Complex Operations Manager Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

NEW LOCATION · NOW HIRING

Location Manager

Full-time, Salaried · Location Operations

Location: Elmhurst, IL (Chicago metro)

Reports to: Market Leader

Saltbox makes the hardest parts of running a small online business simple. Our workspaces bring together flexible warehouse suites, offices, and hands-on logistics support, all designed to help eCommerce entrepreneurs scale with confidence. Our members run businesses across Fashion & Apparel, Health & Beauty, Electronics, Household Goods, and more. When you join Saltbox, you're not just joining a company, you're helping real small business owners in your own backyard succeed.

This is our very first Saltbox location in Chicago, opening in Elmhurst, IL in fall 2026. We're hiring the Location Manager now, well ahead of opening, so you're fully trained and onboarded before the doors open and ready to run the building from day one. Opening a brand-new location in a brand-new market is a rare thing, and you'll set the standard for how Saltbox shows up in Chicago.

We're looking for a Location Manager to run this location as a business, not as an operations supervisor. You own the health of the location, the performance of your team, and the experience of every member who walks through the door. Occupancy, member satisfaction, team development, and operational standards are yours, built through the systems you put in place, the people you develop, and the calls that move the business forward. Your job is to run the location as a business, member retention, team performance, and operational health are yours to own.

Opening Chicago is a milestone for Saltbox, and the Location Manager is the person who makes it real on the ground. You're not stepping into someone else's system, you're building the playbook this market will run on: the team, the member relationships, and the operational standard every future Chicago location will be measured against. If you want full ownership of a location and the chance to shape it from day one, this is it.

What the job looks like

Before the doors open, your job is to get ready: learning the Saltbox playbook, standing up your systems, and building the team you'll lead. Once you're open, most days you're close to the floor and close to your members. You review the numbers that tell you how the location is really doing, walk the space, and coach your Lead and team through the situations that need someone with authority in the room. Your time goes to the decisions and conversations that move occupancy, retention, and team performance, and to building the systems that hold the standard even when you're not looking. It's a role for someone who would rather own the outcome than be handed a task list.

What you will own

Location business management

• Own the location's business performance: occupancy, member satisfaction, revenue targets, and budget adherence are yours.
• Review location performance weekly, know the numbers, flag what's off, and bring your Market Leader into anything that needs attention.
• Hold accountability for operational spend, keeping labor costs, supply budgets, and vendor relationships within parameters without managing every line item yourself.

People leadership

• Build and develop your team, their growth, performance, and confidence as operators are yours to own.
• Own headcount decisions: know when it's time to hire, make the final call on who, and set new team members up to land well.
• Conduct performance reviews, hold corrective action conversations, and make retention and separation decisions when it comes to it.
• Coach your team through hard situations so they get better, rather than handling everything yourself.

Member success & sales

• Own member retention, staying close enough to your members to catch a problem before it becomes a cancellation.
• Step in to lead tours and onboarding conversations that need a decision-maker: high-value prospects, complex scenarios, and key relationship moments.
• Resolve member escalations directly, billing disputes, contract conversations, and anything that needs real authority.

Operational planning & strategy

• Ensure the location runs at Saltbox's operational standards by building the systems and holding accountability, not by managing the day directly.
• Own recurring problems at the system level: when the same issue keeps coming back, fix the cause, not the symptom.
• Represent your location to the Market Leader and central teams, surfacing on-the-ground insight, risks, and opportunities with clear context.
• Keep SOPs current and followed, auditing regularly so you catch gaps before something breaks.

Tools & technology

• Use Saltbox's reporting tools, Pulse, scheduling, and performance dashboards, to see what your eyes can't catch.
• Set the expectation that your team uses the tools available to them, and follow through on it.
• Stay ahead of system changes so your team isn't caught off guard.

How we measure success

• The location opens on time and on standard, team hired, trained, and ready before the doors open.
• Occupancy ramps to target after opening, with a clear plan any time it dips.
• Member retention meets or exceeds target, churn risk is caught early rather than explained after the fact.
• Revenue and budget land within plan, with labor and supply spend inside parameters.
• Weekly performance reviews happen on cadence, and issues reach your Market Leader before they escalate.
• The location passes operational-standard audits, and your Lead can hold the standard without you in the room.
• Member escalations are resolved at the location without routinely traveling up.

Who thrives here

• You're energized by building something from scratch, not intimidated by a blank page.
• You think in outcomes, not activities, and would rather own the result than work a task list.
• You lead through your team, developing people instead of doing their jobs for them.
• You take ownership of the whole location, that's the ownership mentality we hire for.
• You stay calm and clear in the conversations that need authority: hard feedback, escalations, and tough calls.
• You're close to your members and genuinely care whether their businesses succeed.
• You hold a high standard and earn trust while doing it.

What you bring

• You use AI in your daily management work, performance reviews, member escalations, weekly recaps, and you actively get your team using it too.
• 3+ years managing a physical location or operations environment, you know how to run a building and lead a team through it.
• A business ownership mindset, you think in outcomes and hold yourself to the numbers.
• A strong people developer, you grow the people around you and know the difference between developing and doing.
• Member and customer relationship skills, you handle the conversations that take experience, empathy, and authority.
• A clear, direct communicator, your team knows where they stand and your Market Leader is never surprised.
• Operational instincts, you spot patterns, find root causes, and fix things at the system level.
• Comfortable with financial basics, you understand what occupancy, labor cost, and margin mean for your location's health.
• Comfortable with tools like Slack, Rippling, Pulse, and operational reporting platforms, and willing to adopt new ones as we grow.

What we offer

• Medical coverage, 100% covered for two Aetna plans, or a low premium for PPO
• Dental and vision covered at 100%
• 401K plan options
• Company-paid long-term and short-term disability and life insurance
• Paid holidays, vacation time, sick time, and paid parental leave
• Learning and professional development budget

How we work with AI

AI is part of how we work at Saltbox. Every role here is expected to use AI tools as part of daily work, not as a novelty, but as a real lever for doing the job better. We invest in protected time, training budget, and a peer community to support that growth, and we expect every team member to lean in.

Ready to apply

Saltbox is excited to offer a full-time salaried position for our new Elmhurst, IL location, with a base pay range of $68,000 to $76,000 per year.

If you're looking for the chance to open and run a brand-new Saltbox location from day one, and set the standard for a whole new market, we want to hear from you. Apply today and become part of the Saltbox team.

Learn more at www.saltbox.com