Personal Assistant to Head of Department

Weekly Working Hours: 37

Contract Type: Fixed Term Contract

Fixed Term Contract: End Date: 12 months from start date

Welsh Language: Not Applicable

Job Description: 

About the Role

To provide a confidential personal assistant/secretarial service to two of the Business Schools’ departments and ensure that tasks within the portfolio are completed professionally and to deadlines. To provide more general secretarial support to other academics/colleagues within those departments as agreed in order to support the smooth running and proactive management of the Department.

To provide first class customer service to members of the Faculty, Business School and Departments by understanding their needs and by matching solutions to their requirements. 

Flexible working. We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you. Whilst the role can be undertaken remotely for part of the week, there will be a requirement to attend the Milton Keynes site as and when required, with a current minimum expected attendance of once per week.

Key Responsibilities

• Provides PA support to two Heads of Department within the Business School.
• Diary and inbox management, including liaison with pan University colleagues and coordination of arrangements for meetings, seminars and conferences, ensuring colleagues are prepared for events, appropriate papers are prepared and circulated, notes of meetings are taken and disseminated promptly, venues are booked, and IT support and catering are organised.
• Provide secretarial and administrative support to other academics and team members. This includes, for example, conference registration, making travel and accommodation arrangements using the University’s systems, arranging meetings and distributing papers in advance, operating a bring forward system, photocopying and maintaining electronic diaries.
• Maintain a Departmental record management system in line with the University’s data protection policy.
• Support with staff management of Department members, including leave records, absence reporting, induction programmes, CDSAs, workload planning, AWM recording. Responsible for administering any Departmental budgets i.e. monitoring expenditure against budgets; providing information on expenditure patterns to assist with financial planning and forecasts.
• Organise the departmental meeting timetable and provide secretarial support to meetings, including taking minutes/action notes.
• Manage the security and use of the University’s credit card and coordinate procurement through the OU systems.
• Act as point of contact for enquiries and visitors; deal with telephone/email enquiries relating to Department activities: answer queries, progress follow-ups and chase responses as appropriate/requested.
• Assist with the administration of seminars and conferences being organised by Department members or Research Teams.
• Participate as an active member of the Faculty PA/Secretarial support team. and work across departments.

Skills and Experience

Essential Requirements

• Evidence of successful secretarial and/or administrative work experience, including minute taking.
• Excellent IT skills to include high level of competency in word-processing, Excel, PowerPoint, electronic diaries, spreadsheets, databases, the internet and Outlook.
• Experience of planning and organising several small projects, prioritising and scheduling tasks to cope with conflicting demands and deadlines, paying attention to detail and managing records effectively.
• Understanding of the principles of data protection and how to manage confidential records.
• Knowledge of, and commitment to, principles of improving diversity and equal opportunities within the work environment.
• Excellent organisational skills with the ability to work independently, planning and prioritising your own work and supporting senior managers to prioritise their workload and diary.
• The ability to work well as part of a team, with excellent communication skills, both verbal and written with people across all levels of the University.
• The ability to solve problems, using information from a variety of sources to aid analysis and make timely decisions whilst remaining calm under pressure.

Desirable:

• NVQ Level 2 Administration or equivalent.
• Working knowledge of The Open University and its objectives.

For a complete list of the role requirements and criteria, please see the full job description here: JD link

To apply for this role please submit the following as one document;

• CV
• A personal statement of up to 1000 words. You should set out in your statement why you are interested in the role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the required competencies for this role as detailed in the job description.

Please Note: We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.

The Open University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion which is reflected in our mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. We aim to foster a diverse and inclusive environment so that all in our OU community can reach their potential.  We recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and culture, and that this difference brings great strength. We strive to recruit, retain and develop the careers of a diverse pool of students and staff, and particularly encourage applications from all underrepresented groups. We also aspire to make The Open University a supportive workplace for all through our policies, services and staff networks.