Position Details

Academic Services

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £25,866 to £27,518, with potential progression once in post to £30,820

Grade 4

Full Time, Fixed Term Contract (18 Months)

Closing date: 30th November 2023

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. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. 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. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

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.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Role Summary

The LRAT Service Desk is a vital part of LRAT’s commitment to our uniquely tight 10 minute response SLA, but is very small having just 2 staff. The Service Desk typically resolves 40% of problems and faults reported, without recourse to technical team response.. The 2 agents also check rooms, validate fix reports, and produce and keep current guidance in both paper and electronic forms.

Main Duties

Service Desk

• Providing first line AV and IT support to staff and other room and AV users, via all of the Service Desk’s supported contact methods (currently primarily by phone, with some email). Analysts are expected to resolve 40% of calls on the first line, within LRAT’s uniquely tight 10-minute response Service Level Agreement (SLA).
• Liaise with the University’s Estates Maintenance Office to ensure that all reported faults are dealt with in a timely manner. This task includes checking the validity of problem resolution messages.
• Produce and keep current documentation and information for room users, both in electronic and traditional formats.
• Participating in major incident management and major problem management in line with ITIL methodologies.
• Use remote control tools – including GoTo LogMeIn and Extron Global Viewer Enterprise – to resolve faults.
• Periodically check rooms for faults and status, making recommendations for room upgrades.
• Administer the University’s Zoom service, including dealing complex licensing requests.
• You may develop specialist knowledge in one area within the team. This will allow ensure all job-related knowledge is documented and available to all colleagues.
• You will write articles for the Service Desk Knowledge Base and LRAT’s Sharepoint site.

General

• You will be responsible for ordering tasks within your workload, and can refer to your line manager if required. You will co-ordinate with other team members to meet overall LRAT priorities.
• Proactively liaising with members of other technical teams to aid in the timely resolution of AV, IT, Furnishing and Building faults, ensuring resolution details are recorded for future reference.
• Troubleshooting problems, assessing them and identifying solutions. You will refer more complex problems to more senior team members for in-depth specialist advice when necessary.
• You will use your knowledge to deal with the main areas of remote assistance software.
• Undertaking such other duties as may be required from time to time in furtherance of the work of Academic Services.
• Supporting equality and values diversity, moderates own behaviour to avoid unfair discriminatory impact or bias on others.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

• 5 GCSEs at grade C/4 or above, including Mathematics and English (or equivalent level 2 vocational qualifications including demonstrable examples of the required level of literacy and numeracy)
• Although AV sector experience would be an advantage, a willingness to learn new technology and its implementation within the educational sector is vital.
• Persuasive and engaging communication skills
• Excellence in self-motivation and setting defensible priorities.
• Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day to day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.

Dimensions

You will have no direct financial or staff management responsibility. The role is focused on the delivery of a quality 1st line service to customers, working collaboratively with colleagues.

Planning and organising

You will be working in response to more complex customer enquiries and you will need to prioritise your own workload in order to deliver on schedule and at quality.

Problem solving and decision making

You will use your knowledge and expertise to analyse problems and identify and deploy solutions. For more complex issues you will refer then on to more experienced team members or specialist teams. You will be able to proactively suggest improvements.

Internal and external relationships

You will liaise with a wide range of staff and students, and colleagues in the wider AV team in order to ensure the delivery of a quality service.

Informal enquiries to Gareth Rainford email: g.d.rainford@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. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website .