Personal Assistant to Chief Operating Officer(Ref: 5286)

East Midlands (England), East of England, London (region), North East England, North West England, South East England, South West England, West Midlands (England), Yorkshire and the Humber

This position is based nationally

Do you have a passion for nature and the environment? Do you want to make a real difference and secure significant environmental gains in the present and the future? Do you enjoy working in a team? Can you see yourself advising communities and customers to maximise gains for the Natural Environment? 

If this appeals to you, a career at Natural England offers rewarding opportunities to secure environmental improvements and play your part in creating a better future for people and nature. 

The priority work Natural England is delivering includes:

• Establishing a Nature Recovery Network to help wildlife thrive;
• Monitoring environmental changes to identify and help reduce the effects of climate change;
• Working with farmers and landowners to develop greener food production methods;
• Advising on plans for new developments to maximise gains for nature, and
• Providing ways for people to better connect with nature, including green social prescribing.

We are the Government’s Adviser for the natural environment, playing a vital role in delivering the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, an ambitious vision which brings new opportunities to protect and enhance and to achieve real outcomes for the environment. 

Find out more about the work of Natural England at www.gov.uk/government/organisations/natural-england

Job description  

We are looking for a confident and efficient Personal Assistant to provide a first-class service to Natural England’s Chief Operating Officer, working with their senior adviser and helping them to operate effectively to deliver organisational objectives and targets that contribute to Natural England’s vision, mission and goals. 

Your primary purpose is to ensure that each working day for the Chief Operating Officer runs smoothly and seamlessly. You will provide comprehensive administrative secretarial services, including diary, email and action management, providing secretariat support to key meetings and taking action notes where required, arranging and booking travel and hotel accommodation, meeting room bookings and conference facilities, supporting stakeholder management, i-expense preparation, raising purchase orders, records management/electronic filing and collation and despatch of weekly packs. 

The Personal Assistant will need to build and sustain effective relationships with a range of internal and external customers. You will act as the main contact for customers so will need to be proactive and confident at making decisions. You will be key in helping to manage Natural England’s reputation. 

You need to be a team player with the ability to quickly develop good rapport with other Personal Assistants who support senior staff and people across the business. You will need to make a positive impact and be highly recognised for your leadership, skills, knowledge and expertise in this role.   

This role is incredibly varied, challenging and exciting – offering a fascinating insight into this area of the organisation.  

You will work directly with the Chief Operating Officer of Natural England and work closely with Chief of Staff, Principal and Senior Advisers and the Team Leader within the Private Office.  You will also build strong networks with other teams.  

You will need to embrace Office 0365 to enable smarter ways of working. 

Key Areas of work and Role Contribution 

• Develop an in-depth understanding and knowledge of the Chief Operating Officer’s key objectives, business priorities and direct reports along with Natural England’s governance structures and processes in order to provide advice and guidance to others.
• Proactive management of the Chief Operating Officer’s busy mailbox; prioritising, filtering and responding to requests on their behalf.
• Diary management and arranging meetings, 121’s or telecalls with internal and external customers with a high regard for excellent service.
• Arrange and book travel and hotel accommodation, desks, meeting rooms and conference facilities while demonstrating compliance with ‘Travel, Accommodation and Related Expenses Policy’ and ensuring ‘Health, Safety and Wellbeing’ practices are followed.
• Deal with any issues in the day-to-day role, exercising professional judgement in making recommendations or decisions and escalating issues accordingly.  
• Build and sustain effective relationships with a range of internal and external customers based on understanding customers’ needs and priorities, providing advice and guidance and efficient delivery of service in order to make a positive impact to achieve the best outcomes.
• Actively contribute to continuous improvement of processes, systems and standards in order to develop new ways of working or suitable solutions that will have a positive impact on work delivery. 
• Experienced Personal Assistants will be expected to mentor other newly appointed Personal Assistants, as part of your own and their development.

Benefits

Wherever possible Natural England accommodates requests for both full-time and part-time hours and other flexible working patterns to help employees achieve a good work/life balance and maintain their health and wellbeing.

Natural England provides excellent opportunities for career progression, training and development tailored to your role. From induction to ongoing learning and development, everyone in Natural England is supported to develop their skills and capabilities. Everyone has 10 days to devote to personal learning and development, as well as an additional 3 days to volunteer.

