Part Time Receptionist

Closing date: 4pm, Friday 05 September 2008
Interview date: 16 September 2008

Introduction
Role profile
Background
How to apply
Apply now

Introduction

Starting salary up to £20,094 (pro rata) - 21.25 hours - London

We are looking for a part time Receptionist to represent Friends of the Earth as the first point of contact into the organisation, to operate the switchboard and manage the Reception area at our London office.

Supplementary information:

The Reception and switchboard are open from 9am - 5pm, Monday - Friday.

This role will be covering Reception from 9am - 1:15 pm. This role does not fall into the flexi time scheme and operates under core hours.

Experience of operating a busy switchboard and working at the front of house are essential for this role. You will have excellent communication skills and enjoy working independently as well as in a team. We are looking for someone who is highly organised, has interest in environmental issues and is able to cope well under pressure.

You will be the first point of contact for visitors and callers to Friends of the Earth, offering them a warm and professional welcome. Providing administrative support for the friendly Supporter Information Team will also form part of this role.

Role profile

Role: Part Time Receptionist	Home team : Supporter Information Team
Purpose of role: To represent Friends of the Earth as the first point of contact into the organisation and to operate the switchboard, manage the Reception area	Reports to: Supporter Care Manager
Required to perform a combination of the following, depending on team/unit and experience: Deliver outcomes: Provision of Reception support service to our staff, volunteers and visitors. Operation of a multi-line switchboard in line with Information Service Team's standards of service. Maintenance of the Reception area's tidy and professional appearance Develop others: Train other staff in how to provide a reception service. Build relationships: Communicate effectively with staff, volunteers and visitors and to work flexibly within a small team. Establish and maintain effective working relationships with staff, volunteers & visitors and the general public. Ideas and solutions: Willingly adapt to working different ways using new work methods developed by others	Expertise: Needs to have: At least one year's reception work experience. Evidence of having operated a switchboard. Excellent customer care skills Experience of using diplomacy and assertiveness skills Evidence of having dealt comfortably with staff at all levels. Proficient word processing skills, familiarity with the use of e-mail and internet, database skills and an ability to develop skills with in-house training. Accuracy and attention to detail. Focus of expertise: Use organisational and administrative skills to provide a reception service Excellent customer care skills Evidence of having contributed to building safety and security. Focus of development: Developing organisational knowledge to assist in the provision of an efficient Reception/switchboard service. Developing skills in the supporter contacts database.
Career stage: Core	Levels: 1 - 3, reference at 2
Other essential requirements for the role-holder: The Receptionist will be a key holder for the London office. The Reception and switchboard is open from 9 - 5 Monday - Friday. Reception and switchboard cover during these periods is essential. This is currently in two shift patterns, one of 21 hours 15 minutes and one of 20 hours per week: Shift 1 = 9am - 1.15pm Shift 2 = 1pm - 5pm Role specific requirements:

Background information

Salary
The starting salary for this role if based in London is up to £20,094 a year (pro rata). The top of the salary range for this role is £21,540 a year (pro rata). If you are employed to work less than a full time 35 hour week your pay will be based on the number of hours you work as a percentage of full time.

Friends of the Earth operates a competence based career stages pay structure in which pay is attached to defined competence levels. We appoint you at a level in this structure that you have demonstrated during the recruitment process that you already fully meet. After you join, you can progress your pay by demonstrating increased competence at annual appraisal against the criteria for the career stages associated with their role profile.

Pension / Life Assurance
You can join our group personal pension scheme after three months service. You can choose from a range of socially responsible funds. We will match your contributions up to a maximum of six per cent of salary but you may contribute more if you want to build your pension up.

Friends of the Earth also provides life assurance for all employees, to pay out 4 x your annual salary in the event of your death while you are employed by us.

Place of work
You will be based at our Head Office in Old Street.

