Business Communications Assistant

As our business communications assistant, you will be helping to ensure the team provides an excellent, best-practice communications and marketing service to Portsmouth International Port by meeting our objectives as set out in the port's business plan and maintaining and enhancing the port's reputation with all of its stakeholders. You will do this by supporting our small but very busy team to raise the profile of the port, and our partners at Portico, in a demanding industry, through delivery of tactical communications including social media and copywriting, administrative tasks for the team and wider port colleagues, and organisation of marketing collateral using our online system. The role also encompasses reputation and issues management through delivery of an excellent complaints and comments service, in line with corporate complaints policies, and collating and organising responses to Freedom of Information requests. We would like to work with somebody that wants to grow a career in communications or marketing, so you should show an ability to help in the delivery of campaigns, while demonstrating a willingness to learn and thrive .

We are looking for someone with an understanding of and passion for communications, marketing and public relations, who's ready and willing to learn while getting stuck into the range and variety of tasks that need to be performed for the team to thrive. This is a key role in driving Portsmouth International Port's professional communications service forward, so you should be able to grasp tasks quickly and be able to work across multiple projects simultaneously, have excellent organisational skills, and be unafraid to fail. As you will be dealing with senior colleagues and members of the public a professional attitude is a must, as is the dynamism that will enable to you adapt to different and changing situations. You will have:

• Proven marketing communications and/or customer service experience, either through work or education, and an understanding of what marketing, communications and PR are and what professionals in the industry do.
• Excellent organisational and administrative skills that will enable you to work effectively and efficiently across multiple projects and support the team in their wide-ranging work.
• Confidence to get stuck in, helping organise and participate in a range of engagement activities with the public and wider stakeholders, whether in person or online.
• A professional, personable and confident approach to your work, as you will be dealing with members of the public via our complaints process, working directly with colleagues across the port - including the senior management team - to gather and disseminate information in a timely fashion.
• Analytical skills and an inquisitive mind, which will help you to develop and improve job functions and processes, as well as professionally.
• An excellent standard of written English, as you will be developing materials for multiple communications channels, both external and internal.
• An understanding of, passion for and ability to use multi-media tools, and demonstrable experience across varying social media channels - as well as an understanding of how to analyse performance across these to improve and develop best practice.
  
  Portsmouth International Port is the UK's largest and most successful council-owned port, providing a significant contribution to the council's budget to support services across the city. We have a thriving continental ferry business and are steadily building a profile as a major player in the UK cruise market.
The port has a long-standing partnership with Brittany Ferries, with destinations to France and Spain, and Condor Ferries which provides lifeline services delivering goods to the Channel Islands. As a result, we are recognised as a major port by the Department for Transport and provide critical infrastructure. Cruise business has been growing progressively over the years, thanks to investments which help the port handle larger ships and more passengers. A modern terminal extension opened last year, creating a premium experience for customers, and there continues to be opportunity to capitalise on the city's unique waterfront location to entice more cruise lines. Underpinning this successful growth is an ambition and commitment to become one of the UK's leaders in port sustainability and achieve carbon neutral status by 2030, through industry-leading initiatives such as Sea Change, our shore power project which will go live in 2025. In addition to the travel and tourism market, Portsmouth City Council also owns Portico Shipping, Portsmouth's international terminal and logistics operator and one of the UK's largest fruit importers.

We really appreciate our employees and fully realise they are essential to our success and look to offer an inclusive, supportive working environment where employees can reach their potentials with a healthy work life balance, offering the following rewards:
• A generous pension scheme
• Up to 31 days annual leave per year pro rata + bank holidays
• A range of retail discounts via our reward portal offering discounts at retailers including IKEA, Currys, Tesco
• Free Access to Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and wellbeing support
• Access to a wide range of training and development opportunities including apprenticeships
• Potential to purchase additional annual leave
• Business travel support and initiatives, including bike loans