General and Operations Manager Career Assessment

2What is a General and Operations Manager?

A general and operations manager is the person who keeps a place running. You set the schedule, you decide who works where, you watch the budget, you hire and you fire, and you answer for the numbers at the end of the month. In a small ND company you may also be the buyer, the safety officer, and the person who calls the plumber. In a big one you run a store, a branch, a yard, a terminal, or a division, and you report to someone above you who runs several of those. The word "operations" is doing a lot of work in that title. It means the actual doing of the business, not the planning of it.

The Reality: Read this part twice. Almost nobody gets hired into this job from the outside with no history. This is a promotion job. The usual road is five to ten years doing the work below it — shift lead, crew lead, supervisor, assistant manager — and then somebody hands you the keys because you already run the place in every way except the title. A business degree helps you move faster and helps you move between companies, but a degree by itself will not get you here. Employers are buying proof that you can already keep a crew, a schedule, and a budget from falling apart. The second honest thing: when something goes wrong at 10 PM, you are the phone call.

Your Responsibilities:

• Set daily and weekly schedules and make sure the shifts are covered
• Watch the budget, control costs, and explain the numbers to your boss
• Hire, train, coach, and sometimes fire the people who work for you
• Solve the problems your team cannot solve on their own
• Deal with customers, suppliers, and the people who deliver things late
• Keep the place safe and keep the required records up to date
• Report on how the business is doing and what you plan to do about it
• Fill in wherever you are short-handed that day

You are the person who makes sure the place actually works.

3A Day in the Life

6:45 AM — Get there before your crew. Read overnight emails and see who called in sick.

7:30 AM — Short stand-up meeting. Hand out the day, move one person to cover the gap.

9:00 AM — A delivery came up short. Call the supplier and rework the day around it.

10:30 AM — Review last week’s numbers. Costs are up. Figure out where and why.

12:00 PM — Eat at your desk while you interview a candidate by phone.

1:30 PM — Walk the floor. Talk to four people. Catch a safety issue before it becomes one.

3:00 PM — A customer is upset. You take the call yourself instead of handing it down.

5:15 PM — Write tomorrow’s plan, then go home. Your phone stays on.

Interruptions all day, and the buck stops with you.

4Training in North Dakota

Most people are promoted into this. School speeds it up; it does not replace the years. There is no license and no required degree for this job. What employers want is proof you have already run something. The fastest honest road is to get very good at the work you do now, take the lead job when it is offered, and add business coursework while you are working. A degree matters most when you want to move to a bigger company or a bigger job than your history alone would get you.

Training Pathways:

• Promotion from inside (5 to 10 years): Do the work, take the lead or supervisor job, then assistant manager, then manager. This is how most ND general and operations managers got there. Say yes to the scheduling, the ordering, and the training nobody else wants to do, because that is the part that gets noticed.
• Two-year business degree while you work (2 years): An AAS in business management from a North Dakota two-year college costs far less than a university and is built for working adults. It teaches you the budget and people-management side that experience alone does not cover, and the credits stack toward a bachelor’s later.
• Four-year business degree (4 years, or a finish-up degree): A bachelor’s in management or business administration opens doors at larger employers and is often what a company wants before it moves you above a single site. Several ND schools offer it fully online, so you can keep working while you finish.

Where to Train in North Dakota:

