Administrative Officer - SEI

Job opening ID	178
Department	Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)
Posting title	Administrative Officer - SEI
Designation	Administrative Officer
Job Summary	To provide program and administrative support to ensure that the SEI Africa Centre operates as a cohesive, functional unit that provides high quality, responsive, timely and cost effective services, and office operations are conducted in tandem with the overall SEI goals and objectives. This position serves as the primary administrator of the SEI Africa Centre for coordination and provision of logistical support for both field and technical activities to ensure performance standards are met.
Deadline	06/29/2015
Number of positions	1
Job type	Full time
Location	Nairobi
Country	Kenya
Posted on	06/15/2015
Job Category	Nationally Recruited Staff
Roles and responsibilities	1. Office Management and Administration • Manage the SEI Africa Centre’s day-to-day administrative running needs; • Office Procedures: develop/design and maintain internal standard administrative systems and procedures; put into place oversight mechanisms to ensure compliance with internal policy, and legal requirements; • Records Management: create and maintain appropriate record and office filing system; draft routine business correspondence, maintain files/archives of SEI documents; • Meetings and Events: undertake planning, organizing and coordinating of workshops, conferences and conference calls, scientific meetings and other ad-hoc events including meetings with various stakeholders; support and contribute to the preparation of workshop/training agenda and any necessary technical material as assigned; preparation of minutes and summaries of actions to be taken; • Travel: prepare and process administrative requests/documents for staff, technical officers and visiting scientists both local and foreign, including travel requests, flight and hotel reservations, visa applications, ground transfers, in liaison with the relevant vendors and intermediaries; • Secretarial/Rapporteur: perform general secretarial duties independently; assist in documenting proceedings at meetings and stakeholder workshops and scientific conferences, and distributing the same in a timely manner; and • Information Management: facilitate information sharing within SEI Africa Centre and SEI Stockholm; collect and distribute staff mail and other deliveries; draft the SEI Africa Centre situation reports periodically. 2. Programme Management • Proposal development: provide support in the proposal development process; • Update the SEI Africa Centre calendar; maintain a calendar/schedule of activities, monitor changes and communicate relevant information to appropriate staff; • As required, represent SEI Africa in non-scientific/technical meetings both internally and externally; • Work with ICRAF HR department to facilitate recruitment of NRS; orientation of new staff (interns, consultants, visiting researchers) to relevant administrative procedures and practices and provide general guidance to other office support staff as required; • Facilitate distribution of required paperwork and provision of general support to newly-hired staff and ensure they are accurately completed and all documents attached; • Coordinate and disseminate information regarding staff welfare matters – transport, security, other procedures; • Staff leave – track the SEI Africa Centre staff leave and absence from office/travel schedules; • Staff timesheets – follow up to ensure they are completed and submitted; management of staff time sheets and ensuring quality control; • Serve as SEI representative on the ICRAF campus security committee and communicate all security updates to the team; and • Develop templates and tools for efficient, standardized and streamlined Centre operations. 3. Finance • Maintain SEI Africa Centre’s financial accounts and liaise with SEI Stockholm headquarters on financial matters; • Prepare budget for the Center in collaboration with the Center Director; • Prepare and submit of monthly accounting documents and periodic financial reports to SEI Stockholm office; prepare and processing of finance requests/documents, expense claims, vouchers; • Verify invoices for payment and follow up on payment status and reimbursements; • Ensure proper custody of all vouchers and accounting documents, cheque books and other assets; • Provide accounting support by ensuring project cash advances are properly spent and accounted for in a timely manner; • Manage office petty cash and prepare monthly and quarterly expenditure reports; • In liaison with the Centre Director, follow up with Stockholm office finance team on activity cash requests; and • Undertake payment/reimbursement of workshop participants as approved in the budget. 4. Procurement Management • Ensure cost-effective and efficient procurement of goods and services for SEI Africa Centre; • Maintain close liaison with ICRAF procurement team to facilitate requisition of office supplies and equipment and delivery of commodities, solicit bids from vendors as per specifications from technical officers and/or project requirements and according to procurement guidelines and regulations; prepare bid analysis for review and approval; • Manage and update office inventory lists and purchasing requests, and general office housekeeping including assessing required services to ensure proper facility and equipment maintenance and general asset management; • Identify and assess regional vendor facilities (conference and accommodation) and negotiate rates to suit the SEI Africa Centre approved rates and program budgets; and • Transport: handle management of transport including planning, allocation, insurance and valuation issues of the SEI Africa vehicle. 5. Other Duties • Promoting a positive corporate culture and image of the SEI Africa Centre; • Identify potential risks within work area; and • Performing any other duties as assigned by supervisor.
Skill set	• Bachelor’s in Business Management. (A Master’s degree in Business Management preferred) • 5 years’ experience in administration; • Planning and organizing: ability to set clearly defined objectives and plan activities well in advance, taking into account possibility of changes in circumstances; • Communication: ability to clearly communicate and speak fluently; present information in a well-structured and logical way with skill and confidence; ability to structure information to meet the needs and understanding of the intended audience; • Drive for results: ability to consistently achieve unit goals and focus on the needs and satisfaction of both internal and external clients; to set, maintain and monitor high standard for quality of work; to work in a methodical and orderly way; • Innovation: ability to constantly seek opportunities for improvement of work processes for overall efficiency; actively generate new perspectives of own work and seek new perspectives from team members; to thinks up effective changes in own work area; • Team work: ability to show respect for views and contributions of team members and proactively make relevant consultations, and share information; to adapt to the team and fit in well; • Analysing: ability to make rational and logical judgements from available information; demonstrates an understanding of how one issue may be part of a larger system; questions obvious mistakes and asks for clarification of unclear issues; produces workable solutions that meet the immediate demands of situations; • Learning and researching: ability to rapidly learn new tasks and commit information to memory; to gather comprehensive information to support decision making; ability to create and set up systems and initiatives for collecting and classifying information and store records • Initiative: ability to initiate and generate activities and introduce changes into work processes; take initiative and work under own direction, taking responsibility for actions, projects and people; and • Integrity: maintain high ethical standards and promptly address untrustworthy or dishonest behaviour; does not abuse power or authority.
Work experience	5 years
Duty station	Nairobi, Kenya
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