
- 02Mark the repeated stepsPut a mark next to each step that moves the same details between the same tools every time. Those are the steps a system can take.
- 03Count the hoursAdd up the hours the marked steps take each month. The coordination cost tool turns your leads, proposals and projects into hours and a yearly cost.
- 04Pick the orderWhen the marked steps fill most of the week, install the system first and hire for what's left. When they don't, hire, and hand the new person the list.
Questions
What does an operations coordinator do at an agency?
They keep the internal work moving. That means updating trackers and records across tools, keeping procedures written down, following up after meetings, chasing deadlines and missing inputs, and handling vendor paperwork. In the agency postings I read, most of that work sits between the project board, the CRM and shared sheets.
Is an operations coordinator the same as an operations manager?
In the postings I read, the coordinator carries out and tracks the work and reports to an operations manager or director. The coordinator often suggests fixes to a process, and the manager decides which ones to make.
Can automation replace an operations coordinator?
It can take the repeated parts: data moved between tools, scheduled reports, reminders and setup steps. It can't own vendors, run meetings or decide how the work should change. For many businesses the better order is to automate the repeated parts first, then hire for the judgment work or give it to someone you already have.
What should I put in an operations coordinator job description?
The duties you'll hand over, ordered by the hours they take. Use the table on this page, cross out what a system will do, and describe the rest in plain words. Name the tools they'll use and who they report to.
Where does the pay band come from?
Federal wage data for production, planning and expediting clerks, the closest category the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys. It's a national figure, so city, industry and experience move it. The links are under Sources.
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey, May 2025, production, planning and expediting clerks in the United States (a close federal job category to an operations coordinator): $47,820 a year in base pay at the 25th percentileREAD
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics wage survey, May 2025, production, planning and expediting clerks in the United States (a close federal job category to an operations coordinator): $75,000 a year in base pay at the 75th percentileREAD
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries were 70% of what private employers spent on pay and benefits. Fully loaded estimate used here: $68,000 to $107,000 a year, the $47,820 to $75,000 base pay above divided by 70%READ
- Public job posting for an operations coordinator at a digital marketing agencyREAD
- Public job posting for a marketing operations coordinator at a marketing and advertising agencyREAD
- Public job posting for an operations coordinator at a film and TV studioREAD
- Public job posting for an operations coordinator at a healthcare services companyREAD
- Public job posting for an operations coordinator at a technology companyREAD
- Public job posting for an operations coordinator at a digital agencyREAD
- Public job posting for a client operations coordinator at an advertising agency networkREAD
- Public job posting for a client operations coordinator at a creative and social media agencyREAD
- Public job posting for an operations coordinator at a restaurant brandREAD
- Public job posting for an operations coordinator at a digital media companyREAD
Related
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- From signed deal to running projectClient onboarding automation I built. One form with the signed proposal sets up the Drive folder, ClickUp tasks, Slack channel and welcome email.
- Build it, hire for it, or install a system: a one-page decisionDecide whether to build it yourself, hire a person or install a system by the kind of work it is, with a one-page memo to fill in for your own business.
- Two tools, two truths: which system is the source of truthWhen two tools disagree about a client, pick one owner tool for each field, let changes flow one way from it, and send edits made elsewhere back to the owner.
- Automations that fail without telling anyoneAn automation can stop for weeks before anyone notices. The usual causes, what not knowing costs, and what an alert should say when a step fails.
- What should an automation failure alert say?Step through an example alert line by line: the system and step that failed, the reason in plain words, the one next action, and the run reference.