Administrative Assistant

Purpose of the post

The Administrative Assistant will be a key member of the BHF Data Science Centre team, providing administrative support to the BHF Data Science Centre Deputy Director and Operations Director as well as the wider Centre team to ensure the Centre operates at the highest levels of professional service quality, accountability and transparency.

Main responsibilities

Relationship Management

• Be the key point of contact for the Centre team. Liaise with other internal and external colleagues as necessary.
• Be the point of contact with the venue and the team for Centre in-person meetings.
• Attend and contribute to team weekly meetings and wider organisational activities.
• Build and maintain effective relationships across teams and keep abreast of activities and projects across the breadth of the Centre.

Support organising meetings and events

• Book, arrange and support internal and external meetings, and events.
• Work with colleagues to identify dates and times for meetings, which will require managing very busy and constantly changing diaries, react responsively to the needs of the Centre and current projects.
• Provide meeting preparation, whether zoom support or in person support. When required attend meetings and work with the relevant team member(s) to collate agendas and papers for meetings, and ensure the timely production of minutes and actions, forwarding these to participants.
• Manage logistics for all travel, book flights, train tickets, ground transportation where necessary, accommodation, meeting venues, adhering to company travel policy.
• Compile detailed itineraries and communicate clear and concise event/meeting details to the team.

Administrative and finance responsibilities

• Monitor the BHF Data Science Centre generic inbox and alert relevant team members or respond to emails where appropriate.
• Provide administrative support to ensure smooth running of BHF Data Science Centre activities as required, such as supporting team members to complete administrative processes, circulating material and following-up on agreed actions.
• Maintain an up-to-date and accurate list of contact/partners, create and update distribution lists for communications both internally and externally within HDR UK’s CRM system, Hubspot.
• Process the Deputy Director’s expenses and reconcile credit card expenditure, in line with company policy. Collate all credit card receipts and file in accordance with file naming protocols.
• Manage invoices and contracts (mainly for events and meetings) ensuring details are checked and forwarded for approval/signature.

Ensure quality

• Work with other members of the team to improve internal ways of working, including documenting processes.
• Ensure all information (both written and verbal) is treated in a confidential and sensitive manner.

Planning and organising

The Administrative Assistant will be responsible for supporting the BHF Data Science Centre team in their day-to-day activities to achieve the overall aims and objectives of the Institute and Centre.  This will require significant planning and organisational skills. At the same time, the post holder will require a flexible and fast paced approach to changing demands of the internal team as well as external stakeholders and partners.

Problem solving

The Administrative Assistant will be expected to use problem solving skills to respond to diverse demands.   The post holder will require confidence in dealing with enquiries, problem solving and decision making.  The post holder will have a proactive approach to working with colleagues and be able to make an effective judgement on when input is required from other team members and when to escalate issues to senior colleagues’ attention and with what urgency.

Decision making

The post-holder will make all day-to-day operational decisions for their own workload.  With support from the Operations team, the Administrative Assistant will identify, initiate and develop opportunities for streamlined and effective working.

Continuous improvement

HDR UK is dedicated to continuous improvement through our quality management system and demonstrated by our commitment to achieve ISO 9001 accreditation. The post-holder will review, analyse, identify and implement opportunities for quality improvement within their specialism and as part of the wider team through our strategy development and internal audit processes.

Key contacts/relationships

The post holder will build and maintain effective working relationships both internally, within the BHF Data Science Centre and HDR UK, and externally, with key colleagues within partner organisations and other stakeholders. The Administrative Assistant will have close working relationships with colleagues in the Operations team (e.g. Operations Director and Project Managers) as well as other members of HDR UK and external stakeholders.

Knowledge, skills and experience

Experience

• Extensive experience of supporting colleagues at all levels.
• Extensive experience working in a fast-moving professional environment. Have a professional manner and be calm under pressure.
• Experience of managing busy diaries to schedule meetings as well as complex travel logistics.
• Excellent organisational skills. Competent in planning and prioritising workload to support multiple requests and changing priorities.
• Adaptable, flexible and pragmatic, able to change direction quickly as priorities shift.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively and confidently with people at all levels. Ability to write high quality, concise and clear, professional emails.
• Use of standard software packages e.g. Microsoft 365, Zoom
• Comfortable learning how to use new software to meet the needs of the role.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to handle sensitive and confidential information.
• Ability to work accurately with attention to detail.
• Ability to work autonomously and make decisions without supervision.
• Excellent relationship building and networking skills.
• Ability to work as part of a team.

Desirable

• Experience of working in a research or academic environment.
• Experience of multidisciplinary team working.
• Experience of using a CRM system such as Hubspot.

Application Process

Interested applicants are encouraged to contact the BHF Data Science Centre to discuss further: bhfdsc@hdruk.ac.uk

Please apply via the online portal, where you will be asked to submit responses to three questions that will be used in the shortlisting process. Please also upload a CV and a covering letter of no more than 500 words explaining what you can bring to this role, including your current salary (combine the CV and covering letter into one document before uploading to the portal).

The closing date for this vacancy is 5pm on Sun 17^th September 2023

Interviews are expected to take place on Mon 25^th or Thur 28^th September 2023. Interviews will take place via zoom.