Job description
The Centre for Education is seeking a confident, highly proficient, and experienced Operations Officer to support the administration and operations linked to the King’s Undergraduate Medical Education in the Community (KUMEC) programme, including teacher development and scholarship, to support the delivery of the programme. The post holder is a member of the Centre for Education Professional Services Team, providing high quality support primarily to the KUMEC team (for approximately 80% FTE) and to the Centre for Education (approximately 20% FTE). The programme management and student-facing services are delivered by another team, with which the post holder will work collaboratively.
KUMEC provides, supports, and promotes medical education in community contexts in primary care. This is implemented through a variety of learning programmes involving patients, students, and community teachers. The KUMEC community teaching network consists of hundreds of teachers (including GPs, nurses, educationalists, and practice staff) working in London and other parts of the UK.
The Operations Officer works closely with the Centre for Education academic, and the professional services leads, reporting to the Centre Manager and the Director of Community Education, and working closely day-to-day with the two KUMEC Teacher Development Leads.
The successful applicant will have a wide understanding of administrative processes and systems gained through work experience. A good eye for detail and a professional approach to work are essential. They will have experience in arranging and supporting events and conferences and must have a highly organised and systematic approach to work, using their own initiative and judgement to address and solve problems. They will set own short-term priorities, providing a range of support including:
- Providing day-to-day support for KUMEC operations, including teacher recruitment, teacher development programmes and the support of KUMEC scholarship.
- Leading the organisation and planning of KUMEC in-person and online events that support teachers delivering the medical curriculum and other teaching programmes the KUMEC team are involved with, liaising closely with the KUMEC teacher development and other academic leads.
- Dealing efficiently and professionally with communications and correspondence, using clear and precise language.
- Managing the KUMEC teachers’ network, including via emails, newsletters, podcasts, and updates for the KUMEC website.
- Acting as KUMEC’s first point of contact for general enquiries from internal and external collaborators.
- Using, maintaining, and promoting university-wide systems, ensuring efficient processes are in place to maintain high quality data, providing training to colleagues as required in order to ensure accurate data are maintained and accessible.
- Establishing clear, well-documented processes and maintaining records of attendance to online training programmes issuing certificates as required.
- Supporting meetings, boards, and committees, including the coordination and distribution of papers, and taking notes or minutes, as required.
- Forging relationships with colleagues in the Centre for Education, Faculty and University, in order to contribute to process development and adoption of best practice.
- Fostering a stimulating, innovative and inclusive cultural environment across the Centre for Education, enabling students and staff to thrive and develop, ensuring that processes and policies are visible, accessible, and transparent.
This post will be offered on an indefinite contract.
This is a full-time post - 100% full time equivalent
Key responsibilities
The post holder is a member of the Centre for Education’s professional services team, providing high quality support, along with support to specific initiatives and activities agreed with their line managers. The post holder will be working for 80% FTE supporting KUMEC and 20% FTE the Centre for Education. The post holder will:
- Project manage events, leading on the coordination of all aspects of these, including advertising and raising the profile of the event to relevant audiences, coordinating all pre-, during and post-event logistics and support. The post holder will work with the academic lead of each event to identify the purpose of the event, co-design activities, determine the timelines and milestones, identify speakers and target participants, evaluation methods and indicators of success.
- Support the KUMEC teacher recruitment activities, keeping accurate records of the process, maintaining lists of interested and active teachers, and teaching general practices and teacher attendance and issuing attendance certificates.
- Service committees, working groups and other meetings, coordinating meeting dates, preparing, and issuing papers, preparing briefing documents and taking minutes / notes / action logs for Teacher Development and KUMEC evaluation meetings.
- Provide professional administrative support to KUMEC activities and the School of Life Course & Population Sciences as required and defined by the post holder’s line managers, including meeting coordination, setting up purchase orders, organising travel and accommodation, monitoring budgets, supporting budget holders, and helping external/non-King’s employed lecturers and other visitors. In addition, the post holder will support KUMEC Scholarship activities
- Develop, present, and implement process improvements that are effective in delivering the required support in a more efficient way (in terms of time, resources and steps) that also meet the requirements of all stakeholders.
