Personal Assistant - US Working Hours

In Compliance we act as guardians, shielding Barclays’ customers, colleagues, assets, shareholders and reputation from the ever-evolving risks and challenges that face a modern banking business. This is an exciting opportunity to come and join a newly established team who are vital to the way the Compliance Function operates, doing challenging and rewarding work that really matters by providing exceptional PA support to our senior leaders.

We’re looking for proactive and highly organised multi-taskers with excellent prioritisation and time-management skills. You will be part of a team of PAs within our Glasgow hub, providing professional and efficient PA support for multiple Managing Directors (MDs) across the Global Compliance function. Successful candidates will be expected to work closely with a number of senior executives and their support offices. There are several positions to be filled within this team. This particular role will be primarily supporting US MDs based in the New York, aligning to their working hours (equivalent to 13:30 – 22:00 GMT), so experience of working with executives who may be based in offices outside of your own is desirable

We expect successful candidates to take an active interest in understanding the environment they work in, building an understanding of the business and function’s processes and objectives so the MDs can rely on their judgment to understand relative priorities and how the various appointments, meetings and outputs contribute towards that.

Key Accountabilities

Candidates will manage and control all administrative tasks/queries and approvals on behalf of the MDs, working to support their future commitments/priorities and matters requiring their attention, including:

• Proficient and extensive PA support - including full diary management, scheduling meetings, ensuring the diary is up to date and flagging key deadlines, using judgment to prioritise meetings and manage clashes, responding to requests from both internal and external stakeholders swiftly.

• Acting as gatekeeper - effectively screen and manage calls/requests as required, acting swiftly on information received, using initiative and delegating tasks to the leadership team where applicable.

• Travel arrangements - booking global travel, accommodation and logistics (arranging visas, entry requirements and preparing travel business itineraries).  Reconciling expenses in a timely manner and adhering to Barclays travel policy.

• Events management - ad-hoc organisation of leadership team and year-end team offsites, responsible for booking venues, managing agenda, speakers and all related logistics.

Stakeholder Management and Leadership

Key stakeholders and relationships the role will interact with:

• Board members and support office
• ExCo and CEO office

Decision-making and Problem Solving

• Resolving logistical issues arising in the role (e.g. room bookings, diary clashes, IT challenges etc.)
• Co-ordinate and manage requests and IT support issues
• Must be able to use initiative and prioritise own work and meet deadlines
• Positive and solutions orientated approach

Risk and Control Objective

Take ownership for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work you do

Person Specification

• High degree of professionalism and communication skills – ability to deal with a range of people including senior stakeholders and situations
• A flexible approach and the ability to adapt to different leadership styles of senior management
• Strong attention to detail and highly organised
• The ability to respond to changing priorities and urgent requests and multi task in a busy challenging environment with minimum supervision
• Proactive and strong foresight, flagging key deliverables/deadlines
• Decisive and confident, ability to work accurately and effectively under pressure and feel comfortable instructing and directing members of the team when necessary
• Strong Interpersonal skills and team player
• Discrete and trustworthy, experience of dealing with confidential and sensitive matters
• Prioritise workload to use initiative and prioritise own work and meet deadlines
• Flexible, adaptable and comfortable with change
• Needs to be able to enjoy a busy and demanding workload with a high degree of interaction and interruption
• Work completed accurately and to high standards

Essential Skills/Basic Qualifications:

• Experienced PA/EA supporting MDs and Ds
• High level of skill/competency in IT – Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
• Proven experience of working within a fast paced and demanding environment

Desirable skills/Preferred Qualifications:

• Strong spoken and written English
• Good level of numeracy needed for budget figures/expenses

Purpose of the role

To provide administrative and organisational support to executives, managers, or teams. To manage schedules, acting as a trusted point of contact, ensuring seamless coordination, efficient task management, and a professional presence for their assigned individuals or teams. 

Accountabilities

• Management of executive, managers or team calendars and overseeing timely responses to meeting invitations and requests.
• Planning and arranging travel itineraries, including flights, accommodation and ground transportation, ensuring timely and efficient travel for the executive or team.
• Proactively anticipating the needs of the executive or team, prioritising tasks, and ensuring timely completion.
• Management of day-to-day administrative tasks, such as expenses, maintaining filing systems, and ordering office supplies, annual leave records management, distribution list management and organisation management tasks.

Analyst Expectations

• To perform prescribed activities in a timely manner and to a high standard consistently driving continuous improvement.
• Requires in-depth technical knowledge and experience in their assigned area of expertise
• Thorough understanding of the underlying principles and concepts within the area of expertise
• They lead and supervise a team, guiding and supporting professional development, allocating work requirements and coordinating team resources.
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.
• OR for an individual contributor, they develop technical expertise in work area, acting as an advisor where appropriate.
• Will have an impact on the work of related teams within the area.
• Partner with other functions and business areas.
• Takes responsibility for end results of a team’s operational processing and activities.
• Escalate breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Take responsibility for embedding new policies/ procedures adopted due to risk mitigation.
• Advise and influence decision making within own area of expertise.
• Take ownership for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work you own or contribute to. Deliver your work and areas of responsibility in line with relevant rules, regulation and codes of conduct.
• Maintain and continually build an understanding of how own sub-function integrates with function, alongside knowledge of the organisations products, services and processes within the function.
• Demonstrate understanding of how areas coordinate and contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the organisation sub-function.
• Make evaluative judgements based on the analysis of factual information, paying attention to detail.
• Resolve problems by identifying and selecting solutions through the application of acquired technical experience and will be guided by precedents.
• Guide and persuade team members and communicate complex / sensitive information.
• Act as contact point for stakeholders outside of the immediate function, while building a network of contacts outside team and external to the organisation.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.