Position Details
Dubai Operations
Discipline: Dubai Operations
University of Birmingham, Dubai campus
Salary: Competitive
Grade: 5
No. of positions: 1
Full time
Location: Dubai, UAE
Closing date: 26th January 2025
University of Birmingham Dubai
Having established ourselves in Dubai International Academic City in 2018 we have now moved to our new state-of-the-art campus which opened in September 2021. This post represents an excellent opportunity to join an ambitious World Top 100 University as we continue to grow our long-term strategic mission in Dubai, the UAE, and the wider region. Our campus reflects the very best of Birmingham through our presence in Dubai.
Background
Department Overview:
The Services and Support thematic area will focus on providing all students at the University of Birmingham Dubai with a wide range of high-quality services and support. This will also support the University and our academic colleagues in the delivery of our academic mission in respect of both Education and Research including:
- Welcome and induction activities;
- Careers, employability and skills support;
- Programme administration support and services;
- Research administration support;
- Visa and immigration services;
- Information advice and guidance services;
- Learning and library services;
- Wellbeing services;
- Academic Skills support;
- Support to the University of Birmingham Dubai Students’ Association;
- General student administration through to graduation support.
Role Summary
You will join a professional services team that 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 student and programme administration throughout the student journey, ranging from initial registration through to graduation. You will work closely with a diverse group of people including managers, academic staff, PS staff and students to deliver the annual cycle of teaching and learning administration-related activities, including but not limited to online registration, student fee processing, student records, student mobility and assessment and examinations support.
Main Duties
General
- Promotes equality and values diversity acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
- Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour.
- Undertake continuous personal and professional development.
Job Specific Duties
- The post holder will be responsible for the smooth running of customer interaction points within the Campus, providing excellent customer service, initial guidance and support across a number of functional support areas, ensuring interactions are managed from first interaction to conclusion, including handling and resolving complaints.
- You will be able to deal with a range of 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.
- Dealing with a wide variety of administrative tasks relating to staff, students and campus services, including but not limited to obtaining and renewing all students’ visas and IDs, supporting student registration, maintaining student records including any changes throughout the year such as Programme Transfers, Leave of Absences, Appeals and Withdrawals, monitoring student attendance, as well as supporting assessments, exams, Exam Boards and graduation.
- Using complex multi-user University systems, to support the operational management of student records from registration through to graduation for students on a variety of taught programmes at the University throughout the academic year; this will include all aspects of Exam Board processing in the Main, Supplementary and Dissertation assessment periods.
- Provide administrative support for a wide range of activities in delivering the annual cycle of teaching and learning outlined in the role summary above; for example, recording minutes of meetings or preparing agenda documents as directed by the Head of Student & Programme Administration and/or the Student & Programme Administration Manager.
- Regularly communicate relevant information to students, staff and external providers.
- Work with various departments and support to plan, organise, maintain and deliver activities, enabling the successful delivery of visits, events and/or programmes.
- 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.
- Use a variety of complex University systems and processes to collate, manipulate and interpret sets of data, and produce routine reports.
- Contribute to periodic reviews of administrative processes and procedures with the objective of making improvements and sharing best practice across other areas within the wider University.
- Contribute to providing frontline support to visitors and student interaction points within the Campus, providing excellent customer service, initial guidance and support as necessary.
- Providing a professional secretarial service to relevant committees and meetings, where required.
- Manage all data in accordance with University policy and Data Protection Regulations.
Additional responsibilities
- Supporting timetabling and room bookings activity, as required.
- Manage all data in accordance with University policy and Data Protection Regulations.
- Undertake such other duties as may be prescribed from time to time by the Head of Student & Programme Administration and/or the Student & Programme Administration Manager.
- Undertake continuous personal and professional development.
- Conduct financial and Health & Safety duties in line with statutory and University’s policies and procedures.
Person Specification
You will need to evidence:
- Substantial experience in an administrative support role preferably with experience of Higher Education;
- Experience of using complex multi-user systems is essential, and;
- GCSEs to a minimum of grade C 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;
- Familiar with the administrative duties within a busy higher education or corporate environment;
- 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;
- You will be 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 using and maintaining complex work systems e.g. student databases/record systems/finance 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;
- 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.
Dimensions
You will not manage others in this role but, even, 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.
Problem solving and decision making
- You will be working under the direction of senior managers (The Head of Student & Programme Administration and the Student & Programme Administration 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, as well as locally developed ones in Dubai, 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.
Internal and external relationships
- 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.
We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.
