Job Description
Usual Working Hours: Usual office hours are Monday to Friday 0900 – 1730 but, flexi-working is encouraged, also see below for 4 day week.
Contract: Permanent – Full Time (starting Sept 2023, or as soon after as possible). Monday to Friday initial 5 day week (38 hours), moving to 4 day week (80% hours, 100% pay) after 6 month probationary period. Exact hours of work can be flexible for the right candidate, especially once on 4 day week (e.g. 4 full days, or 5 days with shorter hours).
Reporting to: Operations Manager
Location: Central Exeter
Benefits:
- Salary: £23,000 - £26,000 per annum, depending on experience.
- Pension: We contribute to staff pensions in line with our obligations under the workplace pension scheme.
- We are a certified 4 day week employer. After an initial 5 day week probationary period, you will move to a 4 day week (80% hours) on full (100%) pay. For more information on our 4 day week, see https://www.thestc.co.uk/blog/4-is-the-magic-number
- Holiday: 5 weeks holiday (plus bank holidays) (this equates to 20 days holiday once on 4 day week).
- Worldwide Travel Insurance (annual policy)
- Company performance bonus scheme
- Annual CPD Budget
- Outdoor Kit discounts
- Working in the wonderful city of Exeter
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About the role / company
This is an exciting opportunity to join a small, dynamic and highly specialist adventure travel company. STC Expeditions specialised in school expeditions and educational adventures. We are a leader in the field of responsible tourism and ethical travel and take great pride in designing and delivering inspiring, challenging and carefully crafted travel experiences that push boundaries. Our aim is to open our clients’ eyes to the amazing world around us, educating and inspiring them to be changemakers.
We are looking for a superstar Operations Assistant to join our busy team.
Working closely with the Operations Manager, you will be responsible for preparing and producing detailed documentation relating to our trips, ensuring the company and our clients have the correct information and that all pre-travel checks have been completed in a timely manner.
This is a critical administrative role and the successful candidate will need excellent organisational skills, an ability to work methodically on operational critical data and to have a hawk-like eye for spotting errors. if you can spot an out of date passport at a distance of 1000 yards, or have an in-built radar to detect flight schedule changes on an email, then we want to speak to you. An ability to work accurately under pressure is paramount. So too is an empathetic and tactful telephone manner as the role involves talking to teachers, school senior management, parents and occasionally young people.
An interest and passion for travel and adventure is essential. Some of our trips take two years to plan, so the role will particularly appeal to those who enjoy working on long term projects. We are a small team, but work in a lively, open plan office, with lots going on.
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Main Tasks and skill requirements
Operations/Customer support and administration
- Provide on-going support and assistance to clients and the operations team throughout the build up to trip departures. This involves providing high levels of customer service, always going the extra mile and working in a busy team environment.
- Produce correspondence, emails, letters and trip information to a high standard of accuracy, sometimes under significant time pressured.
- Proof reading of itineraries and other documents.
- Liaise with medical consultant, schools and parents with regard to confidential medical conditions and individual management plans.
- Support the Operations Manager in planning for specific medical conditions.
- Checking of passport details and other personal information and ensuring all tasks and issues are followed up diligently.
- Preparing final travel packs, medical kits, emergency response plans and flight tickets.
- Create tailored trip documentation from existing templates using our bespoke database
- To act as brand ambassador for STC Expeditions, positively promoting our core USPs and company ethos.
- Undertake all other tasks as may reasonably be required in order to meet the varying demands of the Company.
Additional roles:
In addition to your main role, and for the right candidate, there is the possibility to get involved in other aspects of the business, including:
- Health & Safety, risk assessments and crisis management
- Marketing, blog writing and website management
- Biscuit/cake demolition (tea/coffee optional, but encouraged)
- Operations duty rota, when clients are abroad. We employee the services of Pharos Response to manage the front line of our crisis handling, but a duty rota of operations staff is still required to manage minor incidents and operational issues. Whilst unlikely to be called upon, this will involve being on call 24 hours a day, so will involve unsociable hours, evenings and weekends. Appropriate training in crisis response will be given.
- Delivering pre-travel training to teachers and students, covering topics such as destination research, fundraising, travel health, kit and packing and ethical travel considerations.
- Overseas visits to operations teams around the world, itinerary development, risk assessments, leader training, volunteer project development and management.
What skills are we looking for from you?
- Advanced knowledge of MS Office (primarily Word, Excel and Outlook and to a lesser degree, PowerPoint, MS Access and Publisher)
- A high degree of accuracy, attention to detail and a methodical approach to work.
- Confident and friendly telephone manner
- High level of tact and discretion
- Team player
- Persistence and drive to reach objectives, as well as resilience and the ability to work autonomously are key skills for this job.
- Excellent written and spoken English is essential.
- Effective time management and ability to work accurately under pressure.
- A patient and empathetic attitude, with the ability to build long term relationships with clients and external organisations.
- Comfortable in dealing with people at all levels.
- Problem solving skills and the ability to think ‘outside of the box’.
- The confidence to question systems, consistently look for ways to improve procedures and products and to make the most of opportunities.
- Commitment to the job and to the ethos and goals of the company.
Training and CPD:
Training on in-house procedures, systems, software packages, and job specific tasks will be given. Occasional external training courses may also be required, for which the company would pay. All staff receive an annual CPD budget which can be used on a wide range of work related and personal development skills.
The job will involve telephone and email contact with:
Schools, Teachers, Parents, Students, our independent Medical Advisor and overseas tour operators.
Equal opportunities for all
The Specialist Travel Consultancy (trading as STC Expeditions) is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at STC Expeditions are based on business needs, job requirements and individual merit, without regard to disability, age, ethnic or national origin, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, family or parental status. We will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics and encourage applicants of all ages.
Job Types: Full-time, Permanent
Salary: £23,000.00-£26,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Additional leave
- Casual dress
- Company pension
- Flexitime
- Store discount
Schedule:
- Flexitime
- Monday to Friday
- No weekends
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Exeter, EX1 1BH: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Work Location: In person
Application deadline: 01/09/2023
Reference ID: Travel Operations Assistant
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