Job Description

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

Institute for Data and AI (IDAI)
The Institute for Data and AI (IDAI) promotes excellence in Data Engineering, Data Science and AI theory and practice, ensuring their co-evolution and competent adoption across disciplines to enable transformative, interdisciplinary, impactful data-intensive research. The Institute brings together researchers and educators from across the University around a shared ambition to address grand societal challenges through open collaboration across disciplinary boundaries.

Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA)
The Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA) takes a distinct approach to leverage Birmingham’s comprehensive, interdisciplinary research expertise; and apply/translate ideas, skills and influence into wider engagement and action on climate change and broader sustainability matters.
BISCA aims to move beyond evidence generation and technological solutions to consider, for example, dynamic policies and decision-making under uncertainty; politics and behaviours around policies.

As Operations Coordinator (BISCA/IDAI), you will be a key member of the institutes’ joint professional service team, located in the Elm House Hub, providing support for the Institute for Data and AI (IDAI), and the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA), across a broad range of administrative duties, some of which may be complex. 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. The role will involve liaison with the Head of Institute Operations, operations team colleagues, and members of staff from the Institutes, associated research centres, institutes and networks, as well as Schools, Colleges and wider University. The working relationship between the Operations Coordinator and the Institute Directors is of paramount importance to the success of the Institutes and its efficient operation.

As Operations Coordinator (BISCA/IDAI), you will be a key member of the institutes’ joint professional service team, located in the Elm House Hub, providing support for the Institute for Data and AI (IDAI), and the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA), across a broad range of administrative duties, some of which may be complex.. You may also be responsible for managing other staff or for supporting colleagues and sharing knowledge. 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.

Main Duties

• Undertake complex diary management, event 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 management of institute and operational email inboxes, Microsoft Teams sites and channels 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.
• 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, manage bookings, co-ordination of colleagues, advertising, collating feedback and reporting back.
• 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.
• If in a supervisory role, you will line manage all staff and take responsibility for co-ordinating and prioritising the work of others, normally as the head of a small team or sub-unit of a team. If not in a supervisory role, you will still be expected to act as a role model and coach members of the team. You may also be responsible for coordinating responsibilities or tasks across a wider professional service and academic team or working group.
• Support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems, with a particular focus on interpreting, coordinating and navigating variations in local operational processes and systems, to support the Institutes’ work across the University.
• 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 contents for the department’s communications e.g. intranet pages.
  • oversee the day-to-day operations of Elm House meeting, office and collaborative spaces, including coordinating room bookings and maintaining building access records and systems.
  • 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.
• Where possible, undertake and maintain suitable training/certification to be able to act as First Aider and Fire Warden within Elm House.
• Champion non-pay efficiencies, University and Institutes’ sustainability aims, using budgets and procurement processes wisely when purchasing on behalf of the University.
• Supports equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

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.
• 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, and some experience of using an enterprise resource planning package. The post holder should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages 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 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.
• PA experience i.e. diary management, events organisation (desirable).

Dimensions

This role will require you to exercise personal initiative within and beyond the department.
You may manage a team or budgets.

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 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 enquiries to Jessica Mylchreest, j.mylchreest@bham.ac.uk

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

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