Hours of work
21.25 hours per week. Friends of the Earth operates a flexi time scheme with normal core office
hours of between 10.00-12.30 and 14.30-16.30, within a working time bandwidth of 07.00-20.00.
You are entitled to an unpaid lunch break of between 30 minutes and two hours.

If you need to work evenings and/or weekends, you should record it through the time recording system.

Holiday
The holiday year at Friends of the Earth runs from 1 January to 31 December each year. Holiday entitlement is initially 25 days paid holiday per year. You can accrue an extra day’s holiday entitlement, up to a maximum of 30 days, for every full year of continuous employment at the beginning of the holiday year (1 January). You are also entitled to paid time off for public holidays. There are some exceptions to this such as when you are on maternity / adoption leave or long term leave of absence.

Diversity and equal opportunities
We give all applications fair consideration. We have a Diversity Forum to drive us forward to being a more diverse organisation in all we do.

We regret that Friends of the Earth does not yet have full wheel chair access.

Working culture
Everything we do, from the day to day operational work to strategic planning, is done with a commitment to participation.

It works for us. We want you to feel involved in all that we do: able to contribute to decision making in ways that make sense and work for you. You can choose not to participate but if you don’t you still have to accept decisions that we take in this way.

It’s an opportunity and a responsibility. We all

accept responsibility with authority and accountability for their actions
act as leaders and visionaries
participate and contribute in an appropriate way at the appropriate times
actively follow through on decisions made through agreed processes, even if they do not agree with the outcome
are willing to be swayed by others
exert self-discipline
praise and challenge themselves and others, rather than waiting for feedback from on high
exhibit respect for others in the organisation
are transparent in the way they do things
show trust and confidence in each other
respect expertise
celebrate success and talk up their organisation internally as well as externally
provide constructive feedback
recognise the importance of communication and sharing information across teams

Loans
We offer interest free loans to all staff for the following:
Season ticket - up to £5,000
Bicycle - up to £5,000 to buy a pedal bicycle for travel to and from work
Personal Development - up to £2,000 to pay for courses, qualifications etc that we do not directly fund
Total of all loans cannot exceed £5,000, the current taxable limit.

Childcare vouchers
You can sacrifice some of your gross salary to buy vouchers for childcare. This can be worth doing as you don’t have to pay tax or National Insurance contributions on the value of the vouchers.

Removal expenses
If you have to move home to be able to take up employment with Friends of the Earth you can claim up to £3000 removal expenses, payable on submission of receipts. For further information and to find out if you qualify contact Human Resources.

Discount card
You can get a card which allows you discounts at local leisure centres.

Online Shop
Our online Shop stocks an extensive range of reading materials on environmental issues from the political to the practical. Staff and volunteers are entitled to 20% off ALL titles sold in the Shop. Log onto www.foe.co.uk/shop

Flexible Working
We consider applications for flexible working arrangements from staff with at least six months service. This can be:

Reduced hours: where we agree that you can work fewer contractual hours than in your current role.
Job Sharing: where we agree that two people can share the same role.
Changing Office Location: where we agree that you can work from a different Friends of the Earth office.

Background information
Friends of the Earth is making life better for people by inspiring solutions to environmental problems.

We are:

the UK's most influential national environmental campaigning organisation
the most extensive environmental network in the world, with almost one million supporters across five continents and over 70 national organisations worldwide
a unique network of campaigning local groups, working in over 200 communities throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland
dependent on individuals for over 90 % of its income.

Organisational structure
We employ about 170 paid staff, based mainly in our London Head Office. We also have a Supporter Care unit in Luton and smaller regional offices in major cities across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Volunteers play a vital role in our success as an organisation and we currently have around 75 volunteers working in our national and regional offices.

We are led by an Organisational Management Team (OMT) of our Executive Director and other staff who bring the necessary strategic and operational expertise to ensure we achieve our Strategic Plan. We do this through activities and programmes of work, mostly in cross-functional teams. Members of the OMT have individual responsibilities to ensure the delivery of specific activities and collective responsibilities for ensuring the delivery of the whole plan.

