Position: Project Officer Help Kent - Boost Your Business programme

Position: Project Officer Help Kent - Boost Your Business programme

(Helping Hands)

Type: Part-time temporary contract (August 2022 to July 2024), 22.5hrs a week

Reports to: Business Development (BD) Manager

Salary: 0.6FTE @£35,000 gross pro rata (£21,000 gross)

Location: Office/Home-based

Start date: 1 August 2022

Purpose of the Job

Produced in Kent (PINK) is seeking to appoint a Project Officer who will assist PINK’s team with the recruitment and onboarding of 125 Kent & Medway-based food and drink businesses onto the Helping Hands-funded Help Kent - Boost Your Business Programme, a 2-year project aiming to support non-member food and drink businesses through the continued challenges they face.

The Help Kent - Boost Your Business Programme follows on from the success of the Help Kent Buy Local Covid response programme and helps businesses to amplify their marketing activity, reach new customers and increase turnover, as well as access other available business advice and support.

Main duties and responsibilities

• HH Business Prospecting - together with the BD manager, seeking out and approaching prospect HH businesses, work to the target deadlines as set out in the HH agreement.

• HH Business Onboarding – of businesses who meet the HH eligibility criteria, conducting an intake interview, including company base data collection and an analysis of business needs, and enrolling them onto marketing channels
• Website admin – updating HH business profiles, adding content to the member area.
• Content creation support – helping create content for the bulletin
• Social media support– re-active activity such as commenting, sharing, liking posts etc.

• Event coordination – together with the BD Manager, organizing the annual Boost Your Marketing event
• Maintaining the HH database, ensuring that all information is up-to-date.
• Creating monthly project reports, using the database information.
• Offering generic project admin support as required

The project officer will form part of a small and close-knit team and will as such assist with general duties as and when required.

The following outlines the criteria for this post. We always carry out shortlisting, interviewing and selection without regard to an applicant's sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital or civil partnership status, skin colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origins, religion or belief, age, pregnancy or maternity leave or trade union membership.

	CRITERIA
QUALIFICATIONS	No specific qualifications but a clear commitment to further personal and professional development when required.
EXPERIENCE	Demonstrable experience in customer relations. Experience of working in a team on a project or activity to a deadline, interacting with other stakeholders. Project management experience including managing project budgets and reporting on progress against targets essential. Event management experience desirable but not essential. Experience of working with small businesses in the food and drink sector not essential but a definite advantage.
SKILLS AND ABILITIES	A Can-Do attitude and positive approach to challenges. Excellent customer care and communication skills. Good organizational and time management skills. Ability to work independently and to tight deadlines. Ability to think creatively and make suggestions for new ways of marketing Produced in Kent’s HH project offer. Strong level of IT skills including the ability to use Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook). Confidence with new software (Trello/hootsuite/craft etc). Commitment to diversity in all aspects of work. Ability to travel to the Produced in Kent office in Ashford.
BEHAVIOURS	Accepting differences, being sensitive to someone’s needs and adjusting accordingly. Keen to work with a range of people and organisations to develop lasting partnerships to achieve common goals. Entrepreneurial attitude to seek out innovative solutions and adapt to change when needed.

To apply for the position, please send your CV plus a cover letter explaining why you are the ideal candidate for the position to: info@producedinkent.co.uk latest by midnight on 22 July 2022. Interviews are planned for the week starting 25 July 2022.

Who is Produced in Kent?

Produced in Kent, established in 2005, is the County’s representative body of the local independent food and drink sector, working on behalf of 280+ growers, producers, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and hospitality businesses – ranging from SMEs to larger companies trading locally, nationally and internationally. The Kent food and drink industry adds an estimated 2.6bln to the local economy.

Our core activities centre around sector advocacy, online (website, electronic newsletters, social media) and offline member promotion and campaigning for local sustainable food and drink, networking facilitation and technical business support provided through our industry and strategic partnerships with corporates, local professional services providers, educational institutions and community organisations. Produced in Kent’s annual Taste of Kent Awards is the county’s flagship event around local food and drink, celebrating the finest products Kent has to offer as well as the businesses behind them.

Throughout the pandemic, the Produced in Kent team (3.5FTE) has actively promoted and supported its members as well as the wider local independent food and drink industry, pushing the Buy Local message through its successful HelpKentBuyLocal , Support Your Local and ChangeOneThing campaigns, advocating on their behalf at district and county council level, measuring the business impact of Covid through surveys and round table discussions and developing tailored support packages with our industry and strategic partners.

Seizing the opportunity to set in motion a green recovery, we are putting sustainability at the core of our activities and member support, championing sustainable food and drink and helping our businesses operate in an environmentally and socially sustainable way. Throughout 2022, Produced in Kent is running the #FeelGood campaign, encouraging customers to treat themselves and support local, and #feelgood about it!