human-resource-guide

Stop hiring new administrative support staff. And learn how to retain your existing administrative staff.

Are you a manager, director or other senior-level personnel who wants to work more effectively with your administrative support professional? Did you know that partnering with your administrative assistants and executive assistants can actually help you to meet your professional goals at work? Would you like to know how to improve morale among your administrative support professionals and retain them as long-term employees? After all, isn’t it a lot more profitable to retain existing staff than to constantly hire, train and get along with new staff? Here are five ways to work more effectively with your current administrative support professionals starting now:

1. Assume that your administrative support professional doesn’t know what’s on your mind until you tell him. That’s the one assumption it’s okay to make in the office environment. Always remember that your administrative support professional is not a mind reader–no matter how in tune with your thoughts she or he may seem to be sometimes. It’s that one time that you “assume” when things will go awry in your work relationship.

2. Discuss your personal and professional goals. In order to be your partner, your administrative support professional needs to know who you want to be when. What do you personally want in your career? And what are you striving for on behalf of the company? These answers will affect your administrative professional’s duties. She wants to help you achieve your plans. Knowing these answers helps her to clarify the prioritization of tasks and situations that arise daily. She’ll focus on projects relevant to your goals first when possible. And she’ll know and pass along pieces of information she happens upon throughout the year that would be useful or of interest to you.

3. Discuss project expectations. When you’re giving an assignment, make sure your administrative professional precisely understands the expected project outcome. This means you will need to clarify the outcome in your head first and then clearly relay that expected outcome to your administrative professional. Clearly voicing the precise (or nearly precise) expected project outcome before it happens means no surprises upon project completion and efficient use of your time and that of your administrative professional. Precise communication prevents misinterpretation by both parties which can cause bad relationships and inappropriate work results. If the results aren’t what you asked for then maybe in actuality you didn’t quite ask for the results you wanted.

4. Have a daily briefing with your administrative support person. Meet daily whether either of you want to do so or not. This meeting forces communication to flow daily between you both, which is a good thing. And comfort levels with each other will rise. It could be a five minute meeting while standing. Or it could be a 10 minute meeting while seated that’s officially posted on the calendar to happen every day that you’re in the office at 9:00 a.m. Do what works best for you both. And make sure you’re uninterrupted during this time.

5. Support opportunities for your administrative professional to achieve certifications. For example, your administrative professional can become a Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) and a Certified Professional Secretary (CPS), both elite designations by administrative professional criteria. Encourage her or him to train and test for these titles as well as have your company pay the registration costs.

(c) 2005 Karen Fritscher-Porter

Karen Fritscher-Porter is the author of 87 Ways You Can Work More Effectively With Your Administrative Support Professional. She publishes The Effective Admin website and newsletter (http://www.admin-ezine.com). The bimonthly e-zine is distributed to 2,300+ administrative professionals globally to help them excel on the job and in their careers.

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You may think you don’t need to be creative. But creativity can help you do a better job of what you do. Just look at the military. Who would think that stand-up-straight-and-stick-the-gut-in military needed to be creative? All they do is follow orders - or so we think. But the US military was one of the first modern organizations to realize that innovation could help them. They organized an elite team to investigate innovative giants as well as all creative problem solving methods and techniques. They then applied these creativity techniques to “NATO military, intelligence and political problems,” getting inventive solutions to new as well as old dilemmas.

You may not think you need to do a better job of what you do. I can hear you thinking, “I’m sitting pretty - I don’t need to change. And besides, creativity is okay for strategy types like the military, or marketing people or - anyone but me.”

Right now you may be secure in your job. But will you be two years from now?

What if your job changes, or your market disappears? Change is happening at faster than lightening speed now. Will you have the resiliance to meet those challenges? Will your mind be flexible enough to tear the lid off that proverbial box and come up with new solutions to new problems?

Being innovative can be a smart move. Doing a better job of what you do makes you look better to your supervisors. And it also makes you feel more fulfilled and satisfied. Those are two very good reasons for cultivating creativity in your job.

But what exactly is creativity? According to Michael Michalko, one of the world’s leading experts in the field, creative people are those who come up with more ideas in a shorter space of time. They had more good ideas. But they also had more BAD ideas. The key is generating ideas quickly. Out of this wealth of ideas will spring some that better solve your problem in new and exciting ways.

Let’s look at this in another way - let’s draw a picture of creativity. Imagine two people, Joe Average and Cathy Creative. They work in the same department of a large telecommunications firm. And they both have problems they need to find a solution for.

