Front Office Manager

Informa Group Limited; Abingdon; On-site; GBP 28,000 - 33,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Front Office Manager to enhance the working environment at their Milton Park office. This full-time role involves managing front-of-house activities, ensuring a welcoming atmosphere for visitors, and facilitating smooth operations for meetings and events. The ideal candidate will be customer-focused, resourceful, and able to handle various tasks with professionalism. Join a company that values diversity and fosters human progress through knowledge, providing an excellent work-life balance and a supportive culture.

Benefits

25 days annual leave

Flexible working culture

Company funded private medical insurance

Employee assistance programme

Share Match plan

Life assurance

Paid volunteering days

Birthday off

Discretionary holiday season days

Qualifications

• Professional and friendly demeanor with internal and external visitors.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and maintain organization.

Responsibilities

• Provide a courteous greeting for all visitors and customers.
• Manage meeting/event requests and ensure room setups.
• Govern the maintenance of stock and supplies for the office.

Skills

Communication Skills

Problem Solving

Flexibility

Time Management

Customer Service

Job description

Informa is a leading academic publishing, business intelligence, knowledge, and events business, creating unique content and connectivity for customers worldwide. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100.

Taylor & Francis is one of the world’s largest publishers of high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarly journals, books, e-books, and reference works. We empower learners, thinkers and doers with trusted knowledge that advances research and enriches lives. We bring together diverse people, ideas, and opinions to validate and publish the experts, theories and truths that matter. And we’ve been doing this in an unbroken arc since 1798.

Our purpose is to foster human progress through knowledge. We strongly believe that this requires us to encourage and examine different ideas and voices so that any work that meets our exacting levels of quality deserves to be included in our publications. This requires open minds, the opportunity for robust debate, and the courage to defend perspectives that stand up to scrutiny, even if they conflict with our personal beliefs or values. Because that’s the only way to find the best obtainable version of the truth and, ultimately, foster human progress. If you agree, then we’d love to hear from you.

Job Description

We have an exciting new role for a truly customer-focused individual, at our Head Office in Milton Park, Oxfordshire!

Reporting to the Executive Assistant of the CEO, our new Front Office Manager will be the key contact in our Milton Park office for front of house activities. This is a busy and multi-faceted role that is focused on driving the best working environment possible for our colleagues and visitors.

This is a full time (35 hours per week), office based position, based in our office in Milton Park, Oxfordshire (OX14 4RN).

Key responsibilities:

• Provide a courteous and personal greeting for all visitors and customers, ensuring all internal and external customers are handled with professionalism and friendliness.
• Be the liaison between the onsite Facilities team and the Taylor & Francis (T&F)Executive Assistants to ensure requirements for meetings, visitors and the ELT are delivered.
• Manage meeting/event requests, ensuring rooms are set up as required by the meeting organiser (for example, furniture repositioned, additional chairs added, partition walls removed etc).
• Arrange catering for meetings and events occurring within the Milton Park office. Receive the delivery and ensure the food/drink is brought to the correct location at the correct time (as requested by the meeting owner).
• Be the key lead for the daily running of the office including the management of the front of house.
• Be the point of contact for T&F and Informa Executive teams for matters relating to the Milton Park offices and associated colleague working environment matters.
• Provide local office information and tours to new starters to support the onboarding process.
• Where necessary, arrange transport for visitors leaving our office.
• Govern the maintenance of stock, stationery, and supplies for the Milton Park office, while focusing on cost management.
• Solicit, listen and act on colleague feedback.

Qualifications

The successful candidate will have the following skills and attributes:

• The ability to stay professional, friendly and be the key point of contact to internal and external visitors and customers.
• The confidence to approach different people in varying situations.
• The ability to be reactive and resourceful in difficult situations and apply practicality and common sense to find realistic solutions.
• The ability to apply logic and organization to everything they do to enable good time management and completion of responsibilities.

Skills and Behaviours Required

• Ability to be flexible and happy to take on a range of tasks which may seem unrelated to position.
• A ‘can do’ attitude.
• Ability to anticipate problems or issues in advance and put in place contingencies to avoid difficult situations.
• Good investigative skills to identify and understand issues, and the ability to use initiative and common sense to problem solve.
• Good communication skills and telephone manner.

Additional Information

Please note that you must have the right to live and work in the UK to be considered for this role.

Location:The successful candidate will be based 5 days a week at our Milton Park office. Free parking is available on site.

Closing Date:Applications will close on 23rd May 2025.

What we offer in return:

• A salary of c.£28,000 to £33,000pa + 5%company performance bonus
• An excellent work/life balance with a fantastic, flexible working culture
• 25 days annual leave per year plus a day off for your birthday
• 3 additional discretionary days off during the holiday season at the end of the year
• 4 paid volunteering days each year
• Company funded single cover private medical insurance
• Employee assistance programme – offering 24/7 well-being support
• Share Match – Plan that matches every share purchased with two free shares.
• Life assurance, plus optical and medical care

Being Yourself at Taylor & Francis

If you’re excited about working with Taylor & Francis to foster human progress through knowledge, we invite you to apply even if your existing skills and experience don’t fit every item listed above. At Taylor & Francis, we are at our best and most successful when colleagues can be themselves and make a contribution regardless of their identity or background. As a colleague, you will have the opportunity to further innovate and develop in areas that you are passionate about. Our goal is to empower you with the resources, incentives, and flexibility you need to enjoy success at work and to live a healthy, balanced life.

Taylor & Francis is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe in and value diversity of people and thought, fostering a supportive and inclusive environment where all colleagues can learn and succeed as their true selves. Taylor & Francis recruits, develops, and retains colleagues without regard to any protected personal characteristics or other non-merit based factor.

We genuinely care about our colleagues, promoting work-life balance, wellbeing, and flexible working. We believe that the skills and experience you bring to Taylor & Francis are invaluable. We want you to have the opportunity to develop your abilities, and to innovate and develop in areas which you are passionate about. To find out more about our business and the great career opportunities please go to our Careers Site:http://www.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/careers

Or better yet check out our LinkedIn ‘Life’ Page, highlighting our accomplishments, employees, and company culture. It’s also a good way of meeting our recruitment team, who will be happy to advise you on your journey here at T&F.

We know that sometimes the 'perfect candidate' doesn't exist, and that people can be put off applying for a job if they don't fit all the requirements. If you're excited about working for us and have most of the skills or experience we're looking for, please go ahead and apply. You could be just what we need! We believe strongly in the value of diversity and creating supportive, inclusive environments where our colleagues can succeed. As such, Informa is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, ancestry, national origin, religion, or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, citizenship, or other protected characteristics under local law. This role may also be available on a flexible working or part time basis – please ask the Talent Acquisition team for more information.