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About the Role
The Senior Assistant plays a pivotal role in providing a high-quality support service to frontline operational teams within the Student Support Hub in the Student Support Hub Administration team, to meet its objectives of ‘Ensuring we have the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with access to the right systems and tools’.
With a focus on operational support tasks, the role requires a good understanding of business administration and the importance of working in a fast-paced, high-volume contact centre operation.
This is a full-time, fixed-term opportunity to cover maternity leave, available until 31 December 2026, or until the post holder returns, whichever is earlier.
Key Responsibilities
Reporting to the Assistant Director, Strategy, Planning & Operations, the Senior Assistant will:
- Provide operational support by ensuring the effective maintenance of rotas, office desk plans, operational logs, and management systems, contributing to the smooth running of services.
- Maintain staff planning processes, ensuring alignment with organisational objectives and workforce requirements.
- Support recruitment and onboarding activities, contributing to an efficient and welcoming experience for new starters.
- Facilitate equipment setup and system permissions for new starters and leavers, ensuring seamless transitions within the team.
- Manage access control and permissions, ensuring appropriate levels of system and equipment access across the organisation.
- Oversee desk booking processes and ensure health & safety compliance for operational services, supporting a safe and effective work environment.
- Coordinate sub-unit communications, ensuring clear and consistent messaging across teams and stakeholders.
- Maintain and update intranet content, ensuring accessibility and relevance for staff.
- Be prepared to take on other duties as needed.
- Take care of your own health and safety.
- Support and promote equality and diversity principles.
About You
Essential:
- Organisational and Time Management – Ability to maintain multiple operational processes efficiently and ensure deadlines are met.
- Teamwork – Able to collaborate effectively and contribute positively in a team environment.
- Communication and Coordination – Strong written and verbal communication skills to liaise effectively across teams and ensure clear messaging.
- Attention to Detail – Accuracy in maintaining documents, systems, and logs to support operational functions.
- Problem-Solving and Initiative – Ability to identify challenges, propose solutions, and take proactive steps to improve processes.
- IT Proficiency – Experience with relevant software and systems for managing permissions, staff planning, and intranet content updates.
- Stakeholder Management – Skill in working collaboratively with various teams and supporting recruitment and onboarding activities.
- Health & Safety Awareness – Understanding of compliance requirements for estate coordination and workplace safety.
- Ensuring Compliance – Maintaining alignment with internal policies and external regulations, ensuring all operational processes adhere to best practices.
Support with your application
If you have any questions, or need support or adjustments relating to your application, the recruitment process, or the role, please contact us on 01908 541111 or email careers@open.ac.uk quoting the advert reference number.
What's in it for you?
At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance. Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).
Flexible working
We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.
It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where you can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to either our Milton Keynes, Manchester or Nottingham office, it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d expect this to be approximately once per month.
Next steps in the Recruitment process
Interviews are anticipated to take place w/c 12 January 2026.
Early closing date notification
We may close this job advert earlier than the published closing date where a satisfactory number of applications are received. We would therefore encourage early applications.
How to apply
To apply for this role, please submit the following as separate documents;
- CV
- Supporting statement, up to 1,000 words, you should set out in your statement why you’re interested in this role and provide examples of where your skills and experience meet the required competencies for this role as detailed in the job and person specification.
You can view your progress and application communications when you are logged into our recruitment system. Please check your spam/junk folders if you do not receive associated email updates.
