Profession animal facility manager

Animal facility managers coordinate and plan all activities of a zoo. They formulate policies, manage daily operations, and plan the use of materials and human resources. They are the driving force and public face of their institution. This often involves representing their institution on a national, regional and global scale and taking part in coordinated zoo activities.

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Personality Type

Knowledge

  • Zoo exhibit design

    Understand the various factors that influence effective zoo exhibit design as well as the steps towards realising that design.

  • Environmental legislation

    The environmental policies and legislation applicable in a certain domain.

  • Customer relationship management

    The customer-oriented management approach and basic principles of successful customer relations that focus on interactions with customers such as technical support, customer services, after-sales support and direct communication with the customer.

  • Zoo community

    Zoo and aquarium community on a local, regional and global scale. Zoo membership associations, their guiding principles and how this might affect management of individual institutions within the wider community.

  • Zoo regulations

    National, regional and international regulations related to zoos.

Skills

  • Manage zoo staff

    Manage zoo staff, including zoo keeping staff at all levels and/or veterinarians and/or educators and/or horticulturalists.

  • Delegate activities

    Delegate activities and tasks to others according to the ability, level of preparation, competence and legal scope of practice. Make sure that people understand what they should do and when they should do it.

  • Develop visitor engagement strategies

    Working with others, develop visitor engagement strategies to ensure stability, or growth, in visitor numbers and encourage visitor satisfaction.

  • Speak about your work in public

    Speak about your work to different kinds of audiences. Illustrate aspects depending on the audience and the occasion.

  • Perform project management

    Manage and plan various resources, such as human resources, budget, deadline, results, and quality necessary for a specific project, and monitor the project's progress in order to achieve a specific goal within a set time and budget.

  • Speak different languages

    Master foreign languages to be able to communicate in one or more foreign languages.

  • Manage operational budgets

    Prepare, monitor and adjust operational budgets together with the economical/administrative manager/professionals in the arts institute/unit/project.

  • Organise zoological exhibitions

    Organise zoological exhibitions and the display of live animals and zoological collections.

  • Implement strategic management

    Implement a strategy for the development and transformation of the company. Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major objectives and initiatives of a company by senior management on behalf of the owners, based on consideration of available resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organisation operates.

  • Apply strategic thinking

    Apply generation and effective application of business insights and possible opportunities, in order to achieve competitive business advantage on a long-term basis.

  • Manage budgets

    Plan, monitor and report on the budget.

  • Manage work

    Supervise, instruct and plan work for teams or individual members of the team. Set up time schedules and make sure they are followed.

  • Read zoo reports

    Read and process the reports of zookeepers and other zoological professionals, and compile the information for zoo records.

  • Work effectively with other animal-related organisations

    Develop and sustain relationships with other organisations such as charities, government agencies, Non-Governmental Organisations and representative bodies, in relation to furthering animal health and welfare. Communicate veterinary principles and operate within multidisciplinary teams comprised of persons with varying degrees of scientific and administrative knowledge.'

  • Respond to visitor complaints

    Respond to visitors complaints, in a correct and polite manner, offering a solution when possible and taking action when necessary.

  • Oversee animal management

    Oversee all aspects of animal management.

Optional knowledge and skills

communicate in english in a competent way study a collection

Source: Sisyphus ODB