School Administrator

Description:

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.

Role Summary

The School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music is a large multi-department School, made up of over 120 members of staff, split across a number of buildings on Edgbaston campus, providing research-informed teaching to over 1,000 Undergraduate and Postgraduate students.

This is a great opportunity to either start or develop your career in Higher Education administration. As a valued School Administrator working in a supportive team, no two days will be the same.

You will gain valuable experience of:

• Financial processing and ordering
• Maintaining a safe working environment in accordance with University health and safety policies
• Facilities and IT management
• Committee administration and management
• Human resources administration
• Information maintenance and management of confidential information
• Supporting effective School-wide communications
• Providing first-rate customer service
• Event management and support
• Working in a busy team
• Using your own initiative.

Whilst in the role you will be given support to develop a wide range of skills, both technical and administrative, 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.

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.
• To support financial processing for the School. This will include completing purchase requisitions and ensuring that goods are delivered, receiving and coding staff expense claim forms and tracking expenditure as required.
• 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.
• Undertake a range of facilities and health and safety responsibilities.
• 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.