Health & Safety Assistant - School of Biosciences - 100461 - Band 500

Position Details

School of Biosciences

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £25,506 to £27,399, with potential progression once in post to £31,718

Band 500

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 23rd October 2022

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

Background

This role will be part of the University of Birmingham and working for the College of Life and Environmental Sciences. This is a varied and dynamic College comprised of four distinct Schools; the School of Biosciences; School of Sport, Exercise, and Rehabilitation Sciences; the School of Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences; and the School of Psychology. Each School requires specific and general requirements for their H&S provision and provides both a challenging and energised working environment.

Role Summary

This role will be to primarily support the College H&S Manager in the day-to-day management of H&S issues from the College. To support on administrative duties, including advice, input on both College and University policies, and related tasks as required. They will also be expected on occasion to also act in place of the H&S Manager on meetings and drive initiatives in coordination with the H&S Manager, the Schools and the College senior teams.

Main Duties

The post holder will provide H&S Administrative support. The role will have specific and detailed duties as set out below but may also require flexibility to assist with other administrative or technical duties;

• Assist in supporting the statutory health, and safety legislation and sources of associated guidance and information applicable to statutory requirements, and both College and University policies.
• Assist with identifying, evaluating and controlling hazards relevant to the workplace. Support staff and students completing risk assessments. Consider how risks could be reduced.
• Assist and/or manage the investigation of accidents, incidents, dangerous occurrences, near misses and other incidents as directed.
• How to plan for Health & Safety emergencies - e.g. accidents, exposure to hazardous substances, and fire.
• Support the H&S Manager to prepare health and safety strategies and develop internal guidance in line with statutory requirements and University guidance.
• Support, and carry out regular site inspections for auditing purposes, to check against policy, and procedures are being properly implemented.
• Support, and at times complete, in-house H&S training with staff and students.
• Assist in maintaining records of inspection findings and produce reports that suggest improvements.
• Record incidents and accidents and produce statistics and reports.
• Support in preparing and maintaining records relating to safety, health and environmental matters that comply with legal and workplace requirements and are accessible to those who are authorised to use them.
• Assist with Fire Safety in the College including organising drills and maintaining records.
• Assist with the First Aid arrangements in the College including organising training.
• With the support of the H&S Manager advise on a range of specialist areas, e.g. Hazardous substances, biological risks, pregnancy, disabled access etc.
• Undertake any other task or tasks across the department as a whole that might reasonable be asked by senior staff in relation to the College Infrastructure and Facilities team.
• Recognise where decisions have a financial cost and assisting to develop a budget.
• Assist the management team in establishing, managing and maintaining relationships with external stakeholders such as local authorities, Health and Safety Executive, Environment Agency, Occupational Health and others as required and directed.
• They will regularly be required to record minutes for College H&S meetings and act as committee secretary.

Professional skills

• Good oral and written communication skills, ability to communicate effectively with staff at a variety of different levels and from different professional backgrounds, i.e. skilled in writing reports.
• Responsible for ensuring that administrative procedures are carried out efficiently and in a timely manner.
• The capability to operate efficiently in a busy multi-functional environment, prioritising workload to meet deadlines. Willing to work under pressure and calm in stressful situations.
• Discretion, self-motivation and flexibility.
• Good team working skills.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Experience in managing budgets.
• An interest in Health & Safety.
• Keen to continue their development and training.
• Assist the management team in the development, management, implementation and monitoring of the Health & Safety Management System by updating UoB systems.

Other Duties

• On occasion the post holder will be required to take minutes from H&S meetings.
• To monitor and manage a generic H&S inbox for general queries.
• To monitor and manage a Microsoft Teams page for supporting H&S policies, documentation, group information et al.

Person Specification

Required

• A minimum of 5 GCSE's including English, Maths and ideally Science.
• A high standard of written and oral communication and confidence dealing with projects at all levels.
• Good attention to detail and willingness to learn and be trained.
• Knowledge of and interest in the health and safety field.
• Good working knowledge of Microsoft IT packages, i.e. Excel and Word. You should also be confident and able to quickly learn new IT skills and software packages as required as in-house systems are used.

Desirable

• Educated to A level or equivalent.
• Knowledge of Health and Safety legislation, together with a recognised Health and Safety qualification such as IOSH Managing Safely certification or a NEBOSH Certificate-level qualification.
• Substantial experience of undertaking risk assessments.

Skills

• Excellent presentational skills.
• Excellent interpersonal skills. You will need to inspire confidence and command authority with a range of colleagues.
• A high degree of initiative, personal judgement, resourcefulness, flexibility, and a self-motivating approach.
• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Ability to identify and respond to equality and diversity issues in line with relevant policies and procedures.

Dimensions

This role will require the exercise of personal initiative within and beyond the department.

Planning and organising

The role is required to work independently on daily, weekly and monthly tasks but also on projects with medium-longer-term horizons, with a combination of both unsupervised, supervised and team work.

Problem solving and decision making

They will work with direction from management but with a significant degree of autonomy with the support of senior management. They will deal with more complex queries and be expected to resolve any problems in their area of responsibility.

Internal and external relationships

This role will be liaising with internal and external colleagues and stakeholders, likely to be University-wide.

Informal enquires to Andrew Lees, email: A.R.Lees@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

Valuing excellence, sustaining investment

We value diversity and inclusion at the University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community and are open to discussions around all forms of flexible working .