reward and recognition within the assistant industry
TRANSCRIPT
This session was actually crowd sourced by the Prac4cally Perfect PA readers. We conducted a survey last year and one of the ques4ons asked what session would the readers like to see at a conference. We had a lot of responses around the area of recogni4on for the work that assistants do and the lack of reward. I wrote a blog about this a few weeks ago and shared some of the responses to that ques4on. To be honest it was pre@y depressing – yes we did receive replies that simply stated ‘ I love my job’ but on the whole assistants felt undervalued. So out of that survey this session was born. I want to look at the assistant industry as a whole and talk about the various reasons why we are not recognized or rewarded and then I want to finish on a posi4ve note and look at what we can do to change this!
1
I want to start by saying the return on investment from assistants is substan4al Melba Duncan in her now widely referenced and widely excepted ar4cle – The Case for Execu4ve Assistants published in the Harvard Business Review said this: Consider a senior execu.ve whose total compensa.on package is $1 million annually, who works with an assistant who earns $80,000. For the organiza.on to break even, the assistant must make the execu.ve 8% more produc.ve than he or she would be working solo—for instance, the assistant needs to save the execu.ve roughly five hours in a 60-‐hour workweek. In reality, good assistants save their bosses much more than that. This is an incredibly powerful statement. The fact is that 4me certainly equals money when it comes to our return on investment but it doesn’t end there.
2
We give our companies and our execu4ves, who are oUen unapproachable and disconnected with the rest of the staff, a human face. We know what is happening before it happens; we are able to solve problems and create a calm environment We manage our execu4ves; we understand the needs of the company and we manage complicated tasks. We don’t carry much cost – par4cularly when it comes to training us up. The very best assistants have learnt on the job and have learnt by their mistakes. So for me it goes without saying that our role is indispensable. We save our bosses 4me, which enables them to be more produc4ve which in turn, makes the organisa4on more money. All of this translates into a monetary value and should therefore appear somewhere in our remunera4on packages.
3
It’s not just me saying this either – in a survey conducted back 2013 in by the Office Team in the States 94% of senior Execu4ve said their assistant was important to their success at work with 44% saying their assistant’s contribu4ons were ‘very important ‘ and 50% saying they were ‘somewhat important’. So we know how hard we work. We know that our contribu4ons have a monetary value. Our senior execu4ves know we help them achieve success – so what’s the problem – why do we even have a session on recogni4on and reward? Because we don’t feel it and we are not treated in the same way as other professions with those creden4als.
4
According to the 2014 Na4onal PA survey conducted by the Office Show 78% of those that answered the survey felt that being a PA is undervalued as a professional career choice. 44% said they felt slightly underpaid and 51% said they didn’t feel confident asking for career development budget. These are not great sta4s4cs are they? But I doubt many of us in this room are surprised as we have been grappling with this problem since office work began and the typing pool was invented. So what are the reasons we feel so undervalued? Before I give you a few examples that I’ve experienced can you please discuss with the person next to you if these sta4s4c resonate with you. Do you feel adequately recognised and rewarded and if not, why? Here are my examples:
5
The old fashioned view of the secretary or the ‘mad men stereotype’ – yup this is really common and despite dropping the job 4tle something we s4ll have to deal with
6
Billable staff receive reward and recogni4on. Support staff do not. By billable staff I mean for example if you work in a law firm it’s the lawyers if you work in insurance it’s the brokers. I used to work in insurance and also for an accountancy firm so I’ve heard this one a lot over the years and I must say it really annoys me!
7
Your execu4ve likes the way things work and doesn't’t want to let you go. Some people enjoy the status quo and Execu4ves are no different. Why promote an assistant who is making your life a whole lot easier?
8
There is no career development structure in place for assistants. Again this is fairly common. This made me want to put the need for assistants to put their career development at the centre of everything they do and will be discussed throughout the day. Assistants are not men4oned in succession plans, they work in organisa4ons that have development in place for the majority of staff but not admini staff and they oUen don’t have appraisals or job descrip4ons.
9
There is too much structure in place with competency models that don’t reflect your role. For most professionals having a lot of structure and support from their organisa4on is a good thing. They know what to expect if they work hard – eventually they will move through the grades and with it will come their rewards. How different is this for assistants. These structures don’t reflect our tradi4onal career path and can stop us moving beyond our ‘grade’ without a substan4al job change.
