Desk Manager – Maternity cover

Desk Manager – Maternity cover

The Times and The Sunday Times represent a combined 400 years of covering news and providing comment and analysis on the UK and the world. We are authoritative, credible, responsible, trusted and a part of the nation’s cultural heritage. 

We are looking for a Desk manager to provide professional administrative and organisational support to the News production, Opinion, Design, Register and Property departments on The Times and The Sunday Times. This is a one year maternity cover contract.

This is a busy and varied role working across a number of departments in a fast-paced environment. You will assist senior editors and journalists with general administrative duties, including payment processing and rota management.

The successful candidate will be an experienced administrator with superb attention to detail, the ability to work autonomously and the skill to juggle conflicting priorities with ease. Applicants should have expert knowledge of the Microsoft Office suite and Gmail.

Apply with a covering letter and your CV by December 26.

Responsibilities

• Act as a first point of welcome and contact for each department and support each department head and their wider teams with administrative duties
• Organise rotas, manage rota changes and updates for the News production, Opinion and Register teams, book freelancers for the leading articles pages and manage the columnist planner for the Opinion department
• Approve casual payments and make sure shifts are entered in good time and are correct for all departments
• Complete the payments log for Register, Opinion, Design and Property on a weekly basis whilst tracking the payment journey to ensure payments are made in a timely manner
• Manage the onboarding process for new freelancers, ensuring a streamlined process
• Organise relevant logins and access for new starters and freelancers
• Regularly update and review contacts lists for each department
• Keep holiday and sickness records for each department
• Assist in booking travel and accommodation for each department if and when required
• Email the weekend working arrangements each week
• Process expenses, invoices and payments; equipment ordering, room booking, dealing with correspondence and other ad hoc duties as and when required

Skills and experience

• Experience working in a demanding administrative support role, ideally with experience within the media industry
• Experience of working in a fast-paced environment and stays calm under pressure
• Keen eye for detail, well-organised and able to multi-task
• Expert knowledge of Word and Excel, Google Docs and Gmail
• Reliable and prepared to put in extra time and effort where necessary
• Positive and approachable individual and a team player
• An ability to work autonomously with minimal supervision
• A proactive approach to work and regularly reviews how things are done to maximise efficiency

We are News UK: One of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland. Our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include talkSPORT, Times Radio, Talk and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local radio stations across Ireland. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning print and pixel, audio and video, events and experiences, our multiplatform brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. News UK is wholly owned by News Corp.

Life at News

Driven by passion, guided by principles and acting with purpose. We represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter. We inform our audiences so that they can make decisions based on trusted information.

To do this, we believe our employees must represent different backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. We strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued. We support this through our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategy, which focuses on three main priorities – attracting talent from a wider, more representative pool, developing equity programmes to drive better representation in our leadership, and ensuring diversity and inclusivity in our workforce as well as the journalism and content we produce. We also currently have 12 employee led networks and groups that support our strategy and connect like minded employees socially.

Benefits

Some of our benefits include:

• Maternity leave up to 18 weeks full basic salary & paternity leave up to 2 weeks
• Wide range of training available, plus full LinkedIn Learning access
• Private medical insurance including coverage for pre-existing conditions
• Discounted gym memberships, free ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual yoga classes
• ‘Bikes for Work’ and ‘Electric Car’ scheme
• Up to 60% discount on Harper Collins books
• Access to exclusive events and competitions with exciting brands such as talkSPORT, Virgin Radio UK & The Times. Weekly virtual panel chats with top journalists and celebrities
• Access to wellbeing benefits such as EAP, physio/massage and counselling
• A generous pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%
• 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays and up to 4 volunteering days per year

We want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to perform to their best when applying for a role. If you would like to receive any information in a different way or for us to do anything differently to support you apply for any of our roles please contact us on careers@news.co.uk. 

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