All staff member are part of a ‘home team’, led by a team leader who provides professional support and development, coaching and other line management functions.

What we are going to achieve
We are now on an exciting journey to plan the direction we will take into the next decade.

Our current Strategic Plan is broken down into the following aims:

Strategic Aims:

Work with others to develop a sustainable economics agenda so that by 2008 there is as a credible alternative, based on justice and environmental limits, to the prevailing corporate globalisation model – both in the UK and internationally.
Promote environmental justice so that it moves to the centre of official, corporate and voluntary sector discussions and decisions and public understanding about environmental issues.
Ensure that key environmental limits (for example in respect of resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and conservation of biodiversity) are reflected in policy and law at all levels.
Implement the findings of the ‘Shaping our Future’ review to ensure that the quantity and effectiveness of grassroots actions inspired by Friends of the Earth’s continuously improves.
Achieve official commitment to at least two transformational and positive environmental solutions.
Consistently communicate Friends of the Earth as the organisation striving for environmental justice that works through global to local people power, across all our external communications and in so doing achieve a significant increase in awareness, understanding and active participation from our priority public audiences.

Resourcing Aims:

Establish and maintain a working culture, skills, expertise and office environment that reflects our values and improves our ability to deliver the Strategic Aims.
Grow income so that we have sufficient financial resources to meet the needs of the organisation and its ability to deliver the strategic plan.
Build the capacity of Friends of the Earth’s networks so that they can campaign effectively – locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Establish and maintain a Friends of the Earth regional presence that influences regional and devolved government, co-ordinates and implements regional campaigns, and supports both Local Groups and other campaign activists.
Develop and implement effective information systems and practices so as to implement our Strategic Aims and Objective

How to apply

We want staff to share this vision and join in our success. We aim to recruit the best person for any vacancy. We communicate our vacancies widely and openly and are committed to giving all applicants fair consideration.

We use the information you give us in your application form to decide whether to invite you to interview. We want you to do the best application you can. Here's some guidance to help you.

First

Role profile first. This sets out what we are looking for under specific headings which we call the competencies of this role. You need to relate your experience to these same headings which appear on the application form.
Introduction (and supplementary information). This tells you about the work you will be doing if you are successful.
Background – the terms and conditions of this role and some of the benefits of working here

Applying

The headings in the application form match those in the role profile. Think about how well your knowledge, skills and abilities fit what we are looking for in the role profile and supplementary information. Don't just tell us that you have the skills listed in the role profile or say that you believe you can do the job. Under each of the headings please give us real examples of what you did, when and how you did it and what part you personally played.

Check you are free to come on the planned interview date. If not, please tell us on your application why you can't come and tell us when you are free to come.

Keep a copy of your application form before you submit it online or post it to us.

We send an automated email in response to online applications but can't acknowledge posted forms.

We encourage online applications but you can also download a copy of the application form as a PDF and post it to us.

Shortlisting

At least two people assess how closely your application matches what we are looking for and decide the interview shortlist. We contact shortlisted candidates by phone and ask them to come to interview.

Interviews

If we invite you for an interview we will ask you in more detail about what you have done so you might want to remind yourself what you wrote in your application and be able to talk to the interview panel about it. We often ask candidates to do a job-related exercise to help us assess their competence in particular areas; some are given unseen on the day of the interview, others you will be told about in advance of the interview so you can prepare. When we ask you to interview we will tell you if you will have to do an exercise. If we haven't contacted you by the interview date your application has not been successful.

Feedback

If we interview you, we will let you know the outcome and are happy to give feedback if you would like this. Many of our vacancies are very popular and unfortunately we don't have the resources to be able to offer feedback to you if you were not shortlisted.

Work History Please list below your working history starting with your current or most recent job and work backwards. Say where you have worked, start and end dates, your job title and if this was paid or voluntary work. If there are any significant gaps please explain these. You do not need to tell us in this section about your skills as you can do that later.
Employer	Start	End	Job title	Employee/Volunteer/Note