Specialist, Content Operations at Wiley - John Wiley & Sons

Title: Specialist, Content Operations

Job Description:

Location: Remote (US)

Hiring Manager:

Our mission is to unlock human potential. We welcome you for who you are, the background you bring, and we embrace individuals who get excited about learning. Bring your experiences, your perspectives, and your passion; it’s in our differences that we empower the way the world learns.

About the Role:

The Content Operations Specialist – Trade and Dummies is responsible for overseeing the content production activities, where production and support functions are fully outsourced, for digital and print products. This includes but is not limited to books, supplements, rich media components, accessibility implementation, ebooks, and XML. Responsible for managing the quality of content throughout the production stages. Accountable for all production-related and QA activities that are part of a product. Oversight and some Managing Editorial responsibilities for the VCH Trade and Dummies programme.

How you will make an impact:

Production Process and Operations

• Coordinate and monitor content production schedules of assigned print/digital content and production/QA schedule of rich media and assessment content to meet deadlines and to achieve quality, within budgets.
• Support and guide vendor-based work centres, and support in-house-based colleagues with own specialist knowledge.
• Liaise with authors, SMEs, editorial, development, global vendors, and publishing support to monitor production progress and avoid errors/delays.
• Oversee vendor management of all print production services.
• Responsibility for escalation and timeliness of production/QA of digital and assessment content, ebooks, and other non-print assets.
• Create and highlight ideas for improving processes and discuss with manager.
• Help assess non-standard or complex products and work with inhouse and external colleagues to analyse and define the project. Ensure Managing Editor team kept informed and involved. Report on the likely impact of the project with regard to technology, resources, cost and schedule.
• Running reports and gathering and analysing data to monitor performance, manage targets, and inform on workflow improvements.

Project, Schedule and Budget Management

• Work with the Managing Editorial groups to ensure budgets are aligned with work requested from vendors. Oversees vendor in terms of cost control, quality of deliverables and schedule adherence, provides guidance to vendors for schedule tightening in line with what needs to be implemented.
• Communicates to and works with Managing Editorial to ensure schedules are met or adjusted as per business needs and work to be done.
• Managing Editorial responsibility for a small number of titles at any given time as required by the business. Working with PDM/Editorial to ensure correct data in system from contracting stage through the product life-cycle and establishing schedule. Tracking the progress of projects through the stages of the end-to-end content process; ensuring the schedule of each component is up-to-date and informing stakeholders of any variance against FY targets. Ensuring project requirements are clearly outlined upfront and that any issues are dealt with promptly to keep projects on track. Ensuring that any product-specific guidelines are enforced, and quality of final product is appropriate to the market; remediating any escalated issues.
• Liaises with vendor managers during the production phase of projects for project-specific communication and if there are production quality issues.

Vendor Engagement

• Ensure vendor partners execute in compliance with schedule, quality and business goals, including meeting KPIs and following SLAs.
• Optimization of vendor activities to ensure vendors can handle high volume while in-house staff focuses on high stakes activities and new workflows and product types.
• Provide support and confidential/unbiased advice to vendor Team Leaders and/or team members regarding challenging internal/external relationships.
• Achieve results through outsourced partners to maximise individual and organisational productivity and performance

Communication

• Collaborate with vendor and manager to ensure processes are in line with overall strategy.
• Communicate and collaborate with Managing Editors, Acquisitions Editors, and Content Support stakeholders to ensure production is in line with product strategy and processes and technologies set forth by Content Support group.
• Problem solve and troubleshoot with others in the organization.
• Respond to new workflows and respond to changing/developing needs of businesses.
• Provide timely and accurate reporting as required on all aspects of author support, development and production.

What we look for:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
• Significant experience in publishing process and/or product development, and production for digital and print content
• Project Management experience in the publishing sector
• Experience with a range of print and electronic product development
• Ability to manage or contribute to the successful production of print and electronic products
• Track record of delivering numerical objectives against targets
• Ability to manage the successful implementation of new workflows and product specifications
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience with a range of print and media product development
• Ability to use technology to communicate efficiently and effectively (email, telecommunications)
• Ability to break down complex problems/tasks into maneagable parts, and allocates own time efficiently
• Ability to translate strategies into objectives and action plans with measurable outcomes
• Utilizes measurement criteria that reflect the Key Business Results and KPIs of the department/function.

About Wiley:

Wiley is a trusted leader in research and learning, our pioneering solutions and services are paving the way for knowledge seekers as they work to solve the world’s most important challenges. We are advocates of advancement, empowering knowledge-seekers to transform today’s biggest obstacles into tomorrow’s brightest opportunities.

With over 200 years of experience in publishing, we continue to evolve knowledge seekers’ steps into strides, illuminating their path forward to personal, educational, and professional success at every stage. Around the globe, we break down barriers for innovators, empowering them to advance discoveries in their fields, adapt their workforces, and shape minds.

Wiley is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. We evaluate all qualified applicants and treat all qualified applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, or based on any individual’s status in any group or class protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. Wiley is also committed to providing reasonable accommodation to applicants and employees with disabilities. Applicants who require accommodation to participate in the job application process may contact tasupport@wiley.com for assistance.

We are proud that our workplace promotes continual learning and internal mobility. Our values support courageous teammates, needle movers and learning champions all while striving to support the health and well-being of all employees, for example we offer meeting-free Friday afternoons allowing more time for heads down work and professional development.

We are committed to fair, transparent pay, and we strive to provide competitive compensation in addition to a comprehensive benefits package. The range below represents Wiley’s good faith and reasonable estimate of the base pay for this role at the time of posting roles either in the UK, Canada or USA. It is anticipated that most qualified candidates will fall within the range, however the ultimate salary offered for this role may be higher or lower and will be set based on a variety of non-discriminatory factors, including but not limited to, geographic location, skills, and competencies. Wiley proactively displays target base pay range for UK, Canada and USA based roles.

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