Joe Average holds his idea gun and slowly moves towards his problem. He carefully takes aim and holds his breath. Then he squeezes the trigger. He hits, slightly off target. But he breathes a deep sigh of relief because he hit what he was aiming at. And he puts his idea gun away.

Cathy Creative, on the other hand, has a idea machine gun. As soon as she sees the problem, she throws her machine gun in the direction of the target, presses the trigger, and sprays ideas all over the place. Some hit; some don’t. Some are far off target - actually hitting the ceiling and the floor. But ten are close to dead centre.

More ideas and better ideas - that’s something that can help any person in any job. After all, who doesn’t have problems to solve? Everyone benefits from being creative. And, fortunately, being creative, or coming up with more ideas and better ideas, is something YOU can learn.

About the Author

Jean V. Dickson helps organizations learn how to come up with more (and better) solutions to their business challenges. She loves showing them that more and better doesn’t take longer - that we just think it does. Using proven
creativity techniques allows us to become more productive, better employees.

Learn how to become a better thinker and problem solver. Check out Jean’s website, JVD Creativity Consulting, at http://www.jvdcreativity.com.

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Your organization’s continued growth and success depend on making smart choices and hiring the best. Today’s economy is exploding with talent, allowing you to be selective about the staff you hire. Yet, the crucial step to filling a position is finding the right talent for your organization - someone that has the skills for the job, easily blends with the culture, interacts well with the team and believes in your mission.

In his best seller, Good to Great, Jim Collins writes, “In the good-to-great transformation, people are not your most important asset. The right people are.”

To help you learn how to hire the best, it is important to learn about effective hiring and selection skills. Conducting a job interview looks easier than it is. And that’s the problem. According to studies based on the employment records of thousands of management and line employees, little or no correlation exists between the positive reports that emerge from the typical job interview and the job performance of the candidates who receive those glowing reports. However, this correlation goes up dramatically whenever interviewing becomes a structured, well-planned process - one that’s integrated into an organization’s overall staffing practices.

Over the years, I have conducted numerous interviews and trained even more managers on effective interviewing and selection techniques. And I have gone on dozens of interviews. How the interview is conducted tells me a lot about how the company operates and the position.

If you are the one doing the interviewing, effective interviewing and selection needs to be a structured, well-planned process. Here are a few tips to get you started.

Before the interview:

Know what you need. You can easily miss this step because you’ve got other responsibilities. Determine the key competencies required before you interview. If you are hiring someone in sales, for instance, create questions that will tell you whether the person has good interpersonal and organizational skills.

Advertise the position. Don’t just advertise in your local newspaper - cast your net even further!

Look at what works. What personality traits make someone a good fit for your culture? Is your organization laid back or formal? Do people work 9-5 or round the clock? Ask questions that will help you determine whether the candidate will adapt well to your organization’s culture.

Schedule multiple interviews. Conduct 15-minute telephone interviews to screen out inappropriate candidates. Have key people, those who will be working with the candidate, interview the top candidates, and ask for their feedback.

During the interview:

Ask the right questions. Dig deep to find out whether a person is more comfortable with details or the big picture; is a self-starter or an order-taker. Create questions that will give you the answers you need. If time management skills are required for instance, you might want to ask, “What is your method for organizing your day?” Compare what each candidate says to determine who is strongest in this area.

Close your mouth and open your ears. Too often interviewers turn an interview into a grocery list of their wants and needs. Ask focused questions and then listen carefully. Take notes.

Go with your gut. . If you did your homework - that is, determined the key job requirements and asked questions that would ascertain the skills required - the hiring decision should be a natural next step. Sometimes, however, you can’t put into words why someone is or is not clicking with you. If you aren’t sure whether to trust your intuition, delay the decision for a day or two.

Here’s a final tip. After conducing all the interviews, I recommend that you use a simple grid to help choose the best candidate. Simply put the names of each candidate horizontally and put the job requirements or key competencies vertically. Then make up a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest rating. Rate each candidate from 1 to 5 on each of the job requirements or competencies. The person with the highest ratings is probably your best choice.

Above all else, consider input from each of the interviewers and trust your collective judgment. Put aside any and all stereotypes and select the best person for the job.

About The Author

Judith Lindenberger MBA has a distinguished career in human resources consulting and is recognized for her innovation and excellence. The Lindenberger Group, LLC provides results-oriented human resources consulting, organization development, customized training workshops and personal career training to help individuals and organizations improve their productivity and performance. The Lindenberger Group is a two-time recipient of The Athena Award for Excellence in Mentoring. Contact them at 609.730.1049 or info@lindenbergergroup.com or www.lindenbergergroup.com

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