Onboarding Specialist - Travel - Senior Associate

Job description / Role

Line of Service
Internal Firm Services

Industry/Sector
Not Applicable

Specialism
IFS - Internal Firm Services - Other

Management Level
Senior Associate

Job Description & Summary

Position summary
• The Onboarding Travel Support Team sits within the Operations team and is responsible for the implementation/administration of travel activities for all new hired employees in the Middle East region.
• The Travel Support Team is responsible for setting, monitoring and continuously improving the firm's transportation processes but predominantly focusing on end to end travel support for our New Joiners in the ME firm.
• The Travel Support manages all day to day activities around visa requirements, flight tickets, hotel reservations and maintenance of quality data / reports.
• Responsible for welcoming newly hired employees and executing engagement plans throughout the onboarding journey related to Travel & logistics.
• Be the primary point of contact for the Onboarding HR team and newly hired (future) employees for all support related to their travel / logistics.
• Provide reporting and project updates to team lead or senior management.
• Prioritize and manage workload to meet critical deadlines.
• Act as a subject matter expert and make recommendations on how to improve process efficiency.
• Ensure compliance with all processes and maintain a high level of confidentiality at all times

Primary duties and responsibilities
Financial
• Supports day to day activities in light of the travel expense and travel approval principles, ensuring accurate reflection within the Travel Management System for all staff
• Drives and supports a culture of long-term saving on travel costs
• Tracking and upwards reporting of all savings made within the hotel travel team
• Works with Travel Onboarding Lead to drive cost efficiencies in processes
• Ensures payments are made for all hotel bookings in accordance with the firm's travel requirements and accurately billed to PwC legal entities.

Customer
• Responsible for day to day booking and delivery of flight, hotel and visa activities
• Provides first level response on hotel queries and escalates complex requests to the Travel Onboarding Lead.
• Monitors external service provision by vendors and flags service issues to the Travel Onboarding Lead as appropriate.
• Completes reviews and audits rates displayed within the firm's online booking system (KDS) and highlights errors or anomalies to the Travel Operations Lead as appropriate
• Works flexibility to accommodate peak times of travel e.g. busy season and graduate induction travel times

Internal Process
• Support reviews and recommendations to optimise travel spend including:
• Advance booking policies of flight tickets
• Hotel pricing alignment with market

Travel patterns
• Adhering to internal SLA to complete the individual Onboarding Travel Requests.
• Additional tasks as assigned by Travel Operations or Onboarding Travel Lead
• Promotes and enforces compliance of the firm's travel booking processes and procedures

Learning & Growth
• Adhere to policies and procedures
• Act as a key resource and liaison to other functional areas of the business, building cross-functional relationships as needed

Requirements

Knowledge, skills, and abilities
Education
• Bachelor's Degree
• Language
• Fluency in English required, proficiency in Arabic is an advantage

Overall Experience
• 1 to 2+ years of overall experience
• Specific Experience
• Experience in a travel management agency is an advantage.
• Knowledge and Skills
• Strong customer service orientation
• Organisation, thoroughness, eye for detail, time management skills and proactivity
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Good knowledge in computer skills and managing databases
• Ethical Conduct

About the Company

At PwC Middle East, we've set out an ambitious purpose and strive to live it everyday: to solve important problems and build trust in society.

We're a community of solvers that come together in unexpected ways to build trust and create sustained outcomes. We solve important problems, support one another as we grow, develop and build fulfilling careers.

PwC provides industry-focused services for public and private clients across Assurance and Audit, Deals, Consulting, Tax and Legal. We draw on our development legacy that brings together the collective experience of over 7,000 people in our region with offices across 12 countries to solve for tomorrow.

We're striving to consistently deliver innovative work that builds trust and delivers sustained outcomes. And we're proud of the strength that comes from all our different backgrounds and experiences and we value everyone's uniqueness. We thrive in uncertainty, operate with integrity and leverage the diverse perspectives of our teams.

If you're looking for a place that fuels your ambition to make a difference, that matches your curiosity with continuous learning opportunities and reimagines ways of working to enable you to lead a more balanced life, then you're a future PwCer.