Job Title: Secretarial Co-ordinator Location: Bristol Reports To: Secretarial Manager Main Purpose of the Role: To ensure that the demands of Partners, fee-earners and others are met through the effective supervision of the group’s secretaries, and to provide Partners and fee-earners with effective and high-quality secretarial support that appropriately meets their requirements. Supporting the Secretarial Manager in enabling the successful implementation of the firm’s strategy for the secretarial team, promoting performance development, and acting as an advocate/role model to the secretarial population. This dual role would ideally be split, 60% current secretarial work, 40% secretarial co-ordinator tasks and duties. Candidates must possess excellent leadership and organisational skills, being positive, proactive, and robust. The candidate will also need to be someone who keeps calm under pressure, can prioritise work effectively, has strong problem-solving skills and has a flexible, ‘can do’ approach. Main Duties and Responsibilities: People Management and Development: Monitor and manage group absence, ensuring compliance with group rules and leave policy, ensuring maintenance of Team Seer for all absence. Monitor sickness issues and undertake informal return to work interviews after short term incidental sickness, escalating to the Secretarial Manager as required. To provide detailed performance review feedback on the secretarial team to the Secretarial Manager using the secretarial competencies as reference, providing informed input in preparation for the Performance Development Review meetings. To mediate and resolve any minor issues between Partners, fee-earners and secretaries and performance issues with secretaries, escalating to the Secretarial Manager as appropriate. Bring to the attention of the Secretarial Manager any performance issues in the secretarial team. Monitor learning and development needs of the team members and suggest actions to the Secretarial Manager. Assist the Secretarial Manager in the recruitment of new secretaries and TAs. Regularly liaise and work collaboratively with other Co-ordinators to build relationships and leverage support across all groups. Workflow and Capacity Management: Manage workflow of group and re-distribute work where capacity allows inside and outside the group. Delegate work to and develop Junior Secretarial support within the team. First point of contact in relation to work allocation, secretarial performance, team absences and day to day operational matters i.e. holidays, sickness and overtime cover. Work with the Group Heads on ad-hoc moves including bi-annual trainee moves and vacation students. Regularly review allocations and work with the Secretarial Manager to match and adjust secretaries with the right Partners and fee-earners depending on developing needs. Ensuring that the correct tasks and/or duties are undertaken by the correct person. Regularly review the groups processes and update when necessary. Promote the Document Management Centre (DMC) within your Groups. Group Administration and Pilot/Training on Firmwide initiatives: Undertake new hire orientation and familiarisation within group, including secretaries, Partners and fee-earners. Assistance to Group Head on time recording (InTapp) exception monitoring and reporting as required. Assist visitors with the allocation of office space and secretarial support when required, and act as the ‘knowledge bank’ and first point of call for group and international visitors. Manage and maintain group administration, e.g., IT systems (eg Filesite, BigHand plus individual group systems) Updating email distribution lists for new joiner and leavers and telephone lists, flowers for operations/babies etc. Organise and collate information for departmental and partner meetings and plan social events. Cascade information through to group from representation at forums, e.g., Secretarial EDG, Co-ordinators. Identify resources to pilot secretarial and firm initiatives, e.g., MOS Word Experts, MFD, e-marketing, etc. Schedule secretarial meetings and training sessions for secretarial teams. Maintaining contacts list for practice group(s) for the purposes of business continuity reporting. Conducting quarterly reviews/PDR meetings. Lead the recruitment of secretaries and team administrators at the first stage Coach and mentor secretaries in the group and wider team Take responsibility for any ad-hoc moves including bi-annual trainee moves and summer students. Deputise for the Secretarial Manager. Secretarial Diary and Contact Management: Pro-actively manage and maintain Partners'/fee-earners' diaries, making appointments and co-ordinating internal and external client meetings, research interviews etc. Ensure all work activities are scheduled effectively, including the identification and resolution of potential challenges and clashes. Arrange the booking of conference rooms, video conference facilities, cars, refreshments, restaurants, and liaising with meeting attendees, both internal and external. Monitoring and responding to post and/or emails, prioritising correspondence to enable fee-earners to focus on urgent matters and using initiative to route emails to the appropriate individuals for swift response and action; wherever possible, responding to and filing emails on behalf of fee-earners to reduce volume. Responding and dealing with external or internal telephone calls and queries in a professional manner and taking clear and concise messages for other members of practice group as required. Organising travel arrangements through the travel company, booking and confirmation of reservations, flights, hotels, car transfers, ordering currency and expense claims and producing detailed itineraries. Keeping up to date on the Covid Government Guidelines and providing all information for your groups in relation PCR tests when travelling for business. Preparation of Key Documents and Correspondence: Typing and drafting where appropriate letters, correspondence, presentations, reports and legal documentation; proofreading all work to ensure that completed documents are delivered accurately and to a consistently high standard. Preparation of agendas, presentations and meeting papers, including print production and timely distribution and chasing papers for meetings and ensuring that fee-earners have papers and adequate preparation time. Formatting of bids, pitches and capability statements for clients typically in Word or PowerPoint; inputting edits to client facing documents, sourcing fee-earner CVs for pitches and coordinating the update of the CVs for the pitch then submission to the BD contact by required deadline and/or submission of pitch documents where online submission is required. Presentations for client training, seminars and conferences; sourcing of fee-earner CVs and coordinating the update of the CV for the specific event, then submission to BD contact or event organiser ahead of required deadline and formatting PowerPoint presentations to meet firm guidelines. Maintenance of CVs; maintaining fee-earner CVs on CV Bank and the website to include entering content changes as directed by fee-earners, and proactively supporting the quarterly CV review by printing all versions of own fee-earners’ CVs from CV bank for review and mark-up, proactively