Overview
The Office Manager & PA to the CEO is central to the smooth, professional and efficient running of Unmasked Mental Health. The postholder will lead day-to-day office administration, provide proactive executive support to the CEO and coordinate key organisational systems, ensuring that actions, information and deadlines do not fall between teams.
The role will also coordinate grants administration, new-starter onboarding and effective use of Beacon CRM. It is a practical, hands-on role for someone who is highly organised, comfortable taking ownership and committed to helping the charity provide timely, person-centred mental health support across Calderdale.
Duties
1. Office management and administration
- Oversee the effective day-to-day running of the office and act as a central point of coordination for operational and administrative matters.
- Provide appropriate reception and main-inbox cover, ensuring enquiries are acknowledged, directed promptly and followed through.
- Line manage and support reception and administrative staff & volunteers, setting clear expectations and ensuring consistent cover and service standards.
- Maintain office supplies, stationery, refreshments, branded materials and other operational stock, obtaining good value for money.
- Manage petty cash and maintain accurate supporting records in line with agreed financial procedures.
- Coordinate routine health and safety checks, office risk assessments, incident records and required actions, escalating concerns appropriately.
- Liaise with the landlord, insurers, contractors and suppliers, and coordinate repairs, maintenance, printers, telephones and other office equipment.
- Maintain orderly shared files, records and SharePoint folders, with clear naming, version control, access and retention arrangements.
- Support the development and consistent use of practical office procedures and administrative systems.
2. Personal assistant support to the CEO
- Provide proactive diary and meeting support, helping the CEO protect time for strategic priorities and prepare effectively for key commitments.
- Monitor and triage the CEO’s inbox as agreed; highlight urgent or sensitive matters, draft routine responses and ensure queries reach the correct person.
- Arrange meetings, prepare agendas and papers, take notes or minutes where required and maintain a clear action log.
- Chase agreed actions and deadlines across the organisation, providing the CEO with clear updates on progress, risks and matters requiring a decision.
- Coordinate contributions from service leads for board and management reports; compile the core report and supporting papers for the CEO to add the executive overview.
- Prepare correspondence, briefing notes, presentations and other documents to a high professional standard.
- Handle confidential, sensitive and commercially important information with discretion and sound judgement.
3. Grants and funding administration
- Maintain a forward-looking grants tracker showing relevant opportunities, eligibility, opening and closing dates, value, status, responsibility and next actions.
- Research and maintain visibility of suitable funding opportunities and flag priorities to the CEO in sufficient time for an informed decision and strong application.
- Coordinate the application timetable, confirm who is responsible for each submission and chase contributions and approvals ahead of deadlines.
- Maintain a current bank of standard supporting information and documents, including governance, policies, accounts, budgets, organisational data and evidence of impact.
- Support the CEO to prepare applications by gathering factual information, statistics, costings and attachments, allowing the CEO to focus primarily on the substantive narrative and strategic case.
- Keep accurate records of applications, decisions, award conditions, restricted funding requirements and key correspondence.
- Monitor grant milestones, payment dates, reporting deadlines and evaluation requirements.
- Coordinate and, where appropriate, complete monitoring returns using information from relevant service leads, ensuring submissions are accurate, evidenced and on time.
4. Team and organisational support
- Provide practical administrative support across the charity, prioritising requests according to impact, urgency and organisational need.
- Support the Training, Data & Insights Manager with training enquiries, bookings, attendee information, joining instructions, materials and related administration.
- Support the Community Engagement & Fundraising team with administration, event coordination, bookings, attendance information and practical event preparation.
- Maintain an overview of recurring organisational deadlines, renewals, meetings and compliance tasks.
- Promote clear communication between teams and help ensure that clients, referrals, actions or commitments are never lost between services.
5. New-starter onboarding
- Coordinate a consistent onboarding process for employees, volunteers and other new starters, working with the relevant manager.
- Prepare induction schedules, documentation, identification, equipment, accounts, access permissions and workspace requirements before the start date.
- Coordinate IT setup and access to relevant systems, escalating problems and confirming that access is appropriate to the person’s role.
- Ensure required policies, forms, declarations, training and compliance checks are completed and recorded.
- Check in with new starters and managers during the induction period and follow up any outstanding actions.
- Coordinate offboarding administration when people leave, including return of property and removal of systems access.
6. Beacon CRM super-user and internal champion
- Use Beacon confidently in day-to-day administration and act as an approachable first point of practical support for colleagues.
- Encourage consistent adoption of Beacon and reinforce agreed workflows, minimum data requirements and data-quality standards.
- Work closely with the Training, Data & Insights Manager, as system lead, to embed Beacon across the organisation and identify where additional guidance or training is required.
- Help troubleshoot routine user issues, document recurring problems and escalate technical or system-design matters appropriately.
- Support routine data-quality checks and help ensure information is complete, accurate, timely and handled in accordance with data-protection requirements.
7. Governance, safeguarding, risk and compliance
- Work in accordance with UMH policies, procedures, delegated authority and relevant legal and regulatory requirements.
- Recognise safeguarding concerns, follow UMH safeguarding procedures and report concerns immediately to the appropriate safeguarding lead.
- Actively identify operational risks, record and escalate concerns, and support agreed mitigating actions.
- Maintain confidentiality and comply with UK GDPR, data-protection and records-management requirements.
- Contribute to policy reviews, audits, inspections and evidence gathering as required.
- Support an inclusive, respectful and psychologically safe working environment.
Our expectations
All UMH colleagues are expected to keep clients at the heart of their work; support timely access to help; prevent people, information and actions from falling between teams; contribute to strong community relationships; and uphold the quality and professionalism expected of a trusted mental health support provider.
This job profile and list of duties is not exhaustive and serves only to highlight the main requirements. The line manager may stipulate other reasonable requirements and projects commensurate with the general profile and grade of the post.
The postholder will work closely with the CEO, service leads, the Training, Data & Insights Manager, Community Engagement & Fundraising team, counselling team, reception and administrative colleagues, trustees, volunteers, suppliers, funders and external partners.
Essential
- Previous work as a Personal or Executive Assistant or a similar role is essential for this role.
- Exceptionally organised, dependable and able to take ownership from initial request through to completion.
- Proactive and solutions-focused, with the judgement to anticipate needs, identify gaps and escalate matters appropriately.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce clear, accurate and professional documents.
- Strong attention to detail without losing sight of priorities or the wider purpose of the work.
- Confident handling sensitive situations and information with discretion, tact and integrity.
- Able to build positive working relationships, encourage accountability and follow up actions constructively.
- Calm, adaptable and resilient when plans or priorities change.
- A genuine commitment to UMH’s values and to accessible, compassionate and person-centred mental health support.
- Committed to continuous professional development of self and staff.
Desirable
- Experience within a charity, voluntary-sector, healthcare, mental health or community organisation.
- Experience of grants administration, funding trackers, monitoring returns or working with funders.
- Experience coordinating employee or volunteer onboarding and basic IT setup
- Experience using a CRM; experience with Beacon would be particularly helpful.
- Previous responsibility for supervising or line managing administrative staff.
- Knowledge of charity governance, funder compliance or board administration.
Please note this role is 30 hours per week Monday to Friday. Specific hours to be agreed but must be over 5 days and the role is fully office based in central halifax.
Salary is £30k pro rata to (£24k actual salary)
Pay: £24,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
