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College of Arts and Law

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £25,506 to £27,399, with potential progression once in post to £31,718

Band 500

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 7th August 2023

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

The College of Arts and Law is home to outstanding teachers, researchers and Professional Services staff at the University of Birmingham. The College Hub plays a vital role in the life of the College, providing support to senior members of the College Senior Leadership Team and managing a broad range of college-wide administrative tasks.

The role of Senior College Administrator and PA is a great opportunity to develop your career in Higher Education administration. As a valued member of College Professional Services staff working in a supportive team, you will provide crucial support to the work of the College in a variety of ways, including:

• Diary management and support for our Senior Leadership Team
• Financial processing and ordering
• Facilities and IT management
• Committee administration and management
• Human resources administration
• Information maintenance and management of confidential information
• Supporting effective College-wide communications
• Providing first-rate customer service
• Event management and support

While in the role you will be given support to develop a wide range of skills and will also have the opportunity to lead on specific tasks within the team. You will have access to mentoring and performance and development support, together with a comprehensive range of on-line and in-person training opportunities through the University’s People and Organisational Development programme.

Role Summary

As a senior administrator and personal assistant within the College Hub you will provide support for a broad range of administrative duties, some of which may be complex and require a high degree of initiative. You will be responsible for supporting colleagues and sharing knowledge and may be asked to manage other staff in the team. You will use your excellent organisational skills and attention to detail to ensure the people you support are well prepared, and that the tasks you carry out are completed to a high quality in a timely manner.

Organisation chart

The post holder will be managed by the College Hub Manager. They will provide PA support to members of the senior management team and will also be expected to provide high-level administrative support for College-wide activities.

Main Duties

• Undertake complex diary management and meeting planning, usually 6-12 months ahead, making decisions on the best use of time. This will require you to understand the priorities and deadlines you and your manager(s) are working to and will involve developing relationships across the University and beyond.
• Proactive inbox management, with confidence to make decisions on behalf of others where appropriate.
• Dealing with a wide range of more complex enquiries and correspondence independently, or exercising judgement to redirect them to senior colleagues or other departments within the University where required.
• Responsible for line managing a member of staff and to take responsibility for co-ordinating and prioritising the work of others. You will be expected to act as a role model and coach members of the team.
• Maintain high-profile working relationships with key stakeholders, fielding enquiries and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders as appropriate.
• Proactive preparation and collation of meeting-related papers, working collaboratively to determine what information might be required in advance of a meeting, articulating clear deadlines for submission and proactively chasing where necessary. This may include attending meetings to provide high-quality committee support, taking minutes and following up as appropriate.
• Arranging complex UK and overseas travel, including booking flights, hotels, transfers, and organisation and planning of itineraries, ensuring best use of time and taking into account budgetary constraints.
• Organisation of events including booking a venue, sending invitations, arranging refreshments, liaising with speakers, managing bookings, co-ordination of colleagues, advertising, collating feedback and reporting back
• Organisation of College forums. There are approximately three forums per academic year, this task will involve liaising with the Head of College and senior members of the College Leadership Team to determine the dates. The task will also include sending invitations, room bookings and setting up of hybrid facilities, circulating a Teams form to staff; giving them an opportunity to submit anonymous questions in advance of the forum.
• Working closely with the College Administration Manager supporting with College Interview panels including room bookings, setting up the panels, collating and circulating papers and schedule, and booking catering.
• Collate, analyse and interpret data. This may include identifying and resolving issues with the data.
• Will manage some smaller projects on own initiative, but will also carry out desk research and source data from internal and external sources in order to contribute to wider projects.
• Support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Will be responsible for one or more of the following:

• Monitoring budgets including processing payments, authorising expenditure, raising concerns where finances are not in line with the budget,
• Procuring goods and services through the University system,
• Updating and writing content for the department’s communications, eg intranet pages,
• Dealing with health and safety and facilities issues,
• HR-related tasks such as managing staff absence, induction, or dealing with leavers
• Dealing with arrangements for international visitors
• Monitoring internal procedures/compliance and ensuring these are followed and disseminated as appropriate.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Educated to A Level standard, or equivalent level 3 qualification such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma or relevant experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
• Minimum of grade C/4 in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent level 2 qualification.
• Proven ability to plan ahead and anticipate requirements, proactively planning own (and sometimes others’ workloads) to manage time effectively, progress tasks concurrently and work to deadlines.
• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.
• Familiarity working and managing hybrid facilities would be an advantage.
• A creative flare working on Teams and web pages would be an advantage.
• Highly proficient IT skills, in particular the ability to handle complex electronic diaries and emails, the wider MS Office suite of programmes including excel, Teams and PowerPoint. The post holder should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences, and to required deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills. The post holder must inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues and provide excellent customer service at all times.
• A high degree of professionalism, tact, and diplomacy, and the ability to exercise discretion regarding the handling and management of sensitive information/issues.
• A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.
• Ability to work effectively in a large, complex organisation, and to develop a good understanding of how the University and higher education institutions work.
• Ability to understand policy and procedures and how to apply these.
• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.
• Familiarity working and managing hybrid facilities would be an advantage.
• A creative flare working on Teams and web pages would be an advantage.

Dimensions

This role will require you to exercise personal initiative within and beyond the department. You may be asked to manage a team member or budgets. You will be expected to provide excellent PA support to members of the College Senior Leadership Team.

Planning and Organising

This role will require you to work independently on daily, weekly and monthly tasks but also on projects with medium-longer-term horizons without daily supervision. You may also need to manage other staffs’ workloads.

Problem Solving and decision making

You will work under the direction of the senior manager you support, but you will have a significant degree of autonomy. You will deal with the more complex queries and be expected to resolve any problems in your area of responsibility. You may also manage the workload of others or coach others to achieve results. You will take day to day decisions on managing the diary, emails, preparing papers and booking travel.

Internal and External relationships

You will be liaising with a wide range of internal colleagues and stakeholders, likely to be University-wide and with external stakeholders.

Informal enquires to Jo Keogh, email: [email protected]

View our staff values and behaviours here

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working .