Senior Business Operations Officer - INTERNAL ONLY

Job id: 084145. Salary: £37,332 - £42,099 per annum, including London Weighting Allowance.

Posted: 08 February 2024. Closing date: 21 February 2024.

Business unit: Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine. Department: Education Operating Services.

Contact details:Tania Alcantarilla. [email protected]

Location: Guy’s Campus. Category: Professional & Support Services.

The Centre for Education in the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine seeks to appoint two highly motivated and experienced Senior Business Operations Officers to support the Centre.

The Centre was first established in 2017/18 to enhance education practice across the Faculty’s programmes, through supporting the development of good practice and pedagogy relevant to the Faculty’s disciplinary areas, so improving the student experience and learning outcomes. The student-facing programme management (including timetabling, delivery, assessment, quality assurance) is the responsibility of a separate/different team in the Faculty, the Faculty Education Services. The Centre supports the Faculty’s delivery of its education, primarily the financial management and staff resource; a background in education programme management is not required to be successful in this post.

Reporting to the Centre Manager, in this post you will be responsible for the day-to-day operations, primarily in three areas:

• Graduate Teaching Assistant appointments – i.e., hiring PhD students to deliver elements of undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes.
• Human resources associated with the life cycle of staff appointments and finance, including tasks such as procurement, receipting invoices and monitoring expenditure on establishment, non-pay and research budgets.
• Strategic business operations projects – such as meetings/ seminars/ workshops/ conferences to delivery the Centre’s mission, providing fora for interactions and engagement between educators to develop and strengthen pedagogy and educational innovation; space allocation and associated logistics.

You will be the expert in the systems and processes associated with the area you lead on, overseeing all activity linked to it, and making decisions based on your expert understanding of the area of responsibility. The rest of your time will be to support work in the other key areas, with the workload flexing as the business requires during the academic year, covering periods of colleague absence and working collaboratively to support peak periods.

You will be responsible for providing a highly efficient, responsive professional service at a consistently high standard. You will have a positive and systematic approach to work, with strong communication, comprehension and numeracy skills, being able to complete analysis to determine how to fulfil your objectives. You will be fully trained to be successful in the post and will be supported and developed to progress your skills for this job and for your next steps.

You will lead on specific projects, working independently deciding your short-term priorities. You will often use well-defined processes, identifying and implementing improvements to these; occasionally you will develop procedures for specific tasks. You will support compliance to King’s policies and procedures, training and advising colleagues on these.

The post will give you an excellent insight into the range and depth of operations of a busy academic unit in a thriving Russell Group university, with clearly defined standards and expectations and a strong ethos of service and support. You will need to be flexible in your approach, to respond to the operational requirements of this dynamic part of King’s.

Hybrid working is possible, subject to operational requirements, by agreement of the line manager. The post is based primarily at Guy’s campus, although there may be a requirement to work from other King’s campuses.

This post will be offered on an indefinite contract.

This is a full-time post - 100% full time equivalent.

The post holder(s) is a member of the Centre for Education professional services core team, providing high quality business operations support to the Centre for Education, with responsibility to lead a specific area of operational delivery.  Working independently under the line management of the Centre Manager, using and improving established processes to the expected professional standards, you will complete the operations linked to:

• the life cycle of staff employment, from recruitment request to exit, including staff induction, probation and academic promotion 
• the Centre’s appointments and payments to colleagues employed by our NHS partners, ensuring processes and records are maintained 
• financial management – including procurement, receipting invoices, processing external lecturer expenses, journalling expenditure, completing the year end checks and actions, monitoring expenditure against budgets, reporting any areas of under-/over-spend to the Centre Manager 
• strategic projects in the Centre, including space allocation and moves, business continuity planning and staff development events  
• supporting and servicing committees, meetings, seminars, workshops and other events

You will: 

• update colleagues on new developments in your area of operational focus 
• analyse information to identify patterns/trends to prioritise work and to inform decisions and working practice that may have an impact for up to a year, including process improvement  
• deputise for the Centre Manager as appropriate 
• provide advice, guidance and training on university policies, processes and systems to support colleagues in their work and ensure good levels of compliance  
• maintain well-ordered and accurate records, complying with regulations for storing and sharing data  
• work efficiently and effectively with Centre and Faculty staff to solve problems and provide solutions, contributing to and sharing best practice 
• prepare communications, draft presentations, briefing documents and background materials as required 
• foster a stimulating, innovative and inclusive cultural environment across the Centre enabling students and staff to thrive and develop, ensuring that processes and policies are visible, accessible and transparent 
• nurture and encourage environmentally sustainable practices within the team and your networks  
• participate in cross Faculty and university projects and initiatives.

In accordance with the current hybrid working model, where posts can operate in an agile way there is an expectation that they spend a minimum of   40% FTE on campus. This % may increase, where business needs dictate greater on campus presence. The post is based primarily at Guy’s campus, although there may be a requirement to work at other campuses/sites.

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

When completing your personal statement please address each criterion below, giving brief examples to evidence your experience and skills:

Essential criteria  

Desirable criteria