Operations Assistant

This role requires that you are resident and have the right to work in the UK

You can download a copy of the job pack here

Purpose of this role

At NEON, we know that you can’t separate the external work of the organisation from the internal work. They are so interlinked and interdependent that they both have to be given priority and resources if we want to achieve high impact. We see them as inseparable.

So the purpose of this role is to support NEON achieving its mission by ensuring things are running smoothly:

• day-to-day through running some of our core systems and processes and being responsive to team needs
• in the long-term by helping to embed a progressive culture and working on operational projects

Key Responsibilities:

1. Overseeing tech systems and hardware - website management, Mobilize, Nationbuilder, GDrive, Slack & other communication channels, laptops, mobiles, printers, and meeting tech & peripherals - and provide technical support to staff as well as collaborating with our external IT support providers;
2. Overseeing day to day running of the office, managing office supplies including first aid and ensuring accessibility as well as supporting hybrid working needs;
3. Supporting GDPR compliance - being the point of contact with our external advisor, supporting data champions in the hubs and managing GDPR changes;
4. Working with the People & Ops Manager to run excellent people processes for the lifecycle of our staff from recruitment and induction to offboarding;
5. Participate in Operations projects, for example IT review & optimisation, GDPR review or programme support review;
6. Managing logistics for board & other meetings, team away days and retreats, other NEON events and other ad hoc team support, in particular for the EDs - booking meeting rooms, sorting out meeting tech or ordering food;
7. Monitor organisational accounts including generic email accounts and NEON networks;
8. Running delivery of an ops programme with the whole ops team - currently this is ops peer support network but with ambitions to expand to a formal programme;
9. Play an active part in the whole NEON team, contributing to organisation-wide plans.

Who you are:

1. You care about organisational culture and people and have some experience in this role that you want to build on. You are committed to improving conditions & processes for the benefit of your colleagues and the wider movement.
2. You have experience dealing with people in different capacities, both internally and externally, on a day to day basis, and build strong working relationships.
3. You have the skills and drive to do day-to-day people & ops tasks listed above and want to do them as a regular part of your job. You see this as important work in itself, not just a stepping stone to other parts of NEON (though you are also keen to learn about all aspects of NEON’s work) This includes doing logistics (venue bookings, booking travel for 40+ people, organising catering etc), and “facilities” work like keeping our office running well and ensuring our team have the equipment they need to work well.
4. You are experienced with using a range of IT and tech and are happy to learn new apps and new bits of hardware, so that you can get all of your IT tasks done well, and teach the team how to use things whether that’s updating our website, helping the team to use Slack as well as possible, or finding a new solution for hybrid working
5. Able to flex between longer term projects, regular cycle work and responsive requests - you are great at being self-motivated in order to push longer projects forward over weeks or months, as well as getting daily or weekly operational tasks done. But you can also shift your workload to turn things around on a day when it’s important.
6. You are proactive, well-organised and feel empowered to solve problems yourself when they come up (sometimes described as an “ownership mindset”), as well as balancing this with asking for help when you need it
7. Excellence is important to you and it shows in your work. Whatever you do, you do it to a high standard. To you, it doesn’t matter whether that’s making sure our office plants are all watered, or coordinating all of the logistics for one of our flagship programmes, it will be done excellently and to deadline
8. A great communicator and you know that good communication is really important to the type of work you do - you’ll be happy to use our internal comms systems (Slack, Google Suite, Asana) to keep everyone in the loop on your work, and you’ll do the same for participants on our programmes via email and phone
9. You’re willing to continuously learn and grow - you have growing levels of self-awareness and emotional intelligence, including around your own power and identity and how that means you relate to others. As a result, you’ll give and receive feedback from others well (or be willing to learn and change) and learn to give feedback well too)
10. Committed to NEON’s purpose of building the power strength of movements for social, economic and environmental justice, and to learning how to align your actions with the values of NEON: solidarity; generosity and respect and our commitment to anti-oppression

About us:

NEON is a capacity and infrastructure building organisation that seeks to accelerate the transition to a new economy by building the power of social movements - because without strong social movements we lack the power we need to win. We deliver trainings, develop resources, facilitate collaboration and work in partnership with key movement allies, especially in the climate, housing and migration movements. Our focus is on strengthening the organising, communications and strategy skills of social movement organisations, as well as deepening movement alignment, as we believe these are key to building collective power. As part of our work, we are looking to change the starting point in social movements from “what do we agree on” to “what can we win together?”

We also aim to mirror the change we want to see in social movements in the way we run the organisation internally. To that end, we are committed to building a workplace centred on joy, care and justice, whilst maintaining healthy boundaries of what a workplace is. We do this because it is important to live our values and principles, and because strategically an organisation with a healthy culture and strong foundations ensures we are always one step ahead in the fight for a just and sustainable future.

To build a culture and community that lasts, we organise around three values:

● Solidarity - we’re here to change the system and that requires working together across issues and sectors that aren’t normally in the same room. This means placing anti-oppression at the heart of our work and building the power of people most often affected by injustice to change the leadership of our movements.

● Generosity is about sharing our time, resources and learning with one another as we support each other’s work. It means being open and honest with one another, especially when we hit problems, and thinking creatively about how we positively build from there.

● Respect is the bottom line for all relationships in NEON. It means being respectful of different backgrounds and life experiences and giving space for all voices to be heard. This often means listening more than we talk and being open to changing ourselves as a result of what we hear.

How to apply

We don’t want to make this process too complicated so please complete this application form and send this and a completed Equal Opportunities Monitoring form to jobs@neweconomyorganisers.org.

Dates:

Application deadline: Sunday 25th January, 11.59pm

Interview dates: 1st interviews 17th & 18th February 2026 (online), 2nd interviews 24th February (in person)

If you have any questions about the role or NEON in general, you can reach out via email on jobs@neweconomyorganisers.org. (Please note that this email will not be monitored 18th December 25 to 4th January 26, so we'll respond to messages sent during this time after we return to work on 5th January 26).

We will treat the data you provide in your application in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

We know that people from certain backgrounds and identities are often excluded in progressive movements and we’re committed to doing what we can to correct this.

So:

• we particularly welcome applications from marginalised groups, especially people of colour and other ethnic minorities, people who identify as LGBTQIA, Disabled people and those who identify as working class or have done so in the past.
• we know the work goes way beyond "diversity", it's about making the space inclusive too. So we are continuously working on that at NEON. So far this includes tangible things like a flexible work policy so people have genuine flexibility around where and when they work and a 28 hour week as standard; a gender-neutral parenting/leave policy, an anti-oppression strategy which is held at senior level given how important it is to the organisation. It also includes the day-to-day work of creating psychological safety for everyone at NEON and celebrating the wisdom of black, indigenous, queer, Disabled and other cultures in the way we work and behave.

There are no formal education requirements for this role. As long as you can show us you have the skills we don’t mind where you got them from! Also important to us is your potential to learn and grow in the role so even if you don’t have 100% of the skills listed we want to hear from you.