Background
UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.
Duties and Responsibilities
Summary of Key Functions:
- Administrative support;
- Manage the information and communication flow and ensure administrative and Logistical Support;
- Support to external relations activities;
- Support to financial services and operations.
Description of Key Functions:
Administrative Support:
- Manage the Chief of Staff’s calendar of activities, events and travels. Schedule requests for meetings from staff and UN system and agency partners, and external partners, e.g. government officials, members of Permanent Missions to the UN and other delegations. Follow appropriate protocol procedures in scheduling meetings and events;
- Screen all in-coming correspondence by identifying which matters should be brought to the immediate attention of the Chief of Staff;
- Arrange travel, hotel accommodations and other logistics;
- Collect, review and organize briefing materials for the Chief of Staff for appointments, meetings, official missions and other critical and key events;
- Tactfully discourages appointment requests which, for reasons of relevance scheduling or the Chief of Staff’s own priorities cannot be met, or refers same to other staff in the Bureau, depending upon the area of responsibility;
- Maintain the roster of Chief of Staff’s contacts for easy access and reference.
Manage the information and communication flow and ensure administrative and Logistical Support:
- Facilitate the flow of information/communication between the Chief of Staff and other Units within and outside UN Women. Recommend and/or establish systems and streamline procedures to enhance the flow of information/communication between the Chief of Staff and other units, in close coordination with the Executive Associate to the ED. Remind staff members of deadlines for commitments and work assignments and coordinating the collection and submission of reports;
- Ensure that materials submitted for the Chief of Staff’s consideration comply with established administrative procedures and are accurate and complete that correct reporting procedures are followed;
- Anticipates the Chief of Staff’s requirements for background materials in all areas of responsibility, and ensures briefing materials for appointments, meetings and missions are complete and up-to-date;
- Draft replies on own initiative to general correspondence and enquires not requiring a technical knowledge of the programme area or for which precedents may apply;
- Select, from among documents and papers regularly received in the office, those which may be of particular interest to the Chief of Staff, or other staff as relevant;
- Establish and maintain the filling system ensuring proper indexing and logging of correspondence and reports and safekeeping of confidential materials;
- Review out-going correspondence and reports prepared by other staff members for grammatical accuracy and adherence to formal clearance and reporting requirements;
- Periodically review the efficiency of administrative procedures and make proposals to eliminate communication bottlenecks or streamline office procedures;
- Review correspondence for proper internal clearances prior to the Chief of Staff’s signature;
- Respond and/or direct inquiries to the appropriate UN Women Unit for timely action and/or response;
- Maintain and organize up to date hard and electronic files for easy access and retrieval. Ensure safekeeping of confidential materials .
Support to external relations activities:
- Keep abreast of activities in UN Women and keep the Chief of Staff informed for her attention, action or intervention;
- Facilitate the Chief of Staff’s interaction with various external partners such as ambassadors, donor country delegations, parliamentarians and high-level senior officials through collaborative and proactive relationship with counterparts and colleagues in those offices;
- Organize official events/hospitality for the Chief of Staff .
Support to financial services and operations:
- Review and verify accuracy of supporting documents for payments and approval and review of project financial reports;
- Maintain internal expenditures control system to ensure vouchers processed are matched and completed;
- Prepare budget revisions of the Chief of Staff office’s budget .
Impact of Results:
The efficient and prompt delivery of services impact on a whole range services and operations in the unit and result in meeting client (internal / external) needs and satisfaction.
Competencies
Core values/Guiding principles
Integrity:
- Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
Professionalism:
- Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity:
- Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff.
- Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.
Core competencies
Ethics and Values:
- Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity
Organizational Awareness:
- Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment
Development and Innovation:
- Take charge of self-development and take initiative
Work in teams:
- Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi-ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
Communicating and Information Sharing:
- Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication
Self-management and Emotional Intelligence:
- Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others
Conflict Management:
- Manage and address conflicts proactively.
- Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.
- Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge
Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:
- Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.
- Ability to perform a broad range of specialized activities including data/schedule management, maintenance of protocol, information flow.
- Ability to maintain confidentiality and discretion.
- Ability to provide input to business process re-engineering, elaboration and implementation of new data management systems.
- Creates, edits and presents information in clear and presentable formats, using appropriate IT functionality.
- Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities.
- Ability to handle a large volume of work possibly under time constraints.
- Establishes, builds and sustains effective relationships with clients, demonstrates understanding of client’s perspective; anticipates client needs and addresses them promptly.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:- Secondary education is required;
- University Degree is an advantage but not required.
Experience:
- A minimum of 7 years of administrative experience preferably in a large or international corporation or organization.
- Experience in the use of computers applications and software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc) and web based management systems;
- Experience with government senior officials or senior level officials in the UN with a thorough knowledge of UN operations, structure and administrative procedures a distinctive advantage;
- Successfully passed UN clerical examination (ASAT) .
Language:
- Fluency in English is required;
- Proficiency in another UN working language is desirable