Associate Research Operations Specialist

Job description

Job responsibilities

The Associate Research Operations Specialist is responsible for providing operational support to the NHS Business Services Authoritys (NHSBSA) large community of User Researchers. Working across the Research Operations specialisms of participant recruitment, governance, asset management, guidance & templates, tools and insight management the Associate Research Operations Specialist will be supporting the growth of ethical, scalable, and efficient research in the NHSBSA. You will be helping to put the user at the heart of a variety of services which affect the lives of millions of people.

A key part of the role will be coordinating research participant recruitment, ensuring User Researchers have a representative sample of users for their research. Following consent, and incentive processes, and ensuring research data is safe, compliant, and accessible by the wider organisation. As part of the User Centred Design community, and the wider Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Directorate this role will follow the strategic direction of the Research Operations (ResearchOps) team to help enable user researchers at NHS Business Services Authority to do their best work.

User Researchers are an integral part of digital delivery teams. They help their teams develop a deeper understanding of the people who encounter their services, including NHS colleagues, patients, and the general public. Their findings support teams to design and build better services quickly and ethically and aim to mitigate and lower costs of digital services within NHSBSA. They use data and real-life experiences of users to help shape the continuous improvement of digital services.

1. Participant Recruitment: taking responsibility for recruiting participants for User Research for specific digital services, including:
   1. Inviting participants to take part in NHSBSA research and be the key point of contact for support throughout the research process.
   2. Recruiting a representative sample of users for NHSBSA services, including liaising with internal and external stakeholders and 3rd party organisations to expand the NHSBSA research panel.
   3. Logging participant information to meet Information Governance and GDPR requirements.
   4. Taking responsibility for ensuring incentives are distributed and accurate financial records are kept to meet finance incentive processes.
   5. Responsible for monitoring the team shared mailbox and ensuring all participant recruitment queries are dealt with quickly and effectively.

1. Insight & Knowledge Management: Supporting Research Operations activity, including:
   1. Coaching and mentoring members of the team to deliver high quality outputs.
   2. Attending and participating in the Research Operations community of practice.
   3. Providing regular updates on Research Operations within the user research and design communities of practice, CX network, DDaT Directorate meetings.
   4. Work with the UR community to ensure the Research Roundup contributions are collated and shared regularly and consistently across the NHSBSA.
   5. Promoting via various communication methods, the Research Library as a source of knowledge across the NHSBSA and collecting feedback on how improvements can be made.
   6. Supporting any additional research operations activity at NHSBSA.
   7. Ensuring compliance with all confidentiality and governance requirements, supporting User Researchers to do the same with any data handling (GDPR, IG, cyber security etc).
   8. Sharing knowledge and expertise in data management with the user centred design community and wider NHSBSA.

1. Guidance & Templates: Supporting ways of working in user research at NHSBSA, including:
   1. Producing accurate documentation and guidance to support team development.
   2. Supporting training of relevant teams in research operations best practice.
   3. Supporting research practices and policy reviews.
   4. Following consent processes and supporting User Researchers with consent forms.
   5. Supporting the consideration of research ethics and accessibility needs when recruiting participants and supporting the development of the User Research Playbook.
   6. Supporting the onboarding and offboarding of researchers.
   7. Coordinating requests for research incentives, including raising requests and logging purchases for audit purposes.

1. Governance: Supporting the management of the research library where outputs of user research and associated research materials can be stored and retrieved, including:
   1. Working with other members of the Research Operations Team and wider digital, data and technology teams to understand user researcher needs for file storage.
   2. Supporting the management of a self-service insights library to allow colleagues across the organisation quick access to user research findings.
   3. Preparing library summaries and extracts as required.
   4. Ensuring that the library is accurate, up to date and adheres to GDPR and data security best practice.
   5. Following the established library taxonomy for User Research at NHSBSA.

