Front Office Manager

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.

Reporting to the Executive Assistant – CEO, as Front-of-House Manager you 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). 

Closing date for applications 23rd May 2025.

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 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.

• 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.
• Demonstrable professionalism.

What we offer in return:

• Salary of circa £28-33k per annum plus 5% company performance bonus
• 25 days annual leave per year plus bank holidays and an extra 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.
• Pension scheme
• 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 contribute 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.