Ask the Admin: Staying in Touch While Traveling
Lisa sent me the following e-mail:
Do you have any tips or advice for communicating daily, weekly or priority items when traveling for weeks at a time.
Thanks for your e-mail, Lisa. As it happens, I worked for 3 years for one boss who traveled almost 50% of his time, so I learned a great deal about [...]
Mentoring a Young Executive
At some point in your career, you are going to be working for someone who has never had an assistant before. One of the toughest, but most rewarding, jobs an Administrative or Executive Assistant can have is helping a young executive learn how to partner with an assistant.
Understanding the Need to Delegate
In my experience, new [...]
How To Really Be on Top of Things as an Administrative Assistant
What’s the chief characteristic of being a great Administrative or Executive Assistant? It’s knowing everything, or at least seeming like you do. The best assistants are those that can aptly handle managing the boss’s calendar, sorting his mail and screening her calls without having to always stop and ask for information or permissions. But how [...]
Managing Calendars Part 2: Scheduling More Than Meetings
In my last post, I talked about using discretion in scheduling meetings. Today, we’ll go into other ways to manage your boss’s calendar to increase his productivity.
Keep the Calendar More Full Than It Looks
Let’s face it. If there’s a blank spot on your boss’s calendar, someone’s going to want to schedule a meeting there. The higher [...]
Managing Calendars: More Ways to Keep the Boss More Productive
Last week we talked about helping the boss be more productive by properly screening calls. This week, let’s explore another way to help the boss be more productive: managing the calendar.
More Than Just Scheduling Meetings
“Managing the calendar,” you’re thinking. “Isn’t that just scheduling the boss’s meetings?” Well, scheduling meetings is just part of what it [...]
Screening Calls: How to Make Your Boss More Productive
For any administrative or executive assistant, you have one basic goal, making your boss more efficient and productive. That’s it. Everything you do during your workday should have this one basic goal behind it. One primary way to save your boss time and help her be more efficient is to properly screen [...]
Hourly vs Saleried: Are You Losing Money?
photo credit: Tracy O
If you are improperly classified as a salaried employee, you could be losing a lot of money.
In big corporations, whether you’re an hourly or salaried employee is usually a decided by HR in order to comply with labor laws. However, many small businesses don’t have an HR employee, much less a [...]
Perspective vs Prospective
photo credit: ellievanhoutte
In my career as an Administrative Assistant, I’ve seen some grammar mistakes that are fairly common: its vs. it’s, they’re vs. their, to vs. too. One mistake that I see all too frequently has always puzzled me. Perspective vs. Prospective.
This seems to be a fairly common mistake, and not just among the [...]
For the Boss: Keeping Your Personal Life Private
In this day of shared calendars, it can be hard to keep your personal life private. No matter how much you trust your administrative assistant, you just want to keep some things to yourself. If you use Microsoft Outlook, you don’t have to be afraid to share your calendars and tasks, because you [...]
