People Operations Manager, Tanzania
Who We Are!
🌍 Africa has the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population. By 2035, the continent is poised to contribute more young people to the global workforce each year than the rest of the world combined.
At Educate! we're obsessed with impact. We leverage iterative learning to build highly scalable youth employment solutions aimed at unlocking the potential of the world’s youngest continent.
Educate! prepares youth in Africa to learn, earn and thrive in today’s economy by:
- Introducing an employment-focused school subject into secondary and
- Delivering livelihood boot camps for out-of-school youth, with a focus on marginalized rural girls and young women.
To date, more than 500,000 youth have been meaningfully impacted across Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania, and along the way, Educate! has become the largest youth employment and skills provider in East Africa.
Educate! is a team of over 300 largely African staff and 300 volunteer youth mentors. We prioritize building an engaging, fulfilling and growth oriented work environment. 50% of our top 30 leaders have been with us for over 5 years, 10+ alumni have started their own organizations, and 6 current or former team members were Acumen Fund East Africa fellows.
We have been backed by top foundations such as Imaginable Futures, Livelihood Impact Fund, Jack Dorsey’s #startsmall, CIFF and Echidna Giving. Educate! won a 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and a 2015 WISE Award, and has been highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE's Impact Portfolio, an Al Jazeera documentary, BBC, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies on scaling education, and the Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator. In 2022, we received a catalytic investment from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott to scale our systems change work.
Educate!'s long-term vision is to design solutions that measurably impact millions of youth across Africa each year.
Good to note: To Our Awesome Applicants! 🚀💫
We know that incredible candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don’t meet every requirement. If this role excites you, we encourage you to apply!
We’re looking for passionate individuals who believe in our mission and can bring unique perspectives to our team—not just those who check every box. We value diversity and strongly encourage women and individuals from all backgrounds to apply.
Position Overview
Educate!, the largest youth skills service provider in East Africa is looking for a dynamic and enthusiastic People Operations Manager who will play a critical operational leadership role in ensuring the smooth functioning of Educate!’s people operations in Tanzania. This position combines strategic oversight with hands-on execution across recruitment, employee experience, performance management, compliance, and HR administration. Working closely with the Managing Director and the Global People Team, the People Operations Manager ensures that Educate! maintains a culturally aligned, compliant, and high-performing team. The ideal candidate is systems-oriented, detail-driven, and passionate about building strong employee experiences that empower teams to perform at their best.
What You’ll Do🌟
Talent & Employee Experience – 30%
- Support recruitment processes for both field and office-based teams in collaboration with implementation and global talent teams, ensuring timely, equitable, and quality hires aligned with Educate!’s values.
- Establish strong systems for field team recruitment, onboarding, and short-term contract tracking to support program agility.
- Oversee onboarding and offboarding processes to ensure seamless employee transitions and a positive employee experience.
- Drive initiatives that build and sustain Educate!’s culture, including team socials, engagement programs, and feedback mechanisms.
- Lead culture pulse surveys and develop actionable insights to enhance staff engagement and retention in liaison with the HRBP.
Performance Management & Capacity Building - 30%
- Oversee implementation of Educate!’s performance management systems, including PDPs, quarterly performance conversations, and annual reviews.
- Manage the probation process for all new hires, ensuring timely feedback and documentation.
- Coordinate and deliver new manager training and capacity-building initiatives across teams.
- Work closely with the MD and HRBP to develop workforce plans aligned to program and organizational priorities.
HR Administration - 20%
- Oversee monthly payroll processing and ensure accuracy in statutory contributions and filings.
- Manage staff benefits, including health insurance, airtime credit, staff transport reimbursements, and staff loans.
- Develop and track HR budgets, manage BVAs, and coordinate closely with Finance for expenditure control and reporting.
- Maintain accurate and updated HR data systems (e.g., BambooHR), ensuring data integrity and timely reporting.
- Continuously improve HR administrative systems and workflows for operational efficiency and scalability.
Legal Compliance & Risk Management - 20%
- Ensure Tanzania HR practices are fully compliant with Tanzanian labor laws and other relevant national regulations.
