What's the Bench Tax team team like?

We’re a startup within a startup; at the core of it, the Tax Operations team at Bench is a people-centric team focused on helping small business owners and entrepreneurs in the US with all things income tax.

With Bench Tax we allow our clients to ditch the tax season stress, forever. We are a team of dedicated Benchmates who build long lasting relationships with our clients, support our peers through cross collaboration projects and work closely together to handle all of our clients’ income tax filing needs.

What you’ll get up to:

The Operations Manager provides the necessary leadership for a team of high performing Benchmates, and collaborates closely with others across Bench and our partners to support our clients.

As a supportive coach and leader, you will be responsible for driving high performance within your team, while simultaneously participating in the growth of our Tax Services at Bench. The Operations Manager is a mentor, problem solver, decision maker and a powerful communicator. You will face exciting and challenging tasks every day and your presence will be instrumental to the continued success of the Tax team at Bench. In this role you’ll need to be confident and comfortable asking probing questions in order to solve complex problems and balance the needs of an experienced and knowledgeable Tax team.

Take a look at some of the things you’ll dive into under our 3 main proficiency pillars:

Performance and strategic accountability

You embrace every success, setback, conversation and experience as a means of fostering a high performance environment and a low-ego culture. You are results driven and you don’t settle for good enough.

• Take full responsibility for the qualitative and quantitative performance outcomes of your team of direct reports, including the systems and processes that support the team's performance.
• Through coaching and smart goal setting, achieves business measures of success and team level key results in a challenging, sustainable and supported way
• Manage capacity planning for the team and create plans to be appropriately staffed for seasonality
• Consistently challenges and improves the systems and processes that support the entire team’s performance

Making the people around you better

You are a passionate and experienced people leader who understands how to motivate and support your team. You’re comfortable asking questions when working through challenging situations in order to get to the root cause of an issue and lead your team to a solution where everyone is committed to the way forward.

• Creates an engaged team that is deeply connected to our mission and committed to Bench as a place they want to grow and contribute to long term
• Develops exceptional leaders, across multiple disciplines, functions and levels with their department.
• Ensures that members of the team have received the ongoing training and coaching needed to perform

Making good decisions, quickly

You take risks through committing to bold decision making, knowing that sometimes, you’ll get it wrong. You’ll solve first for the client, then for the Benchmate, and finally for Bench.

• Anticipates and/or identifies blockers and areas for improvement in your team, to continue to gain efficiencies within your department
• Proactively identifies potential areas for general improvement and experimentation in pursuit of team goals or company mission
• Leads experiments for their team, providing framework and clear definitions of success

What you’ll need:

You’re pumped to fundamentally change the lives of our clients through the positive outcomes your team can create.

• At minimum,3+ years experience managing a front line team in Client Experience or Client Operations
• An understanding of what it takes to develop highly engaged teams while driving high performance.
• You demonstrate the ability to coach instead of protect.
• The ability to communicate in a way that allows you to demonstrate an understanding of new concepts while also challenging the norm and driving performance within the team to new levels
• Demonstrable experience continuously improving processes and workflows to enhance client outcomes. At minimum, you are comfortable working in a space where iterative improvements to enhance our client’s experience is paramount.
• The ability to prioritize short-term initiatives against long-term strategy & direction
• The ability to lead through change in a continuously growing environment
• An activated curiosity and openness to being an equitable and inclusive leader. Our commitment to anti-racism and anti-discrimination as a company excites you

What you’ll get:

• At Bench we share information freely and openly whenever possible. On target earnings are $90,320 - $107,900 with a component of these earnings made up of variable pay.
• In addition, we offer an extended benefits package that includes paid vacation, paid flex days, stock options {IF APPLICABLE}, and full health, dental, and vision.
• You’ll get access to Inkblot Therapy’s Employee and Family Assistance Program (EAP) that offers counseling and support, for you and family members, as well as professional development coaching, financial advice, legal advice and much more.
• You will have the support of your manager, and the opportunity to learn and develop with a team of unconventional & diverse Benchmates, who are all working together to achieve the same mission.
• Bench has a number of Affinity Groups - groups of people who have shared identities and experiences! The purpose of these groups is to support underrepresented Benchmates and amplify their voices.
• If you live in BC’s Lower Mainland, you have the opportunity to work at home and in our downtown office location, depending on your preference! For some roles, we do require folks to be in the office regularly. We’ll be sure to outline expectations during the interview process.
• For folks working fully remote, we will provide additional solutions to bring teams together for collaboration and connection.
• Whether you get to use the office or if you work remotely, you’ll have access to our Home Office Setup Fund to ensure that you have everything you need to work comfortably from home, from day one.
• You’ll have the opportunity to work from somewhere other than your home province for up to 3 months, within a 12 month period.

Everyone has their own unique talents. Even if you don’t meet 100% of the qualifications outlined above, tell us why you’d be a great fit for this role in your application.

We believe that unchecked biases disproportionately impact the most marginalized people in society—including but not limited to BIPOC, LGBTQ2S+ people, immigrants, and people with disabilities. We strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or other marginalized communities because we believe that without you, we are all less. If you are selected for an interview and require support during the process, including disability accommodation, we'll give you the opportunity to tell us when we contact you.