Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor

JOB DESCRIPTION

Employment status and working hours

Fixed term for up to 9 months, full time.

Full time hours at the University are 35 per week with the standard working pattern Monday to Friday from 09:00 to 17:00, with some flexibility in start/finish times.

Organisation structure

Vice Chancellor’s Office.

Your line manager will be Ashley Wheaton, Vice Chancellor.

Place of work flexibility

The majority of your working week will be spent at our office in Reading and the rest at your home*. The exact split of days/hours is negotiable but must include a minimum of three working days each week in Horizons on the core days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). The office closes on Fridays. You can attend the office on Mondays if you have worked the three core days. *Working from home is only possible if your environment is suitable – please see the ‘Working from home’ section on our Careers Site for further information.

High level summary of job role

The Executive Support Team (EST) at the University provides vital, efficient and professional support to the Executive Team. As an Executive Assistant, you will work to provide exceptional daily administrative support to the Vice Chancellor and will work diligently to optimise his busy schedule as well as assisting with written and email communications. Furthermore, you will help and assist the wider Executive Team and Executive Support Team wherever necessary.

As the Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor, you will be undertaking a pivotal role. A typical day will be fast-paced and diverse, with wide-ranging administration tasks covering routine jobs to tasks which require greater initiative. The work that you undertake may consist of high-level, confidential and sometimes sensitive information and you will be expected to manage this professionally and appropriately.

Our ambition is to become the Centre of Excellence for Built Environment Education and the years ahead will be exciting as we work to realise this vision. Working collaboratively, you will ensure high standards of support that increase overall productivity and efficiency across the leadership team and enable our goals to be achieved. Our aim will be to anticipate needs, understand priorities and offer exceptional executive support, thereby ensuring we deliver excellence in all we do.

Specific job role accountabilities and responsibilities

Supporting the Vice Chancellor

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Welcome external visitors arriving for meetings at Horizons.

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Monitor and flag appropriately incoming emails to the Vice Chancellor’s inbox and the Executive Support team mailbox. Seek out further information as required to respond professionally and appropriately to all enquiries, liaising effectively with the Vice Chancellor at all times.

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Undertake proactive diary management to ensure an effective and balanced schedule at all times, resolving competing demands, anticipating needs and being responsive and adaptable to changing requirements.

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Organise the regular cycles of internal meetings and 1-1s and liaise with external contacts to diarise appointments as requested/required. Ensure all meetings have a clear purpose, anticipated outcome and the necessary supporting information/papers are available in a timely manner.

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Take a proactive approach to follow up after Vice Chancellor meetings and implement a ‘bring forward system’ – drafting emails, progressing actions, and scheduling further meeting time for example.

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Draft correspondence as required and liaise regularly with the Marketing team on PR opportunities relative to the Vice Chancellor’s activities.

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Book travel and accommodation as required to ensure a seamless schedule, including occasionally collecting train tickets form the station in advance of journeys and always working within the University’s Expenses policy.

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Process expense claims for the Vice Chancellor.

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Raise purchase orders for the Vice Chancellor as required.

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Approve annual leave requests for the Vice Chancellor’s team and process staff anniversary cards.

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Collate, assemble and print meeting papers and ensure the Vice Chancellor is fully prepared and briefed appropriately ahead of all meetings.

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Book and prepare meeting rooms ahead of meetings, including any hospitality, facilities and technology requests.

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Be a first port of call for enquiries into the department, take messages and pass on to the appropriate person in a timely manner.

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Provide excellent and responsive customer service when responding to both internal and external colleagues and stakeholders.

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Be available in the office on core days, to support with any request that may arise (within your capabilities), including collecting tea/coffee/water if requested and occasionally, picking up lunch on busy/challenging days.

Supporting the Executive Support team

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Deputise for other Executive Assistants in periods of absence to provide secretariat functions to their meetings and support to Executive Team members.

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Monitor the Executive Support team inbox and assign and progress emails and actions as necessary.

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Support the Executive Support team with organisation of internal and external events as requested.

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Process the monthly credit card log.

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Maintain the contacts database in line with GDPR guidelines.

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Maintain electronic files and ensure documentation (contracts, policies, minutes) is appropriately scanned and stored.

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Respond positively to and undertake any other duties which fall within the scope of the role, and which may be required from time to time.

Other important features of the job role

Line management responsibilities: None.

Budget responsibility: None.

In this role you will liaise with the following: Executive Team; Executive Support team; Deputy Vice Chancellor’s Governance team members; key external contacts; external visitors; colleagues across the University

PERSON SPECIFICATION

E = Essential person requirement; D = Desirable person requirement

How the person requirement will be assessed: This is not a heading

A = Application; I = Interview; T = Test or other assessment

Please be aware that as part of safer recruitment and onboarding processes , we will seek original documentary evidence of the relevant academic and/or professional qualifications which you include within your job application. This is all part of our comprehensive pre-employment screening which also includes checking your identity, right to work, criminal record history (basic disclosure unless specified otherwise), and three years employment history. This is all part of our commitment to safeguarding our students . Keeping our students safe is a responsibility shared by everyone within the University.

Qualifications and training

Further education level qualifications (D, A).

Previous experience

Substantial experience in a similar administrative role for c-suite executive team, gained within an office environment (E, A).