- Manage visa and work permit processes for all international staff, coordinating with legal partners and internal stakeholders. Serve as a point of contact for immigration-related processes, including work permits, visas, and renewals, working closely with the HR coordinator and the legal firms.
- Serve as the primary contact for all immigration-related processes, including visa and work permit applications and renewals for international staff in close collaboration with legal partners and other internal stakeholders.
- Manage the relationship with external legal counsel, ensuring up-to-date labor law compliance and proactive issue resolution.
- Oversee OSHA registration, workplace safety standards, and implementation of compliance audits.
- Draft and manage employment contracts, HR policies, and compliance documentation in collaboration with the law firm and relevant authorities.
- Identify and mitigate HR-related risks through effective policy enforcement and compliance monitoring.
- Proactively identify HR risks and put mitigation strategies in place.
Additional Responsibilities
As a key partner in organizational leadership, you represent HR to ensure people-focused thinking is embedded in strategic decisions. Keeping the Managing Director and HR Business Partner informed on internal dynamics, emerging trends, and labor developments will be part of how you drive smart, timely actions. In leading the HR Coordinator, you bring clarity, mentorship, and effective delegation to help the team thrive. With a strong commitment to equity, inclusion, and staff well-being, you help shape an employee experience that’s both supportive and fair at every stage.
Who You Are 🦸♀️🦸♂️
You’ve built a solid foundation in HR, with at least 4 years of experience and significant portion of that spent managing operations, compliance, and people. You have a solid grasp of Tanzanian labor laws, from payroll and benefits to workplace compliance and immigration requirements. You’ve set up or improved HR systems to support growing or dispersed teams, and you're comfortable using tools like BambooHR to keep things running smoothly. You communicate clearly, handle sensitive matters with care, and build trust across all levels. Experience in a fast-paced NGO or social enterprise is a plus. Most importantly, you’re someone who takes initiative, solves problems as they arise, and helps teams thrive while keeping people, processes, and policies aligned.
Terms
The location is in Dar es salaam, Tanzania
What We Offer 
- A vibrant, mission-driven environment with a supportive and fun team.
- Competitive salary based on experience.
- Learning & growth opportunities
Application Process: Rolling basis, interviews happening soon!
Our Culture & Tenets(Values) 🌱
We’re ambitious. Are you? Educate! is growing fast, so new opportunities are opening up and expanding all the time. We’re inspired by people with drive, and we love to help them reach their full potential. We expect everyone at Educate! to contribute above and beyond their job description, grow their skills, and advance their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey of their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey.
- We put Youth First, Impact-Obsessed - We are purpose-driven, focused on impact, and prioritize what truly matters. We listen to youth, design our efforts around their needs, and ensure every dollar creates transformative experiences they value.
- We Exceed Expectations - We take pride in going above and beyond to achieve the best results—proactively identifying problems and seeking solutions without waiting or stopping at what's requested.
- We Are Always Learning - We are committed to seeking and applying new knowledge and ideas. We stay open-minded and continuously try new things, experiment, grow, and improve. We invest in learning for ourselves and our teams.
- We are One Team, Many Views - We value all individuals, believe diverse ideas and open dialogue drive excellence, foster a supportive and respectful environment where everyone can freely express themselves. We work as one team and prioritize the organization's mission over personal or team interests.
- We have the Startup Mindset - We innovate relentlessly to grow our impact, we never think “we have arrived” or “we’re done.”We constantly challenge the status quo, embrace change, and move quickly toward our vision. Unafraid of failure, we question anything that hinders progress.
Every person at Educate! — from interns to the executive director — is evaluated by how they live up to these five cultural tenets. They are at the core of how we achieve our mission and why we work as well as we do. Educate is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all who interact in our community. In creating this environment, we encourage people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and life experiences to join our diverse team.
We’re committed to ensuring all candidates are screened for child and youth safety. As part of the process, you’ll need to provide a Certificate of Good Conduct. Educate! reserves the right to withdraw employment offers if any risks to youth are identified.