Industrial Engagement Assistant - Engineering - 97830 - Band 500

Position Details

College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, School of Engineering

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £23,699 to £25,458, with potential progression once in post to £29,471

Full time

Fixed term contract until 30th September 2022

Closing date: 15th August 2021

We encourage early applications as we reserve the right to close this position earlier should we obtain a suitable candidate

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

Job context

The Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) is one of the largest specialist centres of its kind, with over 160 academics, researchers and professional services staff. Its work covers fundamental research, applications and testing, right through to commercialisation and working with industry partners to develop and introduce new products and services for the rail industry. BCRRE’s industry-facing activity comes under the umbrella of the Rail Alliance, which is a community of over 830 companies. This role will focus on the Rail Alliance and its engagement and coordination with its industry community. You will work closely with the BCRRE team of externally-facing people and enjoy day-to-day contact with the companies which make up this vibrant and exciting community.

We currently have funding to support this role until the end of September 2022 and we anticipate further funding to be secured to sustain this post.

Job summary

This role is at senior administrator level within BCRRE, focussing on the Rail Alliance, where you will provide support for a broad range of administrative duties, some of which may be complex.    You will be able to use your wide range of skills, both technical and administrative, and have the opportunity to lead on specific tasks within a team.  In order to flexibly use resource you may be given the opportunity to work in different areas of the department or wider University.

This is an exciting and fast-paced role where no two days will be the same. You can expect your work to include:

Liaising across a diverse team of professional services and academic individuals.
Day-to-day communications with Rail Alliance members: you will be their first point-of-contact, answering phone calls and emails; following up enquiries and questions; and proactively contacting members of the community.
Processing new membership applications; keeping the Customer Relationship Management system up to date.
Creating and uploading information into the Rail Alliance website, including creating events, news items, blogs etc.
Keeping the Rail Alliance social media presence up to date with content, shares, likes, etc.
Coordinating events – these will be in-person events and online webinar events; some events will take place away from Birmingham.
Managing attendance lists at events and short courses.
Creating and issuing regular Rail Alliance communications (including newsletters, social media content, etc).
Preparing monthly reports and metrics relevant to project funding.

Main duties

•    You will be able to deal with complex systems and procedures and will be expected to offer advice on these, including deciding on the response to more complex queries. 
•    You will be expected to exercise your judgment on the answer to queries or on the direction of work within parameters set by your manager.  On a day to day basis you will be expected to resolve more complex queries without necessarily referring to your manager.
•    If you have a supervisory role, you will line manage your staff taking responsibility for co-ordinating and prioritising the work of others.  If not in a supervisory role you will still be expected to act as a role model and coach members of the team.
•    Maintain high profile working relationships with key stakeholders on your own initiative, fielding enquiries and ensuring that appropriate information is disseminated to stakeholders as appropriate.
•    You may be involved in organising events including booking a venue, sending invitations, arranging refreshments, liaising with speakers, manage bookings, co-ordination of colleagues, advertising, collating feedback and reporting back.
•    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.
•    You will be expected to use a variety of complex University systems and processes to research, analyst and interpret complex data, producing bespoke reports as required.  .  This may include identifying and resolving issues with the data.
•    Support the management, development and implementation of operational processes and systems.
•    Process more complex data (which may be financial, HR, student-related or other), monitoring accuracy, chasing up missing information, and resolving any issues as appropriate.
•    Provide specialist advice and training to colleagues on area of activity.
•    As required, provide a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings.
•    You may be required to 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 eg intranet pages,
•    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.
•    Supports equality and values diversity, moderating 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 work experience evidencing the skills and ability to undertake the role. 
•    Minimum of grade C in Mathematics and English at GCSE or equivalent.
•    Professional experience in a similar role. If you have worked in customer relations or marketing communications your experience will be particularly relevant. 
•    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 ideal candidate will have familiarity with Wordpress or similar website and blog systems, Eventbrite and Mailchimp or similar event and e-newsletter creation tools.  You 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 verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to write for different audiences, and to required deadlines. 
•    Excellent interpersonal skills. The postholder 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.

Informal enquires to Jenny Illingsworth, email: [email protected]

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment 

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working.