• Bismarck State College (Bismarck) — Management AAS and a Management certificate, online or on campus; credits stack into BSC’s Bachelor of Applied Science in Organizational Management and Leadership (catalog.bismarckstate.edu/catalog/degrees/career-technical-education/management)
• Bismarck State College (Bismarck) — Bachelor of Applied Science in Organizational Management and Leadership, and a separate BAS in Operations Management, both listed on the BSC BAS degree page (catalog.bismarckstate.edu/catalog/degrees/bas)
• ND State College of Science (Wahpeton and Fargo) — Business Management AAS with options in Administration and Finance, Business Technology Management, and Marketing, Sales and Hospitality Services; the Business Technology Management option is a third year built for people who already hold a two-year technical degree and want to move into supervision (catalog.ndscs.edu/business-management)
• University of North Dakota (Grand Forks) — Management B.B.A. through the Nistler College of Business & Public Administration, on campus or online (business.und.edu/academics)
• North Dakota State University (Fargo) — Management B.S. and Business Administration B.S., both available online (ndsu.edu/business/academic-programs/undergraduate)
• Minot State University (Minot) — Management B.S., plus a Master of Science in Management and graduate certificates in Leadership Studies and Knowledge Management (minotstateu.edu/business)
• University of Mary (Bismarck) — B.S. in Business Administration, an online B.S. in Business Management, and an MBA and Master of Organizational Leadership (umary.edu/academics/schools/gary-tharaldson-school-business)
• Valley City State University (Valley City) — Business Administration B.S., online or face to face (catalog.vcsu.edu/undergraduate-catalog/departments/business)
• Dickinson State University (Dickinson) — business degrees and an MBA, available fully online (dickinsonstate.edu/academics/fields-of-study/sobe)
• United Tribes Technical College (Bismarck) — Business Administration (uttc.edu/academics)

Before You Start: A high school diploma or GED to start the ladder. Real work history in the kind of business you want to manage. Comfort with numbers on a spreadsheet, because the budget is not optional. A clean driving record matters at many ND employers because you will drive between sites.

Tip: Start with financial aid, scholarships, and any help an employer offers — that is where the money starts. After that, ask a career counselor or Job Service North Dakota whether WIOA or other programs can help with what is left over, like training, tools, work boots, or exam fees. What can be paid for depends on the program and on your own situation, so ask before you sign up rather than after. Registered apprenticeships let you earn a paycheck while you learn — see jobsnd.com/job-seeker/apprenticeships for ND programs.

5Certification & Licensing

No license is required. Certificates help, but your track record is the credential. Nothing legally stops you from being a general and operations manager. Because the job is so broad, there is no single certificate that covers it, and no employer expects one. What people do instead is pick up a credential that matches the part of the business they run — people, money, quality, or supply chain — and let their work history carry the rest.

Credentials That Actually Help:

• A two-year or four-year business degree — the most useful single thing you can add, especially if you want to move companies. ND two-year colleges are the cheap door and their credits transfer
• ASCM CPIM (Certified in Planning and Inventory Management) — worth it if you manage inventory or production scheduling. ASCM says you pass two exams within three years of each other, and you renew every five years (ascm.org)
• A safety credential (OSHA 10 or OSHA 30) — short, cheap, and expected at many ND industrial and construction employers before they will put you over a crew
• Supervisory or leadership certificates — Bismarck State College offers a stand-alone Leadership certificate, online or on campus, that stacks toward a degree and welcomes people with no prior coursework (bismarckstate.edu/academics/programs/Leadership)
• Whatever your industry licenses — a commercial driver’s license, a food safety manager certificate, a contractor license. Managers who hold the same credential as their crew get more respect on the floor

The Exams: There is no exam to become a general and operations manager. If you add a credential, the exam belongs to that credential, not to the job.

Cost: Nothing is required, so your real cost is school if you choose it. A North Dakota two-year business degree costs far less than a university one, and many employers pay part of the tuition for a course that clearly relates to your job. Ask your employer before you enroll, not after.

Keeping It Current: Nothing to renew. What keeps you employable here is a current, honest record of places you kept running and people who would work for you again.

6Salary & Job Outlook

North Dakota General and Operations Manager Pay (May 2025):

• Starting out (bottom 10–25%): $25.00–$33.15/hour ($52,000–$68,950/year)
• Middle (median — half earn more, half earn less): $47.20/hour ($98,170/year)
• Experienced (top 25–10%): $64.99–$88.81/hour ($135,180–$184,720/year)

What that means: The middle North Dakota general and operations manager earns about $98,170 a year, against a national middle of about $105,770. That is a gap, but a small one, and ND cost of living closes most of it. The spread inside the job is enormous and that is the part to pay attention to: the bottom tenth here earns about $52,000 while the top tenth earns about $184,720. That is not the same job at two pay levels. It is the difference between running a small shop and running a division, and the thing that moves you up that range is the size of what you are trusted with. The national top tenth reaches about $253,390, far above ND’s, because the country has headquarters jobs that this state mostly does not. Many of these jobs also pay a bonus tied to results, which does not show up in the numbers above.

