Animal and Plant Health Agency
Administrative Officer – Customer Contact
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Stafford
Job Summary
Are you seeking a role that allows you to apply your strong communication and problem-solving skills?
A role that offers both variety and flexibility?
If you possess excellent communication abilities and thrive in dynamic, fast-paced environments, relishing the challenge of working within tight deadlines, we invite you to reach out to us!
Your unique skills and enthusiasm are exactly what we're looking for!
Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) are committed to fostering a workplace culture where all individuals are valued, heard, and encouraged to be their authentic selves.
We recognise the importance of diversity, not only as a moral imperative but also as a driver of innovation and sound decision-making.
By embracing and celebrating differences, we create an environment where everyone can thrive, leading to greater creativity and effectiveness in our work.
We have an Administration Officer role in our busy customer contact team. This is a demanding role requiring excellent customer service skills, confidence on the telephone and the ability to multi skill and change tasks throughout the day.
This role will provide significant opportunities to develop your own skills and future career.
(Refer to Candidate Pack attached for further details)
We maintain an expectation of 60% office attendance in your base location, Stafford, over a rolling 4 week period.
Job Description
You will be working in a friendly and supportive team in a fast paced, reactive and varied role. You will need to have good IT and organisation skills and the flexibility to turn your hand to different tasks as the situation demands. The position is customer facing and will suit those who have an ability to communicate well to a diverse group of customers. You will be engaging with a broad range of partners and forming relationships with colleagues across the wider Defra team.
You will be taking inbound calls from customers and assisting them with their many and varied queries. You will use systems to process the calls, deal with the query and update customer information. In addition you will make outbound calls to customers in order to seek or clarify information. Your role is to resolve queries wherever possible with a “once and done” approach.
Confidence in speaking to customers on the telephone and via email is an essential requirement for the role as you will be responsible for answering emails within agreed timeframes and resolving stakeholder queries and questions.
Job holders will be expected to provide support to our customers in a wide variety of ways as well as to support the management team.
As a Customer Contact Telephony agent, your main responsibilities will include;
- handling inbound telephone calls from members of the public, farmers, local authorities and other stakeholders
- working collaboratively with remote teams across Great Britain to support the delivery of the core function of the Business Unit in accordance with established time scales and performance targets
- ensuring accurate records are kept and updated accordingly
- data inputting using various IT systems in accordance with APHA Data
- identifying efficiencies that could be utilised within your own team or wider business unit
- understanding and identifying issues that may affect delivery that require escalation to your Line Manager
- being flexible to adapt to changing situations within the office and responds with energy and commitment to take on additional tasks that may be outside the normal day to day duties
Administration Procedures
- taking responsibility for a set of administrative procedures; including mailbox monitoring; ensuring actions are carried out in accordance with the procedures and within the necessary timescales
- answering telephone queries, following up enquiries which cannot be immediately resolved. There is some processing and procedural work associated with the calls generated, including accurately noting the details of the call on a customer’s record, updating databases, producing paperwork, and following general administration processes and procedures
- providing support and guidance to others (internally and externally) on procedures
- continually reviewing procedures in your work area and identifying any efficiencies that could be utilised in your work area
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Customer Service
- liaising with, and providing excellent customer service to Stakeholders, Delivery Partners and Customers, both internal and external, to understand and appreciate their needs and requirements, for example, liaising with farmers and local veterinary practices to arrange tests
- responding to requests from the public for information and guidance and providing accurate and timely information to our customers
- updating information held on our information systems by liaising with the public to ensure the data we capture about (or for) our customers is accurate
- managing customer expectations
Person specification
We are looking for colleagues with a broad range of skills and experience and encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds. No previous experience of working in a Customer Service Centre is necessary. You will be fully trained with ongoing support.
Skills
Whether you have skills gained from professional settings or real life and academic experiences, we would really like to hear from you if you are:
- Dedicated to providing an excellent customer service
- Able to provide information both quickly and clearly
- Comfortable talking to different people on the phone in a confident and friendly way
- Excellent at organising your own time and workload
- Able to use a computer and main software packages competently
Learning and Development
Everyone in APHA is supported to develop their skills and capabilities. When you join the Directorate, you will be welcomed into your new team through an induction programme that will provide you with helpful information on the civil service, our work and our policies. Your line manager will also work with you to establish your priorities for the year, developing a performance, learning and development plan tailored to you and your role.
In return for your dedication, we will support your ongoing personal development through appropriate training. Inclusion, support and the development of our people matter to us. We aim to support the career and personal wellbeing of everyone in APHA.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Managing a Quality Service
- Working Together
- Delivering at Pace
Alongside your salary of £27,001, Animal and Plant Health Agency contributes £7,822 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
Benefits
- Learning and development tailored to your role
- An environment with flexible working options
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
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Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.
Application Process
As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete a CV and a Personal Statement (no more than 500 words).
The Personal Statement should demonstrate how you meet the requirements outlined in the person specification.
Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.
Should a large number of applications be received, the sift may be scored on Personal Statement only. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.
Sift
The sift is due to be completed once the advert closes and sift results released shortly after.
Interview
If successful at application stage, you will be invited to interview where you will be assessed on Behaviour and Strength questions.
You will receive a notification to let you know if you have been invited to interview. You will need to book a slot via your CS jobs account and an invitation will be sent separately prior to you your interview. Interviews will take place via MS Teams.
Interview dates to be determined. Results will be released shortly after completion of all interviews.
Feedback
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Location
As part of the pre-employment process for this post, successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. The agreed contractual workplace is then the substantive and permanent place of work for the successful candidate(s)
The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.
Travel costs to non-contractual workplaces will be subject to departmental travel and subsistence policies. Travel costs to contractual workplaces are the responsibility of the employee.
The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from the listed UK location, and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time.
Defra includes the core department, APHA, RPA, Cefas and VMD.
Eligibility
Please take extra care to tick the correct boxes in the eligibility sections of your application form. We understand mistakes sometimes happen but if you contact us later than two working days (Monday-Friday) before the vacancy closes, we will not be able to reopen your application for you. If you do make a mistake, please contact us via: HRResourcingDelivery@defra.gov.uk using the subject line to insert appropriate wording for example – ‘Please re-open my application – [insert vacancy ref] & vacancy closing date [insert date]’
Reserve List
A reserve list may be held for a period of
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