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Job Role: Administrative Officer
Teri, who is 20, works for Hull Citybuild, based in the centre of Kingston upon Hull. Citybuild is an Urban Regeneration Company created by its partners (Yorkshire Forward, English Partnerships and Hull City Council) in 2002, to create and deliver a strategy to regenerate the City Centre and West Hull.
Initially 11 people were employed, but this has now grown to between 30 and 40 employees. Teri explains that the organisation's customers are the companies that they work with such as Nuttals (who are carrying out much of the new construction work in the city centre) and the partner organisations who make up Citybuild.
Teri joined Citybuild in 2003 as an Administration Officer. Her work involves providing a range of administration support services, mainly to the Executive and Development Teams, but providing support to other areas when time permits. Teri is one of two Administration Officers and she and her colleague share some tasks e.g. reception duties; Teri covers the morning and her colleague the afternoon. General tasks include dealing with the post, receiving telephone calls and dealing with emails, taking dictation and then word processing letters, raising purchase orders and invoices, being responsible for the petty cash, filing and photocopying.
Additional tasks include helping to organise internal and external events, for example Teri attended an event at Prince's Quay in September 2005, 'Regen Expo' which aimed to raise the public's awareness of projects going on within the city centre. Teri also keeps the diary of the Economic Development Director of Citybuild and provides support to the IT Manager when required.
Teri reports to the PA Office Manager and is herself responsible for temporary receptionists when they are required to provide holiday cover.
Teri explains "I like the variety the job brings, every day is different. A very important part of the job is meeting and greeting people and this is something I really enjoy; I have the opportunity to meet a wide variety of contacts in the course of my work".
She also enjoys the challenge of undertaking new IT tasks such as creating new documents, spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations.
Teri is mainly office based, though there are times when she is required to support outside events. Her working hours are 8.30 am - 4.30 pm and her Administration officer colleague works 9 am-5 pm. The two have agreed to 'dovetail' their hours so that there is always cover on reception from 8.30 am-5pm.
Teri confirms that an important part of the Administration Officer role is in supporting the Citybuild team and she enjoys being part of that team. However she is able to work on her own and enjoys new challenges and using her initiative.
Teri lives in west Hull and drives her own car so getting to work is reasonably easy. Her 8.30 am start means she misses most of the rush hour traffic so her journey takes about 20 minutes. There is safe car parking very close to the Citybuild office which is free for employees. Teri feels the cost of running her car is worthwhile in that it means she can be independent in her travel to and from work and in her social life.
After leaving school Teri joined Wyke Sixth Form College in Hull to do A-Level Psychology, Sociology, English Language and Law. After her first law class she decided that it wasn't for her so she changed to English Language.
After college she took a Modern Apprenticeship (NVQ Level 2, Business and Admin) which meant she received a 6 week block of work based training via a training provider before taking up a placement. Teri was sent for an interview with Citybuild and was then offered the position she now has.
She has continued her work based training at Citybuild, achieving NVQ Level 3 in Business Admin. She has also undertaken courses in her own time at Hull College (RSA Audio Typing and Word Processing, Levels 2 and 3), plus a course in web design, whilst Citybuild have provided some in-house training on use of their own database system and website.
Teri envisages her work for Citybuild continuing for the foreseeable future, but would like to build on and extend her work experiences so that when an opportunity comes along, she is in a good position to progress.