You will have access to Civil Service Pension and benefits arrangements and generous leave allowances (33 day per year pro rata), as well as flexible working, to help you achieve a work-life balance that works for you and us.

You will have access to a range of benefits including discounts on shopping vouchers, cycle to work scheme, and childcare vouchers. You can also join the Civil Service Sport club which offer discounts on a range of sports and leisure opportunities as well as social events.

Natural England is a fantastic place to work, where difference is celebrated.

We’re committed to fairness and equality for all, so you feel valued for who you are and what you do. Our shared values help us work together to benefit the communities we serve. Our thriving employee-led diversity networks support our inclusive culture and contribute to our Diversity Action Plan.

Locations

Natural England is adopting hybrid working – which means our staff work from a flexible range of locations, encompassing home, offices (ours and our partners) and relevant sites. All new staff will be formally linked to one of our 25 offices across England and the expectation is that all new staff will be able to access their local office to be part of the community of staff in their geographical area. Full time staff are expected to attend their associated office for a minimum of one day a week.

Staff members are required to carry out all their duties working in this way and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time. Travel expenses will be paid if work related travel is required but does not apply to travel between home and your associated office.

National team roles can be linked with any Natural England office while Area Team roles will be linked with an office in the relevant geographic area.

View a map of our office locations here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/natural-england-office-locations

Pay

It is Natural England policy to employ at the entry point of the salary range.

How to Apply

We welcome and encourage applications from all communities. Natural England is accredited to the Disability Confident Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum requirements for the role at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.

If you require a reasonable adjustment at interview, or there is anything else you would like the panel to take into consideration, you should notify us of this at application stage where possible, or well in advance of your interview.

This vacancy uses competency-based assessment. We’ll assess you against the competencies below during the selection process.

• Technical Skills and Knowledge
• Personal Effectiveness
• Putting People at the Heart of the Environment
• Work Delivery

When completing the application form you should present relevant examples using the STAR format. Give us an example of how you have demonstrated the competency (which can be work related or from another area of your life) and tell us about the Situation, the specific Task you had to undertake, the specific Actions you took, and the Result (both immediate and in a wider context) of your doing so.

Please note that STAR format is not required when answering the Technical Skills & Knowledge competency. 

Examples should be given in no more than 250 words for each competency.

Competencies

Competence 1  

Professional competency

Detail  

Technical Skills and Knowledge (STAR format not needed for this competency)

Description  

• Highly organised, well-motivated self-starter as you will be mainly working unsupervised, and the ability to prioritise workloads and adapt to changeable deadlines (Essential)
  • Excellent communicators in both written and verbal form & confident in engaging with senior leaders and customers over the phone and in person (Essential)
  • Able to maintain a high level of accuracy and apply very high levels of attention to detail (Essential)

Competence 2  

Professional competency

Detail  

Personal effectiveness

Description  

• Be ambitious, identify and adopt ways to make improvements in your team and the organisation and inspire others to act (Practitioner)
  • Act with integrity, addressing challenging issues and managing conflict through being open and objective (Practitioner)
  • Share expertise and knowledge with people and networks so that you can develop together (Basic)

Competence 3  

Professional competency

Detail  

Putting People at the Heart of the Environment

Description  

• Listen to and understand diverse partners and customers so that you achieve the best outcomes for them and the organisation you represent (Practitioner)
  • Nurture trusting partnerships and collaborate to achieve pragmatic outcomes that help deliver your organisation’s vision, mission and aims (Practitioner)

Competence 4  

Professional competency

Detail  

Work delivery

Description  

• Handle data responsibly, understand your role in good governance, and comply with delegations, policies and procedures (Practitioner)
  • Manage individual’s diary and emails thoroughly, proactively and effectively; anticipate needs and commission information from internal colleagues and external partners to ensure the individual efficiently discharges their duties (Practitioner)
  • Plan and deliver events and meetings, including organising all logistics, to meet the needs of the host through understanding the objective, whilst considering the cost-effectiveness and budgetary requirements (Practitioner)

 

Please refer to Job Description

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

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Job contact :

• Name : Nadia Macinnes
• Email : Nadia.macinnes@naturalengland.org.uk
• Telephone : 07826532454

Recruitment team

• Email : defra-recruitment-enquiries@gov.sscl.com