asking fee-earners about adding new deals and cases to their CV upon completion of a matter. Administrative Tasks: Day-to-day administrative tasks such as photocopying, scanning and demonstrating the ability to delegate to appropriate department/s when necessary, e.g. for organising large volume printing, photocopying, document production. Organises document management, including closing of files, archiving and ensures that all relevant documents are filed electronically and paper-based, if required. Demonstrate an understanding of the end-to-end billing process and Elite (Financial system); assisting fee-earners by liaising with the billing team, producing the relevant documentation and prompting fee-earners to complete all necessary time recording. Dealing with and submission of travel invoices and expense claims, and maintenance/filing of copies. Organising and maintaining up to date systems to ensure effective document management, including closing of files, archiving and ensuring all relevant documents are filed electronically and paper based. Supporting fee-earners with InterAction updating; ensure new business contact details are entered and contacts from fee-earners Outlook address book are shared, updating changes of contact and entering activities when a M&BD activity is planned with a client or target by own fee-earner, proactively downloading and printing reports on contacts ahead of meetings and pitches with the contact. Supporting team in updating information on the SharePoint intranet or in managing and maintaining pages. Supporting fee-earner with the preparation of speaker CVs and formatting of speaker materials, RSVP management for events sponsored by own fee-earner by taking/responding to telephone and email enquiries from interested delegates, responding to fee-earner queries about attending delegates using InterAction reporting function, notifying own fee-earners about events that are coming up in their/other office when visiting using intranet events calendar and notifying the organiser if fee-earner wishes to attend. If a Super-user secretary, providing support to events by sending out invitations to events led by their NPG, and managing the RSVP process including regular reports circulated to partners speaking/running events. Key Relationships: Daily contact with Partners and fee-earners for work allocation. Daily contact with other secretaries within and across practice group/s to provide/request assistance. Regular contact with Team co-ordinator or Secretarial Manager for wider work distribution. Regular contact with all other BSD Groups ie. Facilities, Office Management, DMC, IT, Marketing and Business Development, Billing and Accounts Payable. Regular contact with Secretarial Manager for escalations or issues. Size and scope of the role: Responsible for providing seamless secretarial support service to the appropriate practice groups. Undertaking all Appraisal/PDR process for your secretarial teams. Key skills required: Able to build and maintain constructive relationships with people at all levels Able to support change and positively promote the firm’s business plan and strategy of the secretarial services management with secretaries, Partners and fee-earners. Able to take an active role in formulating solutions to problems, escalating to the Secretarial Manager where necessary Have a collaborative, team orientated approach and be a leader Have a proven ability to tackle problems by formulating solutions in conjunction with the Secretarial Manager. Have excellent communication skills Have an interest in learning management skills Client service orientated approach Self-management and excellent organisational skills, with the ability to prioritise work calmly and effectively in a pressurised environment Able to organise others and manage workloads Accountability and professionalism Business and organisation awareness Ability to develop self and others Attention to detail and discretion with confidential information Good working knowledge of Microsoft applications Good working knowledge of document and client relationship management systems, Nuance/PDF software and financial recording applications Able to work effectively as part of a diverse and inclusive team Able to deal with difficult conversations. Education/Qualifications/Experience: At least 7 years’ experience working as a secretary within a professional services environment. Other requirements: Flexibility with working hours as required and willingness to work extra and on occasion unsociable hours when required. Firm Introduction: Simmons & Simmons is a leading international law firm, providing clients with commercially aware legal advice, whenever and wherever they need it. We have over 1,500 staff in 22 locations situated in key business and financial centres across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. We understand that our firm is equal only to the strengths of our people and place great emphasis on recruiting and retaining staff who meet our high standards. Our philosophy for international growth has been to build practices around local teams who understand the culture, business and languages of the countries and regions in which we operate. In doing so, we believe that we have succeeded in developing a closely knit and cohesive network that meets local business needs as part of a global service. Our business services groups provide integrated support for our global operations. The firm is organised in line with our clients’ requirements into key practice areas and sector groups. Our sector focus allows us to better appreciate the environment in which our clients operate and to work with them to achieve their objectives. Our client base includes leading financial institutions and a significant number of the current FTSE 100 and Fortune Global 500 companies. Our strategy is founded on excellent client service and a focus on our key industry sectors (asset management & investment funds, energy & infrastructure, financial institutions, life sciences and technology, media & telecommunications). The core practice areas, from which we draw our sector teams, are corporate, dispute resolution, employment, pensions & employee benefits, EU, competition & regulatory, financial markets, information, communications & technology, intellectual property, projects, real estate, and tax. For additional information on the firm, please visit our website at simmons-simmons.com. Equal Opportunities: Simmons & Simmons is committed both to promoting equality and diversity in the firm and to Equal Opportunities in employment. The firm believes in equality of opportunity regardless of race or racial group (including colour, nationality, ethnicity, national origins), religion or belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender re-assignment and gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy, maternity and paternity. This also includes any incidents of perceptive or associative discrimination and harassment. At Simmons & Simmons we seek to attract and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, to create an exciting and rewarding place to work. The firm is supportive of flexible working arrangements wherever possible. Our aim is to fulfil everyone's potential and together to achieve personal and business goals.