Experience within the education sector/built environment/higher education, or a clear desire and interest to learn (D, A).

Behaviours and attitudes

Alignment to the University’s core values and growth mindset approach, which reflect our culture. Refer to the specific behaviours within the Competency Framework (E, I) – summarised within the careers site.

Skills, knowledge, other requirements

Professional approach and manner, coupled with strong verbal and written communication skills (E, A, I).

Planning and organisational skills with the ability to forward plan, join the dots, prioritise and be proactive (E, A, I).

Demonstrative initiative with sound judgement (E, A, I).

Attention to detail; accurate, meticulous and passionate for precision, with a keen eye for identifying errors or discrepancies (E, A, I).

Significant experience of MS Office which includes Teams, Outlook (calendar and email), Word (creating and formatting documents), Excel (data entry and spreadsheet formatting), and PowerPoint (preparing slide decks) (E, A, I).

Collaborative approach and ability to work well and reliably in a team and build positive working relationships (E, A, I).

Willingness to assist with tasks and ensure high quality service (E, A, I).

Ability to deal with confidential and sensitive information with discretion (E, A, I).

Honest, trustworthy, respectful and empathetic to all colleagues (E, A, I).

Commitment to delivering positive outcomes for our students regardless of your area of work within the University; we want our students to be successful (E, I).

You must be prepared to undertake mandatory online training should you be appointed. The University is regulated by the Office for Students and Ofsted, and we have specific requirements and expectations around safeguarding, Prevent, and anti-harassment and bullying. This is all part of our Competency Framework requirements (E, I).

Ability to travel very occasionally to meetings or events away from the office (which may also be outside of normal working hours) (D, I).

PAY AND BENEFITS

Salary: Salary circa £40,000 per annum.

Holiday: 26 days paid holiday (rising to 28 with service) plus paid bank/public holidays plus up to five paid closure days (typically between Christmas and New Year); all per holiday year Full Time Equivalent. Our holiday year runs from 1 August to 31 July. We also have a holiday buy and sell scheme in place. Sometimes the University does not need to close for five days per year and any balance (for example one day), can be used as a paid Wellbeing Day to take time out for your own physical or mental health.

Pension and life assurance: Pensions auto-enrolment to the People’s Pension which is a default salary sacrifice scheme. You may opt out of salary sacrifice but remain in the scheme, or you may choose to opt out altogether. We provide life assurance (death in service) cover as standard to all employees.

Family-friendly policies: Policies in place for all types of family-friendly statutory leave with enhanced pay available from day one of employment for some leave types. Access to Tax-Free Childcare (Government scheme).

Wellbeing: Full access to the Employee Assistance Programme as well as the Thrive Mental Wellbeing app. Several employees are trained Mental Health First Aiders and can support staff. We have a wellbeing policy and we focus on five pillars of wellbeing.

Sustainable travel: Cycle to Work and Electric Vehicle salary sacrifice schemes.

Parking: We have locked sheds for bicycles. For cars, for Horizons based roles, we may in the future be able to offer parking on site however you must not assume this will be possible. Every now and then we may have a spare parking space become available and you can ask to join the waiting list. The University is keen wherever possible, to encourage staff to commute as sustainably as possible.

Other health related benefits: Employer-funded Health Cash Plan (Simplyhealth) and voluntary dental insurance (Unum).

Other valuable benefits

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Charity giving options available including one voluntary paid day, per annum.

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You will have access to Microsoft Office 365 applications for personal use.

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You will have access to range of lifestyle discounts and everyday savings.

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We offer learning platforms including LinkedIn learning.

APPLICATIONS - THINGS TO CONSIDER

For an informal discussion about the role please contact Alexandra Humphreys on 0118 921 2304 or email a.humphreys@ube.ac.uk . For any other enquiries please contact HR on 0118 467 2454 / 2433 or email recruitment@ube.ac.uk

Did one of our employees recommend you? If you apply on the recommendation of an existing employee, please make sure to mention their name within your application.

We're passionate about sustainability and we have a five-year strategic plan: We expect job seekers to be curious about who we are and what we do. We point you towards a couple of resources about who we are and sustainability .

Closing date and next steps

We will receive applications until the vacancy is filled and will review applications on a rolling basis. Our ATS does not screen applications, we humans do.

Interview details

Interviews will be carried out on a rolling basis. We'll ask you to tell us about any dates you cannot make, up to 4 weeks from the closing date; this helps us to plan interviews should you be shortlisted, prior to contacting you.

Interviews are normally carried out over Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Depending on the job role and place of work, your interview may be at our Reading or London office. Please be prepared for a two-stage interview process, held on different dates. As part of the interview process, you will likely meet a member of the Senior Leadership Team.

Note for internal candidates

If you are an existing employee, we request you inform your current line manager of your intention to apply for this role.

As this is a fixed term role, if you were (in the future) to be offered and accept this role, it would mean relinquishing your contractual permanent employment status with the University. Following the expiry of the fixed term period, your employment with the University would cease, unless an alternative role is secured. If instead you would like to apply for this role on the basis of it being a secondment (i.e. not relinquishing your permanent status), please discuss this with your current line manager. Only your line manager can consider and agree to a secondment because this impacts the resourcing in your current team. Please contact HR if you or your line manager need to discuss this further.