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Birmingham Business School

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £22,050 to £23,535, with potential progression once in post to £28,631

Band 400

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 6th 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

Role Summary

This role sits within the Departmental Support Office which is central to the administrative operations that underpin Birmingham Business School’s ambitious teaching and research endeavours. This dynamic role will suit a highly organised, detail-oriented individual with excellent interpersonal skills, and a desire to further develop their competency in higher education administration. The role is integral to the delivery of key professional services, which include but are not limited to; departmental support enquiries, secretariat support for departmental meetings and research group meetings, event organisation and administration, purchasing of goods and services, managing bookings for UK and international travel, data collation, analysis, and distribution. The role holder will be expected to use their initiative to problem solve, review processes, and implement continuous improvement initiatives to optimise service delivery and efficiency. It is essential that the successful candidate builds close working relationships with senior academics, professional services colleagues, and external stakeholders. The post holder will contribute to the broader administrative activities of a large and complex School, maintaining compliance with policies and procedures. In line with the endeavours of the Departmental Support Office, the individual will contribute to shared team objectives, providing proactive general administrative support for and supporting wider team initiatives and responsibilities.

Main Duties

• You will act as a point of contact to provide accurate and timely information and advice to internal and external customers and stakeholders on University processes and procedures, answering queries promptly, providing guidance and resolving queries from initial contact to resolution. This will include recognising when queries need to be referred elsewhere.
• Regularly communicate relevant information to students, staff and external contacts.
• Provide administrative support for diary or event planning.
• Process data (which may be financial, HR, student-related or other), monitoring accuracy, chasing up missing information, and escalating any issues as appropriate.
• Use a variety of complex University systems and processes to research, manipulate, analyse and interpret sets of data, and produce routine reports.
• Maintain working relationship with key stakeholders, fielding queries, receiving and dealing with any disputes or complaints and resolving promptly.
• Offer advice and support to others on area of activity.
• Review processes and tasks and proactively offer suggestions for improvement and sharing best practice as appropriate.
• As required, provide a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• Some professional experience in a similar role.
• GCSEs to a minimum of grade C in English and Mathematics grade C minimum (or equivalent level 2 qualification).
• Good IT skills with working knowledge of standard Microsoft Office software.
• Ability to take responsibility for specific tasks, carrying out duties without needing to refer to others, with scope for some choice and using your own judgment. Ability to work on your own initiative.
• Ability to proactively contribute to improving processes and for proposing new ways of working.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with others.
• Well organised with the ability to prioritise work proactively, independently and as part of a team.
• A good understanding of how to deliver excellent customer service.
• Experience of using and maintaining complex work systems e.g. student databases/finance record systems/HR systems or equivalent, and an aptitude for learning new IT packages and systems.
• Experience of supporting committees in a secretarial capacity.
• The ability to cope with change in a fast moving, dynamic environment where change is often required immediately.
• An understanding of the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• The ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures and how to respond to issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.

Dimensions

You will not be required to line manage anyone in this role or manage a budget.

Planning and Organising

You will be required to manage and prioritise a varied workload to deliver within required time frames. There is also a need to maintain an awareness of activity across the department and wider University as appropriate.

Problem Solving and decision making

You will be working under the direction of a senior manager, but with the autonomy to deliver the outputs required. You will be working within the framework of existing policies, processes and procedures for the department. You will take day to day decisions on what advice to give and for responding to and resolving queries.

Internal and External relationships

This role will be liaising with internal colleagues and stakeholders, and external stakeholders as well with an expectation on maintaining good working relationships with all.

Informal enquires to Matthew Waterhouse, 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 .