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Job Role: Administrative Assistant
Jo, aged 21, is based at County Hall, Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Jo works as an Administrative Assistant for the Humber Education Business Link Organisation within the East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC). The Council provides a range of public services for people living within the East Riding Local Authority area. The Education Business Partnership (EBP) which is included within the Children, Family & Adult Services Directorate of ERYC encourages and supports links between education and business and works alongside other local networks such as the East Riding Learning Partnership. EBPemploys 22 people. The East Riding of Yorkshire Council employs 13,205 people in total.
The Humber EBP works across the Humber area supporting schools and businesses in 3 other local authority areas, Kingston upon Hull, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire as well as the East Riding.
Jo’s work in the East Riding supports 18 secondary schools plus 137 primaries (including infant and junior schools).
Customers are mainly teachers and local businesses.
Jo’s role as Administrative Assistant is to provide clerical and administrative support to EBP within the East Riding. Her day to day tasks include answering the telephone, using email, faxing, photocopying, booking meeting rooms, helping to organise events, making travel arrangements, ordering supplies and finance. She also provides administrative support to the East Riding EBP Area Manager and the two Primary Development Officers, who are also based at County Hall, and co-ordinates the weekly activities of all EBP staff across the Humber area to produce a weekly diary to aid good communications.
Jo reports to the ER EBP Area Manager.
Jo particularly enjoys being involved in setting up and supporting events. She says "It is good to be able to attend events and activities that I have had involvement in setting up, as this means I have the opportunity to see an activity right through from beginning to end”. Jo confirms that the job provides many challenges which she has to stretch to meet, such as meeting and working with a wide variety of people from different organisations; she feels this is a good thing as it has helped her to develop and grow within her role. There are routine elements to the job, but plenty of different activities/requirements that bring variety and keep the work interesting.
Jo is mainly office based, though she does go out to support EBP events as and when necessary. Jo can drive and has her own car so she is able to work very flexibly.
Jo explains "I have to be able to work on my own and get on with the job as the Area Manager is not always in the office, but I am part of the wider EBP team and my work is important in supporting the full team’s activities.”
Jo’s working hours are 8.30 am to 5.00 pm.
Jo lives in Beverley and attended Beverley High School. After Year 11 she joined the school’s 6th form as she was not sure about what she wanted to do next though she knew she did not want to go on to university (even though a number of her friends were taking this route). She had not been able to identify a particular job or work area that she wanted to aim for. Jo studied English Language, Business Studies and Psychology to A2 level and Art to AS level whilst in the 6th form. She explains that she felt "in limbo” during this time as she considered what to do once she had completed her studies.
A part-time job at a local bakery provided some work experience and once she had finished 6th form studies Jo realized she needed to make some kind of decision about full-time work and her longer term future. Jo spent time researching different occupations (using the Internet and the Connexions service) and began to feel that using IT and working with people were important to her which seemed to point to administrative work. ERYC seemed a good organization to concentrate her search for a job on as it is a big employer and, because she lives in Beverley, she knew getting to work would be easy.
Jo discovered she could work for the Council as a NVQ trainee in Business & Administration, which meant she would receive on the job training and a training allowance. Through ER Training Services Jo was offered an interview with the Humber EBP who required a trainee and was successful in gaining the position. Jo was in the trainee post for 5 months before successfully securing the Administrative Assistant post that she now holds. This allowed her to continue to study for her NVQ Level 2 - and she has then gone on to gain her NVQ level 3.
Jo is not quite sure at this stage what will come next but is keen to develop further into other areas of work.
