Senior Education Support Administrator - Birmingham Business School - 59677S24 - Grade 5

At the University of Birmingham, students are at the heart of all we do. You will join a professional services team which is passionate about providing excellent administration support for students and staff.

Duties may vary between teams, but you will have the opportunity to contribute or take a lead in all aspects of administration supporting the delivery of our teaching and research programmes for students. You will work closely with a diverse group of people including managers, academic staff and students to deliver the annual cycle of teaching and learning related activity.

• Act as primary contact for academic staff involved in the Schools’ /Programmes’ learning and teaching, providing expert guidance, understanding and resolving queries, and identifying when to delegate or escalate queries.
• Deal with higher profile contacts on own initiative.
• Work with and support your team to plan, organise, maintain and deliver activities, enabling the successful delivery of programmes; in some teams this will involve you being the designated line manager for staff.
• Specifically take responsibility for the more complex tasks associated with welcome, induction/re-induction, attendance monitoring and recording, timetabling, placements, examinations, progression, and graduation etc.
• Make a substantial contribution to the management, development and implementation of operational processes.
• Prepare and deliver management and institutional reports; this will include responding to complex data requests involving the need to pull information from various sources.
• Compile, manipulate, analyse and interpret large and complex data sets, drawing up reports and/or identifying required actions as appropriate.
• Support the development of systems and procedures to assist in the day to day running of School/Programme administration.
• Responsible for the regular review and update of key documentation.
• Support periodic quality assurance related audits, report on School/Programme compliance, propose solutions and develop and deliver remedial action plans.
• Providing a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
• Proactively identify ways of enhancing the curriculum and student experience, making recommendations as appropriate.
• Support equality and values diversity, moderating own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
• Manage all data in accordance with University policy and Data Protection Regulations.

The post holder will undertake any other duties that may be assigned by the relevant management team in support of more complex activities. 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 will need to evidence:

• Substantial professional experience in a variety of similar roles; and GCSEs to a minimum of grade C/4 in English and Mathematics (or equivalent qualifications); and A levels or an equivalent level 3 qualification, such as a Level 3 NVQ, or level 3 national diploma.

You will be:

• Comfortable in a role where you take significant responsibility and where you are expected to proactively propose new ways of working.
• Comfortable working on your own initiative to complete tasks and projects without close supervision.
• Able to become authoritative quickly on complex systems and be able to advise colleagues on these.
• Able to set the standard for other colleagues, acting as a role model and coaching staff as appropriate.
• Able to communicate and delegate effectively as required.
• Well organised with the ability to prioritise work (your own and the work of others) proactively, independently and as part of a team.

In addition to the above, you should be able to demonstrate and/or evidence the following:

• The ability to work to tight deadlines in a collaborative team environment.
• The ability to supervise and support the work of other team members.
• A good understanding of delivering excellent customer service and the ability to influence others to deliver it too.
• The ability to interact with individuals at all levels of internal and external organisations.
• Experience of using and maintaining complex work systems, student databases/record systems or equivalent.
• Exemplary attention to detail and the ability to work confidentially, use judgement and make appropriate decisions within the constraints of the role.
• 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.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.

You may directly manage others in this role but, even if you do not, you will still be expected to act as a role model and coach members of the team. You will not normally manage a budget in this role.

You will be required to manage and prioritise a varied and complex workload to deliver within required time frames, and make a substantial contribution to the management, development and implementation of operational processes.

You will be working under the direction of a senior manager, but with considerable autonomy to deliver the outputs required. You will be working within the framework of existing policies, processes and procedures for the University and the College, but there will be plenty of scope to review and shape processes. You will take day to day decisions on some of the more complex tasks in the team’s remit including identifying next steps as appropriate.

This role will be liaising with internal colleagues and stakeholders, external stakeholders as well, sometimes with customers who have issues with the service, with an expectation on maintaining good working relationships with all.