Dispensing Optician, Ghana at VisionSpring

Description

Do you know and love eyeglasses? Are you ready to help restore vision and create access to eyewear for low-income customers across Ghana?

VisionSpring, an international social enterprise, seeks a full-time Optician to join its Vision Access Project Team in Ghana. The Optician will play a role in conducting vision camps in workplaces and communities – dispensing and fitting of eyeglasses, providing counselling services on the best ways of caring for eyeglasses.

This position is based in Kumasi but will require extensive travel, sometimes including overnight stays near work sites in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

About You

• You are passionate about improving the accessibility of affordable eyeglasses to earners and learners vulnerable to poverty.
• You are a natural teacher. You love sharing your knowledge and getting others excited about what they are going to do.
• You enjoy talking to new people and take pride in making sure that every customer you serve has a great experience and leaves feeling satisfied and excited about sharing his/her VisionSpring experience with friends and family.
• You are a roll-up-your-sleeves, hands-on team player. To provide the highest-quality service to your customers, you are not above doing any task, large or small.
• You set a positive example through practices like punctuality, respect, and commitment to work.
• You express a willingness to constantly learn about how to better serve your customer’s needs.

About Us

• We are creating access to affordable eyewear, everywhere. Clear vision creates opportunities for increased learning, work, safety, civic participation, and quality of life.
• As a social enterprise, social change motivates us first. Our focus on sales and revenue targets serves and advances our mission objective – to increase our customer’s quality of life, productivity in the workplace, and income earning potential by providing them with eyeglasses for clear vision.
• We are working to transform the systemic dysfunction of an optical market that has failed to deliver eyeglasses – a 700-year-old technology – to 2.5 billion consumers in need of vision correction, most of whom live on less than $4 a day.
• We serve low-income consumers, not as beneficiaries, but as customers. Our customers expect a high-quality and affordable product, and they will spend limited discretionary income for the immediate and tangible benefits of vision correction.
• By selling eyeglasses, we awaken new demand and seed a viable market. By selling new eyeglasses we are able to serve four times as many people per dollar input than the alternative of donating recycled ones. To efficiently scale, we must deliver each new unit with lower cost.
• We run our business on both sales metrics and social impact measures. We exploit a range of organizational forms and practices to get the job done.
• We believe in scaling our impact, not our organization. We are a lean team of doers.

What You'll Do

Eyeglass Station Operations

• Set up and stock the glasses station at each vision camp. Maintain required inventory throughout the duration of the camp.
• Maintain a clean, tidy, and safe environment for customers and staff.
• Visit eyeglass vendor’s factory/office to collect prescription glasses for customers and ensure glasses are available on the dispensing date as publicized.
• Dispense prescription glasses to customers in their workplaces and/or communities.

Post-examination Vision Counselling

• Provide a friendly greeting to customers after their final eye examination and escort them to the counselling station.
• Engage customers in conversation to find out how their vision camp experience has been so far, build trust, and discover what their diagnoses are. Listen to customers closely.
• Refer to the written details of the diagnosis made for each customer and understand the course of treatment prescribed by the optometrist to improve vision.
• Review the diagnosis and course of treatment prescribed with each customer.
• If eyeglasses have been prescribed to correct refractive errors, explain how glasses will correct the refractive errors, improve vision, and create positive effects in the customer’s daily activities at work and at home.
• Dispel myths and misconceptions about eyeglasses and blurry vision.
• Advise customers choosing eyeglasses based on customers’ vision needs, taking into account regular activities, and help customers select frame styles and colors.
• If specialty treatment has been prescribed to correct vision problems, explain how the treatment will improve vision and counsel customers to go to the referral hospital as directed.
• Conduct in-depth counselling for customers who are referred for cataract and pterygium surgery. Educate them about their conditions, explain the duration and method of surgery, review the expected future benefits, and answer questions. Also explain the likely consequences of declining to undergo the prescribed treatment on their vision and eye health.
• Address customer concerns about their diagnoses, the eyeglasses prescribed, the referral procedure, and the referral hospital.
• Promote eye health, and general health related to clear vision, by counselling customers on vision and eye care, good visual hygiene practices, and proper eyeglass care. Offer advice and reassurance about vision-related matters.
• Provide excellent care and demonstrate respect and regard for the dignity of all customers to ensure customer satisfaction and foster a professional and courteous vision camp experience.
• Follow all infection (i.e.. Covid-19) prevention safety protocols as directed by Project Manager.

Requirements

• Certificate or Diploma in Dispensing Opticianry
• 1-3 years of experience, including field experience, working in the health industry with an international NGO(s).
• Excellent customer service. Exceptional skills in addressing customer care needs in a compassionate and sympathetic manner, managing customer expectations, and resolving complaints.
• Experience in teaching, training, behaviour change activities, and/or counselling.
• Must meet the highest standards of ethics and personal integrity, with a demonstrated capacity for maintaining confidentiality and protecting customers’ private health and personal information.
• Highly organized, reliable, and prompt. Ability to multitask while adhering to schedule and deadlines. Strong communication and interpersonal skills.
• Willingness to travel across districts in Ghana, with overnight stays as needed, for Vision Access Programs, community eye care/health care programs, awareness programs, trade programs, trainings, or for any other purpose that VisionSpring deems necessary.
• Please note, only candidates to be interviewed will be contacted.
• VisionSpring is an Equal Opportunity Employer. VisionSpring does not and will not discriminate in employment and personnel practices based on race, sex, age, religion, national origin, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.