- Maintain KUMEC and Centre for Education resources including information shared on SharePoint, SharePoint permissions, other online resources including inter- / intra-net pages. This includes maintaining records of practice visits by KUMEC staff for routine checks, remedial action, and recruitment.
- Update the KUMEC teacher database, checking teacher GMC numbers, and provide practices/teachers with usernames and passwords for KCL email accounts and database access
- Collect and analyse feedback from training / development sessions, identifying themes and key areas for future improvement. Manage own workload, pattern of work and resources based on an agreed work plan, to deliver the required support, responding to changing priorities and an evolving environment / context, maximising the efficiency of the support being provided. The post holder will work as part of the wider team, planning business continuity during planned and unplanned periods of absence for example putting place documentation of work and progress in completing this, identifying team members to provide cover during periods of absence, working closely with their line managers.
- Develop a template risk assessment for the different types of events, ensuring that access, health and safety and other considerations are recognised and mitigations put in place.
- Use well-developed analytical skills to identify trends and patterns, in order to inform decisions and assist in work prioritisation and planning.
- Use a systematic and timely approach to solve problems, making decisions independently using agreed guidelines that have an impact of up to a year.
- Communicate both simple and complicated information, in a clear and precise manner, both orally and in writing.
- Gain and maintain a broad and in-depth knowledge of the Faculty and university policies and systems, working with Centre / School / Faculty staff to solve problems and provide solutions efficiently and effectively.
- Provide advice / guidance and, where appropriate, training to colleagues, helping them to make decisions and providing feedback.
- Be responsible for the compliance with relevant regulations, guidance and legislation governing the area of work and responsibility, including General Data Protection Regulation, supporting the monitoring of safe working practice, completing risk assessments where required and adapting the working environment to reduce the level of hazard.
- Respond to general email and telephone enquiries and as a local point of contact for equipment and estates maintenance teams, logging issues with Estates and IT and updating colleagues on planned maintenance.
- Forge relationships and work collaboratively with colleagues within and beyond King’s, using networking opportunities to share best practice, disseminate information and deliver the required support.
- Encourage and adopt environmentally sustainable practice.
- Facilitate an inclusive culture and ethos working with students, academic staff and professional services colleagues and external contacts.
- Participate in and / or lead cross Faculty projects and initiatives.
- Engage in Continuing Professional Development and training initiatives.
The post holder will report to the Centre for Education Manager and the Director of Community Education.
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.
Skills, knowledge, and experience
1. Minimum level 4 qualification, e.g., higher apprenticeship, HNC or other Level 4 award, plus relevant work experience OR Considerable knowledge and skills gained through work experience in a relevant post, demonstrating development through progressively more demanding work and the completion of professional training
2. Evidence of an active commitment to career development
3. Extensive operations experience with an in-depth knowledge of a range of practices, methods, and procedures
4. Clear and precise communication skills, including formal communications such as report/minute writing, using accurate written and spoken English
5. Strong interpersonal and influencing / behavioural skills
6. Proficient computer use with knowledge of the full Microsoft package – MS Outlook 365, MS Teams, PowerPoint, Word and Excel, along with the use of a web-publishing software package
7. Highly numerate with proven financial management and analytical skills to underpin strategic financial decisions and procedure
8. Experience of using complex databases and management information systems
9. Experience of building an effective network across a complex organisation and with external stakeholders
10. Solutions-focused self-starter, with excellent planning and organisational skills, a good eye for detail and able to manage competing priorities and work with minimal supervision
11. Ability to work under pressure in a busy environment
12. A commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion, actively addressing areas of potential bias.
1. Experience of supervising colleagues, giving feedback on performance levels, providing training/coaching where necessary
2. Have a full working knowledge of GDPR regulations and experience of complying with complex regulations / procedures
3. Creativity and interest in IT design, and relevant IT skills for effective teaching and learning resource distribution
4. Experience of working in the higher education sector