Travel Assistant at International Rescue Committee (IRC)

Job Description
Background/IRC Summary:  

• The International Rescue Committee, one of the world’s largest humanitarian agencies, provides relief, rehabilitation and post-conflict reconstruction support to victims of natural disaster, oppression and violent conflict in over 40 countries.
• The IRC is committed to bold leadership, innovation and creative partnerships. Active in public health, education, livelihoods, women's empowerment, youth development, and protection and promotion of rights, IRC assists people from harm to home.
• IRC entered Nigeria in October 2012 in response to a widespread flood disaster. Since then, the IRC has expanded its scope and size of the programs as new areas became accessible after prolonged conflict and insecurity, in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States.
• The IRC’s response to the humanitarian situation includes integrated health and nutrition services, reproductive health care and women protection services, Environmental Health, Child Protection, Economic Recovery and Development, Education and General Protection. The country program has a five year strategy action plan, 2015 to 2020, that is reviewed on an annual basis. IRC’s programming in Northeast Nigeria is supported by a team of more than 650 staff 

Scope of Work

• The Travel Assistant will assist the Travel Officer in all aspects of travel administration and supports IRC staff and visitors on travel services/bookings, visa and other related duties.

Bookings:

• Assist with booking of both local and international commercial flights for IRC staff and visitor through IRC registered travel agents.
• Responsible for UNHAS flight and cargo bookings.
• As part of UNHAS flight booking requirement, prepare introduction letters for IRC visitors and IRC staff without ID cards.
• Assist with booking of hotel accommodation for IRC staff and visitors in Abuja.

Payment and Reconciliation:

• Processing payments of both local and international flight tickets issued by travel agents.
• Assist with the reconciliation of payments processed to finance on a weekly basis.
• Reconciliation of UNHAS prepayment account and processing of replenishment after reaching spending/booking limit.

Movement Plan:

• Compile movement plan on daily basis (to cover weekends and holidays) and share with Supply Chain Focal Person by 3pm.

Tracking and Reporting:

• To update trackers for all commercial flight bookings, and UNHAS bookings and Store same on Box.
• To update the payment tracker on a weekly basis. (This includes the traveler's name, invoice receipt date, travel route, invoice number, and date sent to finance.)
• Using reporting journal, send monthly report on UNHAS bookings to Finance.

Compliance:

• Ensure that all travel request documents comply to travel SOPs before booking and flag up any compliance concerns to the Travel Officer.
• Ensure that bookings are done in line with IRC Airline policies.
• Ensure that the regional and global travel agents comply with the Service Level Agreement (SLA) and country agreement especially on service charges and exchange rates.

Other Duties:

• Any other duty as may be assigned by Supervisor.
• Position Reports to: Travel Officer
• Other Internal and/or external contacts.
• Internal: IRC Staff and Visitors
• External: UNHAS, Hotels, Embassies and Travel Agents

Qualifications
Education and Work Experience:

• Bachelor Degree in relevant field.
• Administrative & Logistics/Supply Chain qualifications highly desirable.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Prior experience of travel services & bookings, domestic and international flights desirable
• Computer literacy to enable updating of computerized databases and tracking sheets
• Good organizational skills and ability to manage multiple tasks and competing workloads
• Knowledge of IRC systems and processes an advantage
• Ability to adapt to changing work system and processes
• Ability to work under pressure with  minimum supervision
• Ability to work as part of a team and provide superior customer services.