Jobs in North Dakota: About 11,960 people do this work in ND today. By 2034, that should be about 12,880 (about 8% growth). Expect about 1050 job openings every year in ND from growth and people retiring or changing jobs. Across the U.S., the change is about 4% growth.

Outlook: Excellent, and by far the best of the seven manager jobs in this series. O*NET shows North Dakota going from about 11,960 general and operations managers in 2024 to about 12,880 in 2034, roughly 8% growth, with about 1,050 openings a year. Compare that to 20 a year for human resources managers and 30 a year for facilities managers and you can see why this is the realistic target. Nationally the job grows about 4%, so ND is growing it at double the national rate. The reason the number is so big is that the title covers so much: store managers, branch managers, plant and yard managers, operations managers at co-ops and elevators, and the second-in-command at hundreds of small ND businesses all land in this one code. If you want a management career in this state and you are not tied to one specialty, this is where the openings are.

Who Hires in ND: Just about everyone. Retail chains and grocery stores, farm co-ops and grain elevators, banks and credit unions, trucking and logistics companies, construction firms, oil field service companies, health care systems, hotels and restaurants, city and county government, and hundreds of family-owned ND businesses where the owner needs someone to run the day.

Work Setting: Wherever the business is. An office attached to a warehouse, a store floor, a shop, a yard, a branch. Usually 45 to 55 hours a week, more at month end and during your busy season. You carry a phone after hours because problems do not wait for morning. In western ND, expect driving between sites.

Physical Demands: Low to moderate, and it depends entirely on what you manage. An office-based operations manager sits and walks. A yard or plant manager is outside in ND winter, on their feet, climbing stairs and ladders, and wearing the same safety gear as the crew. What actually wears on people in this job is not the body, it is being interrupted all day and being on call at night.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, North Dakota, May 2025 (SOC 11-1021); North Dakota and U.S. long-term employment projections 2024–2034, via O*NET OnLine. Numbers are rounded.

7Where This Leads

Path 1: Shift or Crew Lead — The first rung. You run a shift before you run a place.

Path 2: Supervisor — You own a schedule, a crew, and part of the budget.

Path 3: Assistant Manager — You run the place when the manager is gone. This is the real test.

Path 4: General or Operations Manager — The whole site is yours, and so are the numbers.

Path 5: Multi-Site or Regional Manager — You run several locations and the managers in them.

Path 6: Director or Owner — You set the strategy, or you buy the business.

8The Real Talk

What's Great:

• About 1,050 ND openings a year — more than the other six manager jobs on this list put together
• You can get here without a degree if your work history is strong
• Every kind of business in North Dakota needs one, so you are not locked to one town
• Middle pay of about $98,170 with real room above it
• You see the results of your decisions the same week you make them
• It is the widest door into management, and it opens onto everything else

What's Hard:

• You are the after-hours phone call, every time
• You get interrupted all day and finish your own work at night
• You have to fire people, and it does not get easier
• The bottom of the range is about $52,000, which is not management money — small shops pay small
• Five to ten years of doing the work first, in most cases
• When the numbers are bad it is your name on them, even when the cause was not yours

Be Honest: Do you want the responsibility, or only the title? Can you make a decision with half the information and live with it? Can you tell someone their work is not good enough and still have them show up for you the next morning? And are you willing to spend years doing the job below this one first, because that is how almost everyone gets here?

9Part 1: What Attracts You?

10Part 2: Are You Ready?

11Part 3: Your Next Move

Your General and Operations Manager Assessment Results