At WiseGEEK, we're committed to delivering accurate, trustworthy information. Our expert-authored content is rigorously fact-checked and sourced from credible authorities. Discover how we uphold the highest standards in providing you with reliable knowledge.
How do I Become a Process Coordinator?
There are multiple career paths and methods to become a process coordinator. This position is a relatively new role and is typically found in large corporations with far-flung operations across a range of sectors or services. The primary role of a process coordinator is to document current business and operations procedures. Accurate and well-written information is essential to the organization for a range of reasons.
At the local level, proper documentation and operational manuals are central to training new staff, covering during vacations, overseeing each position's responsibility, and meeting legal requirements. As a manager, a comprehensive understanding of the process provides the data required to determine where inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and delays occur. Executives need to be able to review a flow diagram to understand the impact of new policies or decisions on the actual business process.
There is no formal post-secondary education designed specifically to become a process coordinator. Instead, he or she typically has an undergraduate degree or diploma in business, management, or a related field. In specialized field, employers may require education that is unique to the industry. For example, a large manufacturing firm may require a professional mechanical engineering designation to become a process coordinator.
Experience is an important consideration for most employers when looking for a process coordinator. This can be divided into two types of experience: analysis and documentation experience, and working experience. Both are important and can be very helpful in this role.
Analysis and documentation experience includes tasks such as interviewing staff, creating flow diagrams, determining process inefficiencies, and writing process manuals. Communication skills are critical to this aspect of the role and can be gained in a business analysis or technical writer position. Writing clear, concise instructions and learning to ask the right questions to obtain the most information is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. These skills can be applied to a range of industries, providing broader career options once you become a process coordinator.
Working experience completing the actual process is the most common type of experience for process coordinators. This career often starts with a request to write or contribute to an operations manual for a specific process. Comprehensive understanding of the process is required, along with an understanding of where this fits into the larger picture. The creation of a clear, accurate manual can be the first step on the path to become a process coordinator.
AS FEATURED ON:
AS FEATURED ON:
-
![Businesswoman talking on a mobile phone]()
Businesswoman talking on a mobile phone
Discussion Comments
@miriam98 - I am glad that you enjoyed that type of work. Processes and procedures doesn't sound too exciting to me, I admit, but it is a necessary part of the corporate paper trail.
I think that everyone would need to know what the established processes and procedures were, so that if the company ever got sued or something like that, they could vouch that they had done everything “by the book” so to speak.
Otherwise, you would hear that awful sound of a paper shredder as it destroys important evidence.
Coordinator jobs require a certain blend of skill sets. I was a process coordinator once for a Fortune 500 company.
Actually, my official job title was Policies and Procedures Coordinator. The reason that they hired me was that I had a background in English and also had done some I.T. work.
They wanted me to document processes and procedures in their accounting department, and also outline how the analysts worked with different information systems as part of their workflow.
I didn’t write most of these procedures by scratch. I met with accountants and they gave me whatever documentation that they had. I simply standardized all the documents and put them out on the shared drive for company access.
In addition, I was responsible for coordinating training sessions for different internal courses that the accountants had to take, although that is not part of the formal definition of a process coordinator.
@Monika - I think sometimes it helps to get an outsiders perspective on things. That's why a process coordinator sounds helpful.
However, sometimes I wonder if the people who write employee manuals take the time to observe people doing the job like your process manager did. When I read over the manual for my current job again, a lot of it didn't match up with what I do on a day to day basis. And some of the suggestions were downright ridiculous!
Interesting. When I was working at a restaurant quite awhile ago, I actually met a process coordinator. She was observing our kitchen staff to see if anything could be done to streamline their work.
After observing for about a week, she made some changes that were for the better. Part of it involved rearranging the kitchen to make certain tools more accessible. The way it was set up was fairly inefficient, and they were able to do their work much easier after the changes were made.
Post your comments