Administrative Specialist

Current Employees:
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Job Category: Academic Staff Employment Type: Regular Job Profile: Administrative Specialist Job Summary: The Center for Dairy Research (CDR) is seeking an administrative specialist to support a complex, growing research center on the UW-Madison campus. Housed in a new, state-of-the-art facility in Babcock Hall, CDR is the largest dairy foods research program in the US. The Center has over 60 full-time staff, supports graduate and undergraduate research, and provides technical and training support services to hundreds of dairy producers and processers around the globe.

As part of the administrative team at the CDR, the administrative specialist will focus on employee and guest relations, daily administrative management, and special project coordination.

Employee Relations and HR:
This role will provide critical employee support by owning processes and procedures related to unit level employee onboarding/offboarding and student employee recruitment and onboarding. They will also be the subject matter expert in travel and conference coordination and work directly with employees and guest speakers to ensure their business travel is booked and purchased following UW policy.

Guest Relations:
This position will serve as main point of contact for all of our guests and coordinate with our program managers to ensure all visitors have what they need prior and during their visits. We schedule 45 short courses and 40+ group tours annually. This role will be responsible for assuring the logistics for the group tours are executed seamlessly and will support short courses as needed.

We also have clients from the dairy industry and major funders visit for meetings on a weekly basis. This role will ensure the logistics are in place, meeting rooms are reserved, catering is ordered, and meeting materials are ready for all guests. This requires high level coordination with both internal colleagues and clients.

Daily Administrative Coordination:
This role will provide overarching administrative service to the center and serve as back up to our financial and research/grant management team. This includes managing office supply inventory, coordinating with facilities for office custodial and maintenance requests, preparing workstations for new employees, preparing reports, coordinating with key industry partners, managing leadership and shared calendars, and assisting with agreement processing.

The ideal candidate will have experience coordinating a variety of administrative functions (HR and employee support, travel and event coordination, operations, financial transactions, program coordination, etc.)

in a complex organization. They will have experience supporting the welcoming and onboarding efforts of new employees, familiarity with the recruitment process, ability to follow complex institutional policies related to travel, purchasing, and event coordination. Strong communication and interpersonal skills are essential to anticipating needs from a variety of internal and external customers along with the willingness to step in when needed to help the operations of the center run smoothly.

If you have experience managing shared calendars and inboxes, booking shared spaces, and can optimize the use of Microsoft Office products, you'll have the technical skills necessary to be successful in this role.
Additional information:

• This is a full time, onsite position
• A 12-month evaluation period may be required
• A criminal background check may be required

Key

Job Responsibilities:

Schedules logistics and secures resources for meetings, conferences, travel, and work unit operations Serves as a first point of contact for individuals and groups, provides basic organizational information via phone, in person and through other communication mediums, and routes more complex inquiries to the appropriate entities Collects, analyzes, and prepares various communication materials from established sources utilizing technology mediums Sends, receives, copies, and distributes…