Lab Operations Manager - Project and Service Operations

Sotera Health•Salt Lake City, UT

About The Position

The Project & Service Operations Manager leads a team that coordinates customer projects and delivers a consistent, responsive service experience throughout the testing lifecycle. The role focuses on attracting, developing, and retaining employees while setting clear expectations for customer communication, project execution, issue resolution, and service delivery. The manager provides day-to-day leadership and operational oversight for project and service activities, including workload management, resource planning, performance metrics, and process improvement. The role works closely with customers and cross-functional partners to remove barriers, resolve escalated concerns, and ensure commitments are met.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in business, operations, project management, life sciences, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
People-management experience required.
Strong people-leadership and employee-development capabilities.
Demonstrated commitment to customer service.
Strong written and verbal communication.
Ability to manage competing priorities and organize work.
Conflict-resolution and difficult-conversation skills.
Sound judgment and structured problem-solving.
Ability to manage escalations calmly and effectively.
Cross-functional leadership and relationship-building skills.
Change leadership and continuous-improvement mindset.
Ability to use data and metrics to drive decisions.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office and customer or project-management systems.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading customer service, project management, customer operations, or service-delivery teams.
Experience in laboratory testing, life sciences, healthcare, contract services, or another regulated environment.
Project-management, continuous-improvement, or customer-experience training.

Responsibilities

Establish and reinforce customer service standards across the PSO team.
Ensure customers receive timely, clear, and consistent communication.
Monitor service performance, including turnaround time, response time, project progress, and customer satisfaction.
Address escalated customer concerns and coordinate timely resolution.
Identify recurring service issues and implement corrective and preventive improvements.
Partner with laboratory operations, commercial teams, quality, finance, and other functions to support successful customer outcomes.
Recruit, onboard, train, develop, and retain employees.
Conduct regular one-on-one meetings and provide ongoing coaching and feedback.
Establish clear performance expectations and hold employees accountable for results.
Partner with Human Resources to address employee concerns and support performance improvement.
Develop succession plans and strengthen team capabilities through cross-training, mentoring, and development planning.
Build a collaborative, customer-focused culture centered on accountability and continuous improvement.
Oversee the effective assignment, coordination, and completion of customer projects and service activities.
Balance workload and resources across the team based on volume, complexity, priorities, and customer needs.
Monitor project milestones, outstanding actions, risks, backlog, and service commitments.
Ensure issues are documented, escalated, and resolved at the appropriate level.
Establish clear ownership and effective handoffs across PSO, laboratory operations, and supporting functions.
Support consistent use of systems, processes, and standard work.
Develop and monitor operational and customer-service metrics.
Use performance data and customer feedback to identify trends and improvement opportunities.
Lead initiatives that improve efficiency, communication, consistency, and the overall customer experience.
Support department planning, staffing, and resource decisions.
Promote effective change management and adoption of new processes and systems.