If you're still answering crew texts at nine at night, you've probably wondered what an operations manager would do in a trades company like yours. Dinner's long over, and one more text comes in asking whether the order for the morning job ever got placed, so you answer it, because the answer lives on your phone and nowhere else.
In a trades company, an operations manager runs the day-to-day work between a sold job and a paid invoice, which means scheduling and dispatch, materials and ordering, crew questions and problems on site, the processes everyone follows and the weekly numbers that show whether it's all working. That's a different job from a service manager, who mostly leads the techs, and from a general manager, who usually carries the whole business including sales and finance. It's usually time to look for one when every decision still runs through your phone, and the hire works best when your main processes are written down before that person's first day.
One of the owners I'm working with right now runs a crew of seven and hadn't taken a day off in six months when we first sat down. The crew was calling all day long with questions about how to handle things, and as the owner put it to me, "I literally can't manage another person." That's the moment this question tends to come up, so I'll walk you through what the role covers, how to tell whether you're ready and what your options are if a full-time hire feels like too big a step.
What does an operations manager actually do in a trades company?
An operations manager owns the flow of work so you don't have to carry it in your head. The Bureau of Labor Statistics describes general and operations managers as people whose work "may include formulating policies, directing daily operations, and planning the use of materials and human resources," and in a contracting company that turns into very practical jobs.
The first is scheduling and dispatch, which means getting each crew to the right job with what they need to know and handling the days when the plan falls apart before eight. Right behind it is materials and ordering, so what the job needs gets ordered, shows up and is on the truck before the crew needs it, instead of somebody making a supply house run at noon.
They're also the first call when something comes up on a job site, so the questions that used to land on your phone start landing on theirs. Over time they write down how the work gets done, watch weekly numbers like callbacks, hours and job costs so they can raise a flag early, and keep the field and the office connected, so invoices go out, change orders get billed and customers hear back.
What they usually don't own is the company's direction, pricing strategy, the biggest customer relationships and the key hires. Those stay with you, because they're the decisions only an owner should make, and they're the first ones squeezed out when you're answering texts at nine at night.
How is that different from a service manager or a general manager?
A service manager leads the techs, an operations manager runs the system the techs work inside, and a general manager runs the whole business. Titles get used loosely in the trades, so it helps to look at what the person owns rather than what they're called.
A service manager is usually a senior tech who trains and supports the field team, handles the technical questions and often rides along, so their focus is the quality of the work. An operations manager owns scheduling, materials, processes and the path from a sold job to a finished one, which puts their focus on how the work moves. A general manager is responsible for the whole company's results, often including sales, finance and hiring, and usually reports straight to you.
In a smaller shop, one person might cover two of these roles, which works fine as long as you write down which jobs are theirs, so the crew knows who to call and you're not quietly doing half the role yourself.
How do I know it's time to hire one?
It's time when the business needs more coordination than you can give it and still do the work only you can do. If growth is adding hours to your week instead of profit to the company, that's usually the clearest sign, and a few others tend to come with it.
The most common one is that every scheduling change and crew problem still comes to your phone, and things slip whenever you're out for a day, whether that's a missed order or a crew sitting in the truck waiting on an answer. You might also be turning down work because you can't picture managing one more person, or you haven't looked at your numbers in weeks because the day-to-day eats every hour you have.
The signal that matters most is when you've tried handing things off and they keep coming back to you, because nothing is written down. If the processes only live in your head, a new operations manager will end up calling you all day, and you'll have traded one problem for a more expensive version of it.
What should be in place before they start?
Before an operations manager starts, they need enough of a map to work from, even if it's nowhere near a perfect manual, and here's what that map usually includes.
Write one page for each big recurring job: scheduling, ordering materials, handling a crew question and closing out a job so it gets invoiced.
Set decision limits, meaning what they can approve on their own, like a change order up to a set amount or a schedule shuffle, and what still comes to you.
Pick the three to five numbers they'll own, such as jobs completed per week, callbacks, invoices sent the same day and hours against the estimate.
Sketch a 30, 60 and 90 day plan that shows what they'll take over first, what comes next and how you'll both know it's working.
Put a 30-minute check-in on the calendar every week, so problems reach you in one conversation instead of twenty texts.
The by-hand way to build this is a binder of one-page processes and a simple weekly scorecard on paper, and there's nothing wrong with starting there. The tool way puts the same processes and numbers inside your field service software and a shared drive, where the operations manager can update them as things change. If you'd like to see what those pages can look like, here's how I approach SOP development for trades companies.
What if a full-time hire is too big a step right now?
If a full-time operations manager doesn't fit the budget yet, you have a few options in between. For context, the BLS puts the median annual wage for general and operations managers in construction at $112,230 as of May 2025, so it's a real commitment for a company doing a few million a year.
The first option is to promote from within. A strong lead tech or office manager can grow into the role, but only if you give them the written processes, the authority to make decisions and some training in managing people, since running a crew and running a system take different skills.
Another option is to split the role, handing scheduling and dispatch to your office and materials and job-site questions to a lead, with ownership written down for each. The third is fractional operations help, meaning someone who works with you part-time to build the systems and run them with your team until a full-time hire, or the people you already have, can carry them.
Fractional operations is what I do at Sentric, where I build and run the systems alongside your team so the handoffs stick while you keep running jobs. It's month to month, so you keep everything we've documented whether we work together for a month or a year, and my page on operations management for contractors explains how that works for HVAC, plumbing, electrical and roofing companies across Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
Questions owners ask
How much does an operations manager cost?
An operations manager costs a full salary plus payroll taxes and benefits, and the salary depends on your market, the size of the role and the person's experience. As one reference point, the BLS lists a median annual wage of $112,230 for general and operations managers in construction as of May 2025, before any of those extra costs.
Should I promote my best tech into operations?
Sometimes, but go into it carefully. Your best tech may also be your best producer, and the skills that make someone great in the field aren't the same as planning, coordinating and managing people, so talk it through with them first, give them training and support, and make sure the company can live without their billable hours.
What is a fractional operations manager or COO?
A fractional operations manager or COO works with your company part-time instead of as a full-time employee. They typically build the processes, decision limits and weekly numbers and help run them with your team, so you get experienced help without a full-time salary while the company grows into the role.
What should an operations manager's first 90 days look like?
In the first 30 days, they should learn how the work really flows and take over one area, usually scheduling or materials. By 60 days they should own two or three areas with written processes, and by 90 days they should be running the weekly numbers meeting with you and handling most day-to-day questions without calling you.
Now picture that same night a few months from now. The crew still has questions about tomorrow, but they're going to the person who owns the schedule, and most of the answers are on a page they can find without calling anyone, so your phone stays face down on the counter until morning.
If you need help running the day-to-day and you'd like to talk through which option fits your company, I'd be glad to. You can book 30 minutes with me on my contact page, where you tell me in a short form what's eating your week and I'll get back to you within one business day to set a time, or you can text me at 971-370-3574.
I'm Tim Volner, and I run Sentric Group in Salem, Oregon, where I work with contractors who've built a solid company but have reached the point where it can't seem to run for a single day without them.