Operations Officer

Job Description

The main purpose of the role is to support the Finance Director, Deputy Finance Director and the wider Finance, Procurement and Operations (FP&O) team by providing high-quality administrative, operational and coordination support. The post holder will act as a central point of organisation across finance and operations activity, helping to prioritise work, track actions, and support effective communication across the directorate.

The role requires good judgement, discretion and a reliable, organised approach to managing competing priorities. It operates with regular interaction with senior leaders and supports effective decision-making by ensuring information, actions and processes are well organised, followed through and delivered to agreed timescales.

The post holder will be responsible for:

- Support the Deputy/Finance Director by preparing briefings, coordinating information and following up agreed actions.
- Providing diary management support to the Deputy/Finance Director, including prioritisation of meetings and preparation ahead of key engagements.
- Coordinating meetings and agendas with internal teams and external stakeholders, ensuring appropriate preparation, accurate information and timely follow-up.
- Act as a coordination point for FP&O activity, maintaining action logs, delivery trackers and forward plans.
- Provide light-touch support to priority pieces of work, including tracking actions, milestones and dependencies.
- Maintaining FP&O intranet and SharePoint pages, ensuring information is accurate, current and easy to access.
- Providing administrative and logistical support for FP&O training events and team activities.
- Coordinate onboarding and people-related processes within FP&O, ensuring a well-organised and positive experience for new starters.
- Act as an effective interface between FP&O and other stakeholders, supporting clear communication and practical issue resolution.
- Support continuous improvement activity across the directorate, contributing to clearer processes and more effective ways of working.
- Supporting finance processing tasks as required, ensuring accuracy and timeliness.
- Support procurement activity as required, including maintaining records and supporting compliance with governance processes.

Skills & Knowledge

- High level of attention to detail and accuracy.
- Strong organisational and coordination skills, with the ability to manage multiple tasks and competing priorities calmly and effectively.
- Ability to prioritise work, maintain momentum and ensure actions are followed through.
- Ability to work with reports and information to support team activity.
- Experience supporting onboarding and people-related processes.
- Understanding of procurement and contract management processes, or willingness to develop this knowledge.
- Ability to handle confidential and sensitive information with discretion and professionalism.
- Good working knowledge of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
- Experience using SharePoint and maintaining digital information repositories.
- Experience providing administrative and operational support to senior leaders (Desirable).
- Communicates clearly, professionally and confidently with colleagues and stakeholders in person, via MS Teams, by telephone and email.
- Builds positive and effective working relationships across FP&O and the wider organisation.
- Liaises appropriately and professionally with external stakeholders and suppliers.
- Works independently with appropriate supervision, using initiative to progress work.
- Uses judgement to prioritise tasks and identify when issues need to be escalated.
- Maintains awareness of FP&O priorities and supports senior leaders by providing clear, well-organised information.
- A reliable self-starter who organises their workload effectively to support team priorities.
- Takes responsibility for completing tasks and ensuring actions are followed up.
- Supports collaborative and inclusive ways of working across the team.
- Supports effective use of senior leaders' time through dependable coordination and administrative support.
- Contributes to effective delivery across FP&O by ensuring actions and information are well managed.
- Supports the effective functioning of FP&O through a professional, organised and responsive approach.

Please apply by uploading a copy of your CV and covering letter as a single document upload. In the covering letter, please set out, by reference to the person specification above how you meet the required skillset.

Rewards and benefits

- The FRC offers remuneration packages, including 30 days annual leave, ability to buy extra leave.
- Generous employer pension contribution of 10%.
- Staff Employee Assistance Programme including confidential counselling and work life services.
- The FRC offers staff the opportunity to save at least 25% on the purchase of a new bike through the Cycle to work scheme.
- The FRC has a strong work/life balance ethos.

The FRC believes that equality of opportunity and diversity is important in the work that we do and we are strongly committed to being an inclusive employer. Our values of being fair and independent supports this commitment. Equal opportunities monitoring is an important means of demonstrating and implementing our commitment to promoting equality of opportunity and diversity. Completing our diversity form will assist the FRC to identify any barriers that prevent access to employment and career development for certain groups of people, and to develop solutions, such as action plans, new policies and practices. The FRC operates a hybrid working arrangement, with a expectation that 40% per month of a person's working time will be located at one of our offices, with precise arrangements to be agreed between the employee and the line manager

The FRC is a Disability Confident Employer, and therefore, people or individuals with disabilities and long-term conditions, as defined by the Equality Act 2010, who meet the minimum criteria for a role will go through to the next stage of the recruitment process. In cases of high application volumes, we may progress applicants whose experience most closely matches the role's key requirements.

The role is based in our central Birmingham office. The post holder should be able to work flexibly to support the team's activities and also provide cover within the FRC as necessary. The FRC operates a hybrid working arrangement with its workforce. The FRC operates a hybrid working arrangement, with a expectation that 40% per month of a person's working time will be located at one of our offices per week, with precise arrangements to be agreed between the employee and the line manager.