Assistant To Unit Head, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

## Assistant To Unit Head, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Organization:WHO - World Health Organization - Office:WHO GSC Kuala Lumpur Assistant To Unit Head Contractual Arrangement : Fixed-term appointment Contract Duration (Years, Months, Days) : 2 years, renewable subject to satisfactory performance and continuing need for the post Job Posting: Aug 19, 2026, 12:23:49 AM The Information and Digital Technology (IDT) department manages and advances WHO's digital ecosystem, empowering WHO through harmonized, intelligent, user-centric and secure digital solutions. IDT envision a digitally transformed WHO, driven by modern, innovative platforms and services tailored to evolving needs; enabling seamless collaboration, data-informed decisions, and operational excellence. The department's core functions span infrastructure and cloud services, ensuring reliable and scalable systems; cybersecurity, safeguarding WHO's information assets; the advancement of data and artificial intelligence, enabling smarter insights and decision-making; a digital workplace that supports collaboration and productivity through modern tools; and applications and enterprise systems to streamline business processes. The department also provides user support, drives digital enablement to foster adoption of novel technologies, and ensures through its project management office and business relations that IT initiatives are harmonized with organizational needs. DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES Within the delegated authority, the incumbent is assigned all or part of the following responsibilities: - Oversee and monitor the information flow of the office of the Unit Head, screening, sorting, analysing and identifying areas requiring action by the Head. - Ensure effective and timely follow up on requests for information, briefings and other actions, emanating from the office of the Unit Head, liaising with units/teams, as appropriate. - Receive visitors and telephone calls with tact and discretion and acts according to the nature and urgency of each, including redirecting as appropriate. Provide background information for appointments with official visitors and/or staff members. - Maintain the agenda and calendar by scheduling meetings and/or rescheduling owing to disruption by unforeseen events, redirects visitors and callers as necessary. - Disseminate information on administrative procedures to General Service (GS) staff in the team/department and assist staff of in adhering to WHO administrative procedures. - Monitor requests for goods and services, including receipt, payment and inventory requirements. - Coordinate and monitor office space requirements in liaison with relevant units as required. - Draft general or administrative correspondence on own initiative or on the basis of instructions; finalize correspondence/reports for signature/clearance. - Verify that outgoing correspondence is presented in accordance with WHO and department styles and checking language, grammar and accuracy prior to submitting for signature and clearance. - Analyze incoming correspondence and requests in the light of background material, instructions, policies and precedents, researching, obtaining and attaching background information in anticipation of the responsible officer's needs, or redirecting them as appropriate; identify and highlight incoming documents and attach background information and identify areas requiring action by professional staff, drawing their attention to specific items. - Ensure that technical reports and documents are in line with WHO standards, rules, practices and procedures, editing and correcting them as necessary prior to their submission for signature or clearance of relevant authority. - Using appropriate tracking tools, follow-up on and ensure that target dates and deadlines are met, and that correspondence and queries are responded to in a timely manner. - Ensure the timely appointment/renewal of contracts, initiating requests for temporary and fixed-term staff in the HR Action Plan. - Initiate, through Oracle/GSM procurement module, contracts for Consultants, Agreements for Performance of Work (APW), and other contract modalities. Monitor and record receipt of deliverables, and initiate and monitor payments as needed. - Initiate, through Oracle/GSM procurement module, requisitions for goods procurement, and monitor and receipt of deliverables. - Assists in the monitoring and progress review of projects and tasks in the GSM/Oracle work plan. - Provides Coordinator/Director with timely budget information on project and task budget ceilings, award budgets, expenditure, and funds available, as required. - Monitors income and expenditures for planning purposes. - Promptly follows-up on financial, budgetary and any outstanding issues concerning the team/department, including ensuring timely processing of committal documents. - Assists in the preparation of financial and technical progress reports to donors. - INFORMATION MANAGEMENT - In close collaboration with other support staff, create and/or maintain filing systems; continual review of filing system to ensure information is up to date and effectively and efficiently used. - Obtain documents and information from in-house and external sources as required; perform information searches (library, internet) as requested. - Coordinate compilation of technical documents requested of and provided by professional staff, other Departments or Programmes or ADG to ensure they are logically compiled, formatted and assembled to facilitate the work of the Unit Head. - MEETING ADMINISTRATION - Arrange, coordinate and lead administrative preparation for meetings, seminars, workshops, including: preparing event plans in GSM/Oracle, letters of invitation, cost estimates and travel requests; assisting with preparation of documents; dispatching of materials and liaising with participants and others involved. - Prepare presentations using PowerPoint and other software packages on own initiative or on the basis of instructions. - Schedule team/departmental meetings, according to schedules and need; taking minutes and following up on action points to ensure timely response to the requests of the Director and preparation of minutes. - Obtain briefing and background materials for meetings, seminars, workshops, etc. to be attended by the team's professional staff, checking their availability and ensuring they have the appropriate briefing files and documents. - Using GSM/Oracle, prepare travel requests for official WHO travel. Make flight and hotel reservations, prepare travel files and deal with other related matters as requested or on own initiative. - Perform other related duties as required or instructed, including providing support to other areas of work. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS Essential: Completion of secondary school education or equivalent. Desirable: Secretarial training which has provided a sound grounding, preferably in an international organization. Essential: A minimum of 5 years of experience in secretarial or administrative positions, or 4 years with first-level university degree or, 3 years with an advanced university degree. Desirable: Relevant experience in WHO or another UN agency an asset. Experience in Oracle-based or other ERP systems an asset. - Strong skills to work independently. - Strong organization and office skills, as well as skills in note taking and minute writing. - Sound knowledge and skills using a variety of office and computer packages. - Sound knowledge of WHO and/or UN administrative rules and regulations, procedures and practices. - The ability to multitask and work under pressure. - The ability to exercise discretion at all times in judging the importance, urgency and confidential nature various issues and tact when dealing with staff and external partners. - Respecting and promoting individual and cultural differences Use of Language Skills Essential: Expert knowledge of English. Desirable: Intermediate knowledge of Fre