Main duties

• You will 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.
• You will be involved in organising events including booking venues, sending invitations, arranging refreshments, liaising with speakers, managing bookings, co-ordination of colleagues, advertising, collating feedback and reporting back.
• You will maintain high profile working relationships with key stakeholders on your own initiative, fielding enquiries and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders as appropriate.
• You will be able to deal with complex procedures and will be expected to offer advice on these, including deciding on the response to more complex queries.
• You will support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems.
• You will be expected to use a variety of complex University systems and processes to research, analyse and interpret complex data, producing bespoke reports as required. This may include identifying and resolving issues with the data.
• You will process more complex data (eg research-related, in the University’s Current Research Information System, Pure), monitoring accuracy, chasing up missing information, and resolving any issues as appropriate.
• You will be expected to exercise your judgment on the answer to queries or on the direction of work within parameters set by your manager. On a day-to-day basis you will be expected to resolve more complex queries without necessarily referring to your manager.
• You will be expected to act as a role model and coach members of the team.
• You will manage some smaller projects on your own initiative, but will also carry out desk research and source data from internal and external sources in order to contribute to wider projects.
• You will provide specialist advice and training to colleagues on your area of activity.
• As required, you will provide a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
• You may be required to be responsible for one or more of the following:
  • monitoring budgets including processing payments, raising concerns where finances are not in line with the budget,
  • procuring goods and services through the University system,
  • updating and writing contents for the department’s communications eg intranet pages,
  • dealing with health and safety and facilities issues,
  • HR-related tasks such as managing staff absence, recruitment support, induction, or dealing with leavers
  • dealing with arrangements for international visitors
  • monitoring internal procedures/compliance and ensuring these are followed and disseminated as appropriate.
• You will support equality and values diversity, moderating your own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade

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 work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role.
• Minimum of grade C/4 in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent.
• Highly proficient IT skills, in particular the ability to handle complex electronic diaries and emails, the wider MS Office suite of programmes including Excel and Powerpoint. The post holder should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages (such as the University’s Current Research Information System (CRIS), Pure), as required.
• 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.
• Excellent communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences, and to required deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal skills. The postholder 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.
• Understanding of 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.

Please attach your CV to your online application

Informal enquiries to Elizabeth Westlake, e.westlake@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

We believe there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.