Operations Officer - Colchester, United Kingdom - Aguaconsult Ltd

Description

Remuneration:
Starting Salary £23,970 - £24,735 depending on experience

Benefits include 28 days leave (prorated for part time) and 8% employer pension contribution, potential to be included in annual profit-sharing scheme.

Start date:
Summer 2023


Closing date:9am 14th June 2023


About Aguaconsult:

Aguaconsult is a Wivenhoe-based consultancy with an international focus, specialising in the delivery of advisory services in the water and sanitation sector in developing countries.

We support governments, development partners (bi-laterals, multilaterals, and foundations), as well as NGOs and research institutes across the project cycle: from policy development, project design, implementation, and evaluation.

Our specialist focal areas include:

• Policy and regulatory frameworks
• Mobilising finance for water and sanitation
• Business development support for inclusive services
• Climate resilient services
• National and local systems strengthening
• Data knowledge and management

We provide a range of advisory services around the world with a geographic reach across Africa,
Latin America and Asia.

This new operations role will work closely with the Operations Manager and the Management team; however, as we are a small company the post holder can expect frequent communication with all members of the geographically dispersed staff and associate team.

The role consists of four broad areas as summarised below with examples of tasks (not exhaustive).

It is important to stress that the post calls for _flexibility, responsiveness, and the ability to collaborate_ and juggle multiple tasks at the same time, to a high standard, whilst responding to short-term call downs on your time.

Company operations

• Dealing with clients, suppliers, insurers, utilities and contractors.
• Researching flight itineraries and international security and covid protocols. Booking travel and completing travel risk assessments.
• Maintaining the office and troubleshooting issues
• Data protection and governance compliance
• Meeting and conference organisation
• Conducting research and compiling data (such as updating office systems)
• Design and updating of Word, PowerPoint and Excel templates.

Project administration

• Dedicated project admin and budget tracking for limited number of large projects.
• Preparation of contracts for subcontractors and checking overhead contracts.
• Sense checking, formatting, proof reading deliverables where possible and appropriate.
• Preparation of graphs and data for presentations.
• Support to preparation of tenders and bids, including maintaining acquisition materials, content research, proof reading, formatting, budgets, sense checking, preparation of templates etc.

Communication

• Periodic updates of website and other communications such as LinkedIn and twitter etc., both by preparing content for upload directly and coordinating others in the Company to prepare materials
• Supporting regular weekly team meetings to share information and encouraging collaboration across the team.

Finance

• Support to company accountant and company administrator at quarter year and year end.
• Creating, editing and updating budget spreadsheets
• Supporting clients, suppliers, and contractors accounts, and preparing invoices

Please note this is an operations role with the goal of supporting our technical staff. We need someone who is a natural logistician, with good excel skills who enjoys making projects run smoothly. [this role is not pathway to a technical content/ consultancy role]

You are a proactive and well organised problem-solver who will enjoy working within a motivated team to achieve a common goal.

You have an international outlook and will enjoy the job satisfaction of working in a smaller company with a collaborative approach where every person has a voice.

We value attitude to work and transferable skills as well as directly equivalent experience.

Essential

i. Outstanding verbal and written communication skills,

ii. Proficiency in Word, Excel and Microsoft O365 software,

iii. Ability to build and maintain client and professional team relationships,

iv. Ability to calmly manage competing priorities and manage a varied workload,

v. Excellent problem-solving skills, the ability to research and suggest solutions,

vi. Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail,

vii. Good interpersonal skills with an empathetic manner and ability to work successfully as part of a geographically dispersed team,

viii. Able to attend 1-3-day team meetings approximately twice a year. Previous years meetings have been in France/ Morocco/ Netherlands (residential) and Wivenhoe/ London (non-residential),

ix. The right to live and work in the UK, and able to work from the Wivenhoe office,

x. Desire to work in a company that is Employee-Owned and managed for the benefit of all its staff.

Desirable

xi. A desire to work in international development, especially to support Agua