Position Details

Campus Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £25,506 to £27,399, with potential progression once in post to £31,718

Band 500

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 24th May 2023

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

Campus Services is responsible for a very large range of services within the University including student accommodation, catering, Sport and Fitness, cleaning and waste management, conferences and events, delivering the University’s post, day nurseries, security and emergency response, Winterbourne House & Garden.

The Event Co-ordinator post is part of the Event Delivery team that sits within Conferences & events (C&e). C&e sells and delivers a vast number of conferences and events to underpin academic work, support the student experience and drive additional income. As with any commercial revenue generating department within a university, C&e seeks to strike a balance between enhancing the student and staff experience and ensuring a financial return to the University.

Job Summary

The Event Co-ordinator is responsible for managing and coordinating a wide range of events. Responsibilities may include booking locations, liaising with service providers, hosting client meetings, lining up sponsors and securing food and drinks. The role will cover a wide variety of tasks essential to delivering events and cover a range of residential conferences, through social functions to day events and exhibitions.

Together with a representative from the Commercial and Account Management team the post holder will be responsible for showing our facilities to prospective organisers and be expected to identify opportunities to upsell services.

The Event Co-ordinator will liaise with clients across the University and externally, as well as service providers to manage and ensure all the customers’ requirements are delivered to the highest possible standard. Documenting all client details accurately on the booking system is essential, as it is imperative to build and maintain up to date client records.

The post holder will need to be financially aware as maximising income generated through the allocation of facilities and services is crucial. Customer service skills are a necessity as we take great pride in our high level of delivering customer excellence.

The post holder will need to work flexibly when events are held in the evening or at weekends and although most events will be based on campus, the post holder may also be asked to support events at the Exchange, Edgbaston Park hotel or any other appropriate location. To flexibly use resource, the post holder may be asked to work elsewhere in the department or across the University.

Main Duties

• You will be responsible for all aspects of event administration and co-ordinating a variety of events at any one time which will include;

• acting as first point of contact for a high volume and diverse range of enquiries, working with clients to understand the objectives for the event, making recommendations for their event, identifying the most appropriate services and venues, maximising opportunities to upsell as appropriate.
• being present on the day of the event, managing logistics, dealing with any issues which may arise and ensure the smooth running of the event.
• ensuring bookings are accurately recorded on booking system and circulated as appropriate prior to events.
• chair customer planning meetings and host familiarisation visits of University venues.
• processing financial requirements for each booking, requesting purchase orders to be created to confirm services are booked, requesting deposits when applicable, ensuring quotes are accurate, reconciling all items and figures before forwarding to Financial Administrator for final billing.
• following up post event with the customer to gather feedback, identifying if repeat bookings can be secured and using feedback to make improvements in the service.

• Arrange audio visual, exhibition, staging and decoration requirements for internal and external clients.
• Support the Event Manager with the organisation of larger scale conferences and events internally and externally, commercial and non-commercial.
• Achieve monthly and annual financial targets set by the business areas i.e. accommodation, catering, room hire.
• Analyse customer/delegate data to produce operational reports to ensure adequate and service provision is in place.
• To test the customer journey to ensure our promotional materials match customer needs.

Other

• Provide support for manager(s) in promoting sustainability across the University, supporting the ISO20121 event management standard.
• Ensure that all activities and services comply with health and safety regulations, including the timely and accurate issue of risk assessments.
• Liaise with colleagues at all levels to ensure effective management of activities related to delivering conferences and events.
• Support equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.
• Any other duties as may reasonably be expected by the relevant manager.

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 level 2 qualifications.
• Professional experience in an Events and/or Marketing role.
• Ability to analyse numerical and financial data.
• Highly proficient IT skills, including the MS Office and website editing software. You should be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required as in-house systems are used for procurement.
• 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. You 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 Rosie Adams, email: r.adams.4@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

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.