Recognition
Aging is a fact of life, but these days you can find plenty of ways to conceal its harsher effects on our appearance. Should you take advantage of these techniques?
A big thanks to everyone who participated in our Administrative Professionals Week celebration! We’re delighted we could give you a little something here and there as a tribute to everything you do. Here are the winning responses—and just a few of our other favorites—to our Tuesday survey!
Executive assistant, administrative assistant or secretary—whatever the title, you are the ones who keep America’s offices running, even though you’ve taken on more and more work as budgets shrink.
In an OfficeTeam and IAAP survey, managers were asked: “What impact, if any, has the economy had on your company’s employee recognition efforts?”
In Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton’s book The Orange Revolution, they offer low-cost ideas for sparking or rewarding employee engagement:
Is having birthday cake in the break room becoming a bit stale? Break out of the rut when it comes to celebrating staffers’ birthdays with these ideas:
Food & Friends has a low turnover rate (more than 70% of employees having been with the nonprofit for at least five years). Among the firm’s retention strategies: “Kudos” are read at weekly staff meetings.
Protect your job—or set yourself up for a promotion—by communicating your quantifiable on-the-job results at a moment’s notice. Warm up with this exercise:
Being a stellar admin requires the skills of a mind-reader. So it was a boon recently when admins heard two executives speak candidly at the 18th Annual Conference for Administrative Excellence about the administrative profession.
Is it a problem when your boss takes credit for your ideas? Peter Handal, CEO of Dale Carnegie Training, says “no.” Making your boss look smart to higher-ups, says Handal, and having your boss depend on you for good suggestions—“is certainly not going to do you any harm.”
Janie used to wear a ponytail to work, along with scant makeup, khakis, sweaters and loafers. Then a “Power of Image” workshop changed how she presented herself. Now, when she shares her ideas with senior managers, they listen and buy in to what she’s saying.
One admin wrote: “Our company just reorganized and changed our job titles from administrative assistant to ‘office assistant.’ None of the job functions changed. I feel demoted. Should we go to our manager and speak to him about our displeasure or just be quiet and not say a thing?”
To stand out in a competitive workplace, you have to do the workaday equivalent of juggling with fire—say, swooping in to save a crucial project just in the nick of time—while streamlining a dozen different processes and keeping your boss on schedule. Right? Actually, little things may make a disproportionately big impact.
