Executive Assitant Responsibilities

EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT RESPONSIBILITIES AND SKILLS

Introduction

Organisations achieve their goals and objectives through co-ordination and efforts of all the members in the organisation. Management is a fundamental activity which is performed at not only in business organisations, but in ones day to day life. Within an organisation you can find an executive assistant busy with day to day schedules for his CEO and ED. It is important to understand that the role of an executive assistant has no limits and his work is required even if shift is over. Being an executive assistant it is also important to perform all the management activities that is performed at all managerial levels like planning, organising, command, control and co-ordination. An executive assistant is also required to follow the fourteen principles laid down by Fayol.

Job description

An executive assistant is considered as the epicentre of the various managerial works that are under the senior management executives. He / She holds a key role in the management of an organization by giving a supporting hand to the executive managers. An executive assistant is bound to carry out numerous executive and administration responsibilities and of the areas include office management, customer handling, supervisory task, library management, supervisory task, etc.

An ideal executive will be responsible to undertake few principle responsibilities like :

* Liaisoning

* Communication

* Scheduling

* Travel Arrangement

* Administration

The candidate will also be required to handle administrative tasks which have been assigned by the executive team and management. As per demand of the work and requirements, an executive is required to work with or without supervision and should be a disciplined person with flexibilities in the approach towards work. It is also considered to be an asset to the organisation if the person is equipped with multitasking and interpersonal skills and at the same time should be a good team player and should see that his whole team work never subsides while fulfilling his responsibilities (Mullins, 2010) The key features of an executive assistant includes interacting with staff at all levels of the work and should have a proactive approach to the work with load of professionalism and honesty. Time constraints, working under pressure and excellent written and verbal communication is prerequisites for this role (John, 2012).

Required Skills

Apart from these responsibilities an executive assistant should possess certain critical skills and job complexity. This includes:

* Good communication and interpersonal skills

* Ability to communicate professionally and effectively with internal and external associates.

* Proficient use with MS office and should plan, schedule and organize work flow and should handle international and domestic air bookings and also confirm hotel accommodation if necessary.

* Relationship management and ability to follow work assignments.

The core skills can be broken down as follows for easy understanding (France 2009):

A. Arranging and Managing meetings/ Diary Management:

Organising meeting of different size groups which includes staffs, clients and guests; is considered as one of the main roles of an assistant. An efficiently organised and executed meeting is not only critical for boss's or company's success, but success of oneself. There are plenty of reasons for meetings like problem solving, decision making, launch of new product, seminar or conference. For a meeting to be successful it is necessary to be prepared and planned in advance to avoid confusions. The need for meeting is based on the objectives to be met and it is important to prepare checklist for meetings. Checklist includes the budget, attendance, agenda, documentation, liaison with attendees, bookings, venues, equipment, entertainment, security, reception, signage, refreshments, flexibility, events team and finally training. An executive assistant should convince his superior the purpose of the meeting and what is to be achieved. It requires to co-ordinate regular and irregular meetings for CEO and ED, distribute papers prior to meetings, ensure all materials are prepared in a timely manner, produce and distribute minutes and finally arrange refreshments for meetings. He is responsible for management of diaries for CEO and Ed, arranging meetings, keep diaries up-to-date and ensure customer relationship management system is up to date at all times.

B. Travel management: This includes all aspects of travel for field trips for staff members creating comprehensive travel packages, assist with travel for non staff-members and finally arrange visas when and as required.

C. General Administration: In this responsibility, one has to produce orders and payment requests as required, implement and maintain an efficient filing system for CEO and ED, to be the first point of contact for any telephone enquiries, to be first point of contact for visitors and provide support where necessary.

D. Communication Skills: Interpersonal communication skills or subconscious and conscious skills are supreme in order to build trusting, powerful and mutually successful relationships. In situations where you can build first impressions, communication is vital. First impressions can be created while on:

* business conferences;

* giving presentations;

* e-mails;

* social occasions;

* meetings;

* networking.

Manage own emails and at the same time, review CEO and ED's mails and deal with correspondence. Communication can be Verbal or non-verbal. Also this skills require body language; which is a non-verbal communication and improves upon practise and includes Congruence which means facial expression, eye contact and posture. If bosses message is not properly understood due to incongruence, then ask questions and clarify. Visual, auditory and kinaesthetic are other communication skill which come under neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). When people talk and show signs of thinking and says things like ' can you see what I mean', ' I get the picture', there are