Secretarial Services Manager

Job description

Purpose of the role:
The Secretarial Services Manager will be responsible for managing, facilitating and co-ordinating the secretarial resources within the London office, as well as monitoring the quality and consistency of secretarial support to ensure consistently high levels of fee-earner and client service.

The role will encompass developing and managing the current services being provided as well as considering future changes in line with changes in technology and the needs of the business. The SSM will be required to build strong working relationships within all Practice Groups and across the firm generally.

Responsibilities:
• Line management of the Secretarial Co-ordinators, the float team and the evening Document Specialist Supervisor
• Management and leadership of a professional and motivated secretarial resource, to ensure the delivery of a quality service to fee earners
• Providing appropriate advice to key business decision makers on future industry developments in secretarial services and how these may affect the wider business
• Working closely with the Director of Administration, Secretarial Staff Partners, Learning and Development Team and IT Training to identify appropriate training to support career development
• Resource planning to include monitoring secretarial ratios and reviewing fee earner/ secretarial allocation
• Working closely with Graduate Recruitment, Office Practice Leaders and the Head of Facilities on seating and floor planning
• Co-ordination of secretarial and document production holidays and absence cover
• Monitoring secretarial and document production overtime
• Conducting appraisals
• Recruitment selection, testing and interviewing in conjunction with HR
• Induction of new team members and carrying out probation reviews
• Proactively working with the Director of Administration, Secretarial Staff Partners and Secretarial Co-ordinators on wider initiatives to improve the quality and efficiency of the secretarial services provided to the business 
• Fostering a collaborative ‘working together’ approach which encourages cohesion amongst the secretarial teams within and across all Groups
• Being a strong, positive role model and leader for the secretaries
• Ensuring best practice and firm procedures are adopted and shared among the legal secretaries and evening document specialist teams
• Determining and implementing standards of service, continually monitoring productivity and improving where necessary
• Managing secretarial capacity and utilisation, encouraging teamwork and flexibility
Hours Monday to Friday 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with flexibility in accordance with the needs of the business.

Qualifications:
• Educated to GCSE or A Level preferable
• A secretarial qualification would be an advantage

Essential Experience:
• Experience of managing a similar team in a professional services environment
• Experience of leading change or project management
Technical Competencies: • Experience in document production including complex documents
• Excellent IT skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook)
• Accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation
• Fast, accurate typing - speed 60 wpm +

Personal attributes:
• Strong communication and inter-personal skills with the ability to deal with people at all levels of the business
• Ability to work under pressure and meet strict deadlines
• Ability to engage with and gain support from a range of individuals throughout the firm, in particular the secretarial staff partners
• Ability to motivate and engage the secretarial team
• Ability to demonstrate tact and diplomacy, observing confidentiality at all times
• Self-motivated and able to work using own initiative and challenge work practices
• Excellent time management and organisation skills
• Keeps up-to-date with market developments
• Strong leadership skills
• Flexible, professional and proactive