New Skills
For Admins To Work Into Their Repertoires
Looking for
new skills to add to your résumé and make yourself more
promotable? Then take a glance around the office and see what
positions have been eliminated in the course of downsizing, or
what extra tasks managers have taken on in the last few years.
By honing these skills, you can add value to your current
position, free your manager to focus on duties only he or she
can perform, and set
yourself up for a possible career upgrade.
Coordinate
leasing arrangements. Volunteer to review new and ongoing
leases; make recommendations for cost savings; be in charge of
negotiating the lease contract; monitor maintenance and
repairs; be the first to learn about new features and
upgrades; train staff on equipment subtleties.
Manage
facility functions. Be the person who schedules rooms,
equipment, and office functions; evaluate and order new
furniture and equipment, such as audio- and video-conferencing
technologies; coordinate outside catering; set up audio and
video conferences and know how to troubleshoot the equipment;
compile a list of resources, such as speakers, facilitators,
and communication providers; look for ways to reduce meeting
expenses.
Become
proficient in desktop publishing. Save money by creating more
in-house designs and templates; create an inexpensive
e-newsletter for customers and employees; learn Microsoft
FrontPage or other Web site development software to maintain,
upgrade, and import information to the company’s web site;
know how to graphically display data to create interest and
readability for reports and presentations.
Apply
library science to information storage and retrieval. Become
the person who can integrate information so that it is
accessible by usage and implications; use computer functions
to creatively arrange and retrieve text and data by subject
matter, names of individuals, dates, company citation, etc.;
know the company goals to better understand which information
is essential and how to interrelate it for novel and future
uses; keep an eye out for serendipitous links.
Establish a
mini-call center. Prepare a list of frequently asked questions
and answers that can be programmed into the telephone and
e-mailed to inquiries to save employees time and hassle; start
a knowledge-based succession plan to capture the experience
and talents of employees before information is lost through
retirement and resignations – this can be a bulletin board
where questions and answers are shared internally and stored
for later retrieval by other employees facing the same
circumstances; become the chief knowledge officer for your
company.
Think of new
tasks that need to be performed to save time, money, and energy.
Develop the skills to put these saving techniques into effects
to create a new role that will set you up to be noticed,
appreciated, and hopefully rewarded.
--Education and
Professional Development Department, International Association
of Administrative Professionals
