Position Details
Academic Services
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £35,880 to £45,163 with potential progression once in post to £47,874
Grade: 7
Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to December 2025
Closing date: 25th February 2025
This role is also open as an internal secondment opportunity which would need to be agreed by your current line manager.
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. Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University, and we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. 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.
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.
Role Summary
StARS (Student Administration Refresh and Simplification) is a University-wide programme to simplify, standardise and improve our student administration services, enabled by a replacement and upgrade of our student record system. Its vision is to deliver a better experience for students, academics and Professional Services staff; and enables a fundamental shift towards a more flexible set of capabilities and services that are fit for the future.
Reporting to the Change and Benefits Realisation Manager, the Business Change Officer will be responsible for supporting the successful delivery of the StARS transformation programme, contributing to risk, stakeholder and benefits management activities as part of the Business Change and Benefits Workstream.
The post holder is expected to develop close links with key stakeholders across the colleges and the wider university. This will help to ensure that the post holder is fully conversant with the institutional priorities and that the approaches used in the StARS transformation programme are consistent with those being developed more broadly across the University. The ideal candidate will possess exceptional interpersonal skills, be comfortable presenting to a wide range of audiences, and be able to produce high quality written communications for the range of stakeholders.
Main Duties
The Business Change Officer will take responsibility for:
Change and Benefits Management
* To assist in analysing existing practices across the stakeholder groups and interfacing areas, offer constructive feedback, identify opportunities for developing existing and new ways of working, and facilitate change through a strong understanding of culture and ability to influence others;
* To align business change activity with Programme and workstream activities to ensure change support is fully embedded and tailored to each release;
* Work closely with the Change and Benefits Realisation Manager, key stakeholder groups and nominated Change Agents/Super Users to understand and influence the direction and impact of the administrative processes across all phases of the student and academic staff life cycle in order to translate these into operational change management activities.
* Engage with change agents/super users and other business users to effectively capture, utilise and share insight and views that will contribute to ongoing change, risk and benefit management-related activities;
* Consider and include in delivery approaches and mitigation planning the cumulative impact on business areas of implementing the change (culture, structure, services and people), and escalate these trends/issues to the Change and Benefits Realisation Manager;
* To work closely with Subject Matter Experts, Project Managers, Business Analysts and key stakeholders to baseline benefits measurements and agree target states to be considered throughout each release design and development phase.
Change Management and Business Transition
* Support the Change and Benefits Realisation Manager to establish and manage an effective change network within the impacted business area(s), in order to ensure business change is understood, planned, communicated and managed effectively;
* Liaise with a wide range of staff in the key stakeholder groups and across the University to promote the StARS Programme;
* Support the Business Transition Manager with coordinating planned training activities within the impacted business area(s);
* Effectively communicate and continually manage programme expectations with programme team members and other stakeholders in Colleges and across the University in a timely and clear fashion.
Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience
Essential
* Educated to first degree standard or have substantial experience in a project management role with clear evidence of ability to fulfil requirements of the post.
The post holder must possess and be able to demonstrate:
* Previous experience of working within a Higher/Further Education environment and an aptitude for adopting best practice from Strategic Change and lessons learnt from other university initiatives;
* Significant experience/understanding of Registry and student administration within a HE environment, including exposure to key academic and student administration processes;
* A conceptual and analytical approach to problem-solving, using own initiative;
* The ability to plan and review complex procedures and processes;
* The ability to work independently, accurately and to deadlines within a team environment;
* The ability to interpret, analyse and present information and formulate clear proposals on the basis of the analysis, with an exceptional eye for detail;
* Exceptional communication skills;
* Excellent organisational skills with experience in administering multiple work-streams across a portfolio of activities;
* Highly competent in IT skills, have excellent literacy and numeracy and excellent spoken and written English;
* Excellent documentation and report writing skills, able to author documents to the high standard;
* Excellent interpersonal skills, including tact and diplomacy, and an ability to work at all levels of the organisation;
* A firm but diplomatic attitude with the ability to prioritise, negotiate and use one’s own judgement;
* Demonstrable experience of working with key stakeholders and effectively managing stakeholder relationships at all levels;
* Strong, proven ability to work proactively and to develop projects, initiatives and opportunities in line with the overall aims of simplifying college’s administration and the wider University;
* The ability to liaise and communicate project information to a range of stakeholders across Colleges to gain commitment to action or change, with a clear understanding and appreciation of the language and tone used, and ability to vary communication style to suit different audiences;
* A proven ability to be self-sufficient and work independently, recognise key challenges and exciting opportunities for developing the remit, identify solutions to problems and work on own initiative;
* Willing to undertake change management training in preparation for the role.
Desirable
* Experience of MS Project or similar project management tools;
* Experience of process mapping;
* Experience of facilitating workshops;
* Proven experience in the formulation, project management and successful delivery and evaluation of new initiatives and development of processes in a multi-stakeholder environment.
Informal enquiries
Informal enquiries to Mary Li, email: m.li@bham.ac.uk
View our staff values and behaviours here.
We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy.
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