Career Options

Administrative assistants need to stay on top Take a letter, please. If you are under 30 you may not even recognize where this phrase comes from. COLLEEN CLARKE

[ 2006-04-12 ] Send to a friend Print

It has been a good number of years since a boss had the privilege of asking his "secretary" to take a letter or even type a letter. So if administrative assistants or executive assistants aren't typing letters any more, what are they up to?

We all know there are fewer support staff in companies today, and those that remain are not only incredibly busy but often subbing in for an absent manager or supervisor.

Want to know who selected your new phone system, purchased new office equipment or found a software trainer? Probably your boss's assistant.

Assistants today are on the front line of technology and personnel issues. Shorthand and dictaphones may have gone the way of the dodo bird, but these skills have been replaced with much more strategic and managerial related competencies.

Many assistants are the technology pioneers in their organizations, they are the infantry with their ears to the ground on personnel issues and they can make or break a company's reputation.

Needless to say assistants today are much more extensively educated. To stay up-to-date, they should constantly be on training courses and attending conferences such as the one the Canadian Management Centre puts on every year.

It is almost impossible to keep up-to-date with the changes in business today, but with conferences like the CMC 7th Administrative Professionals Conference on April 24-26 it is almost doable.

This year, AAs will hear what Gloria Steinem has to say about "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions" and experience a good motivational talk from two winners from The Amazing Race.

For soft skills you might want to catch my session on Networking or Improving Communication.

Another way for assistants to seek out new resources and to help them keep up to date is on the website www.admin istrative-assistants.com. This site was developed and maintained by assistants and offers everything from forums to questions and answers.

In April, offices throughout North America pay tribute -- or they had better pay tribute -- to the often-overworked, multi-tasking, under-appreciated, mega-talented administrative assistants.

If you want your company to stay on top or ever get to the top, it is the employees in the trenches who are going to take you or keep you there. Make sure they have the ammunition to do the job.

Colleen Clarke is a career specialist and corporate trainer and author of Networking - How to Creatively Tap Your People Resources

--www.colleenclarke.com

 1 

Send to a friend     Print