1. Tools: Coordinating tools and software used by the user research community to safely and effectively conduct user research, including:
   1. Lone worker safety devices.
   2. Granting permissions and access to the Research Library.
   3. Keeping track of research-specific software licenses used in the User Research team.

1. Asset Management: Ensuring that User Researchers have access to any physical resources they need for their role, including:
   1. Managing and coordinating any physical technology used in research, such as recording equipment and digital devices.
   2. Ensuring all User Researchers are allocated and have a working work mobile phone and are aware of how to use these for the purposes of their role, including safety procedures in face-to-face research. And regularly keeping documentation up to date.
   3. Supporting with the planning of face-to-face research, including any processes to enable travel, premises bookings and safety considerations.
   4. Coordinating the use of the User Research Lab.

1. Research Panel: Assist the Research Operations Manager with managing the Citizen and Health Professional panels. Monitoring uptake, profiling participants and supporting and following the inclusion strategy for user research at NHSBSA. Continue to expand the research panel and ensure user researchers have access to a diverse and representative sample of service users, in particular those with low digital literacy skills and access needs.
   1. Extracting eligible participants for research from the panels.
   2. Ensuring contact with panel members meets the sign up guidance provided.
   3. Responsible for monitoring the shared mailbox and ensuring all panel queries are dealt with quickly and effectively.
   4. Liaising with internal and external stakeholders to support the expansion of a diverse research panel.
   5. Networking with relevant trusts, bodies, and charities to build relationships with potential participant providers.
   6. Independently building networks to further expand on participant recruitment.
   7. Supporting the development of the yearly newsletter to panel members once a year.
   8. Follow Information Governance guidelines and ensure opt out participants are removed from the panel and members are re-contacted every 2 years to allow them to opt back and refresh their details.
   9. Monitor demographics and identify where the panel is not representative and look for opportunities to improve diversity.

Person Specification

Personal Qualities, Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Excellent communication, interpersonal and administration skills
• Confident in communicating with the public over the telephone, via email and face to face.
• Empathetic and resilient when dealing with sensitive research topics.
• Organised and meticulous
• Innovative and creative problem-solving skills; drive to identify user-focused solutions to User Research data management and support the wider Research team in their daily tasks.
• Ability to meet tight deadlines and work under pressure with changing priorities
• Confident IT skills, including the use of Microsoft products (e.g. Word/Excel/PowerPoint/ SharePoint) and collaboration tools (e.g. Trello, JIRA, Miro).
• Good understanding of Excel and more complex spreadsheet functions
• Team player, willing to help other members of the team.
• Proactive with ability to use own initiative and work unsupervised
• Reliable and committed

Desirable

• Knowledge of Government Design Standards (GDS).
• Comfortable with a matrix style of working, supporting different people within a small team with a varied and diverse workload.

Experience

Essential

• Demonstrable experience of financial processes.
• Demonstrable experience of working in an office environment
• Managing multiple priorities and delivering to time scales
• Handling sensitive information, in particular information from members of the public
• Experience of working with a wide range of different people of different levels of seniority.
• An awareness of what User Research is and the role it plays in the design and delivery of digital services.
• Knowledge of user research including a range of qualitative research methods, and the types of outputs that user researchers typically produce
• Working with a diverse team, supporting and challenging where needed
• Communicating and providing information to varied audiences (verbal, written and numerical).

Desirable

• Experience of working in government or a public sector organisation.
• Awareness of agile development and service teams
• Knowledge of GDPR and data protection

Qualifications

Essential

• General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), including English and Mathematics (grade C or above), or equivalent experience.

Desirable

• NVQ Level 3 in Research or a business-related subject
• A Level or equivalent in a business related subject or equivalent experience

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Employer details

Employer name

NHS Business Services Authority

Address

Stella House

Goldcrest Way, Newburn Riverside

Newcastle Upon Tyne

NE15 8NY

Employer's website

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/what-we-do/work-us (Opens in a new tab)