Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a program coordinator and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.
A program coordinator coordinates staff and resources in a particular project. In a nutshell, he/she performs administrative and human resource duties in public programs such as health and community services.
Specific responsibilities include working with the staff to ensure that programs run effectively and within the set timelines, plan work schedules for their employees, monitor their performances, and grant them offs/leaves when need be. He/she also supervises billing payments and assesses if the funds available for the program is adequate to see it through its completion. Where there are limitations in financial resources, he/she solicits for additional funds. Lastly, they collaborate with other professionals such as account managers to ensure that the program runs smoothly.
Core Skills Required to be a Program Coordinator
Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.
Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.
A program coordinator should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.
Multi-Tasking:
Multi-Tasking allows one to juggle and perform more than one task at a time without losing track of what you are working on or dropping the ball.
A Program Coordinator must learn the trick of multitasking and help the staff balance the competing demands of their time and energy that they are expected to handle multiple priorities every day without compromising on the effectiveness of the work done.
Facilitation:
Facilitation is making tasks or life easy for others while ensuring the daily running of successful meetings or workshops or business at large.
A Program Coordinator must use facilitation to process and structure a system that meets the needs of either an individual or a team to help them achieve their goals as well as add value to their lives by making sure each participates.
Strategic Planning:
Strategic Planning is organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations while guaranteeing that employees and other stakeholders are working towards common goals.
A Program Coordinator should be liable to develop the systematic tools to be used in the organization's processes that coordinate and align resources and actions with the mission, vision, and strategy throughout the organization.
Assertiveness:
Assertiveness is the inclination to stand up for your rights or other people's rights in a calm and concrete way without being aggressive or accepting a wrong.
A Program Coordinator must be self-assured and confident to master the skills to put his points across without upsetting others or becoming angry and allowing the employees to do the same while complying with the company's policies and procedures.
Attention to Detail:
Attention to Detail is the capacity to achieve a thoroughness and accuracy when accomplishing a task.
A Program Coordinator needs to have this prime characteristic and utilize it in a high performing organization that allows both the customers and staff to understand the need to be keen to all the details required to avoid massive costs for overlooked details that are common in the workplace.
Commitment to the Job:
Commitment to the Job is the feeling of responsibility that a person has towards a mission and goals of an organization.
A Program Coordinator should be diligent in helping the employees connect and commit to their job by creating proper communication channels that make the employees feel listened to and encouraged to provide feedback thus creating mutual trust and respect in the workplace.
Evaluating Others:
Evaluating others is the capacity to see the individuality in others and recognize a person's unique point of view.
A Program Coordinator must master the skills of evaluating others to help his staff members to identify their talents and match those talents to the proper job without trying to judge them by their actions that can create a misinterpretation of who they are.
Personal Accountability:
Personal Accountability is the feeling that you are entirely responsible for your actions and consequences taking ownership without blaming others.
A Program Coordinator should provide a list of duties and responsibilities that every employee is expected to perform and define timelines and supervisors who oversee the work to ensure each knows what she /he should do and remain accountable without passing blame.
Persuading Others:
Persuading others is making sure your best ideas get a fair hearing without manipulating others or using trickery.
A Program Coordinator needs to creatively learn how to introduce new ideas that will boost growth for the company without managing the staff or put them under pressure with more work but with manageable goals that the employees will delight working on and grow as they do.
Analytical Skills:
Analytical Skills is the ability to collect and analyze information, solve problems and make decisions according to the policies and regulations of the business.
A Program Coordinator should hire employees who use clear, logical steps and excellent judgment to understand an issue from all angles before executing an action depending on the objective and the methodical approaches to benefit a company's productivity.
Hard Skills Required to be a Program Coordinator
Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.
Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.
A program coordinator should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.