10
And last but not least good old fashioned gender poli4cs. I once heard Lucy Brazier say that one of the challenges we face is that most assistants are female and work in care giving type roles – so nursing, teaching etc. This image of females as care givers can stop us being seen as professionals. Over your career how many 4mes have you been referred to as the office wife? I know I have…
11
As much as I would love to put the world to rights on some of these issues I only have 30-‐minute presenta4on and I think we will flesh out some of these issues during the course of the day. But I think we are all in agreement that something has to change. The industry has to change because 78% of assistants feeling they are undervalued not personally but as a profession is too high. So I am going to focus on one area that we can all improve and that is ourselves as individuals. What can we change in our day to day role that will help us feel more recognised and hopefully rewarded? I just want to say these 4ps will make you be@er at your job but I’m not telling you these things because I want you to support your boss be@er or think about the needs of the organisa4on – that is really a bi-‐product. I’m giving you this advice because it is going to help you! I’m selfish like that – and I make no apologies for it!
12
So using the assist conference themes I am going to give you some examples of how you can firstly change your own behaviour to enable you to gain more reward and recogni4on.
13
If you don’t ask you don’t get. Now for me personally I find this really hard. I was very much brought up by parents who thought children should “wait un4l they are asked.” This mantra was so heavily ins4lled in me that I never really asked for anything un4l I realised, probably in my mid 20s, that this approach to life wasn’t doing me any favours. It certainly wasn’t doing my career any good. I would wait to be asked to work on projects or take on extra work – assuming if I worked hard in the back ground that eventually my dedica4on would be no4ce and rewarded. It very rarely was. So my first point is look at your own behaviour – what do you want to achieve in this role and in this organisa4on. Could you be a li@le more vocal about your development and your skill set. How oUen do you put your hand up for work and how oUen do you talk about your career goal. Also don’t make any assump4ons that you know what your boss is expec4ng from you or your career development. You need to find out what their expecta4ons are for your future. This is really fundamental because if if your expecta4ons do not align with their expecta4ons both of you will have to change for your rela4onship to work.
14
The next theme is around proac4vity. Let’s now look at how you can be more proac4ve in order to gain reward and recogni4on.
15
I love the “show and tell” element of American educa4on. They have show and tell from an early age where they come in front of their peers and tell them about their passions. We need to adopt a ‘show and tell’ antude in this industry, because we are too busy genng on with the job and not sharing our achievements. I used to get really frustrated that one of my bosses didn’t know what I was doing all day. She really didn’t and when it came to appraisals we would have these really short conversa4ons along the lines of ‘well I think this year has gone well. You’?’ and I would say’ yes, it’s been good’ and then we would inevitably talk about what needed to happen the following day. When I took a step back I understood that my boss was incredibly busy, she had her own problems and wasn’t going to be able to give me a decent appraisal or recognise my achievements without me telling her. I started sending my boss weekly emails detailing what I had achieved that week. The email wasn’t par4cularly sales-‐y but I did make sure that I put down everything that I knew would impress her. Ini4ally I don’t think she quite knew how to respond to these emails – in fact she didn't’t respond at all. But over 4me I no4ced she had obviously been reading them because in our daily catch up sessions she would know what I was doing as much as I knew what she was doing. She also started to ask if I wanted to get involved in projects that before she never would have men4oned. She began to realise how much I did, how capable I was and ul4mately it made a huge difference. What I learnt from this was that good work doesn’t always speak for itself so you have to speak up for it!
16
Another area that will help you gain recogni4on is if you can get your work in front of the right people. I good place to start is by volunteering your services on a really visible project. In my last role as an EA a group of colleagues including my boss decided to do mo-‐vember. As my boss, the COO was the most senior member of staff doing mo-‐vember he volunteered me (as they do) to co-‐ordinate the efforts. We made a ton of money for charity and held a party aUerwards to celebrate. During the party everyone was telling my boss how great it was and how everyone in the office had come together to support the guys. My boss was wondering how we could build on this momentum so I suggested we start a charity commi@ee (well pinched the idea from another employer) and I offered to head up the commi@ee knowing it was a very visible role. He sponsored the commi@ee and volunteered a few more members of staff and over the next year we did a number of fundraisers and events which I was right at the centre of. So as I said it is important to make yourself visible but it is also important that you make yourself visible to the right people.
17
The underlying theme of the conference is punng your career goals at the centre of everything you do. One of the benefits that does come out of being properly recognised and reward is that organisa4on’s tend to see their staff as an investment. If we are not seen as an investment then we have to see ourselves as one. That is why it is so important to keep your career goals at the front of your mind and constantly work on how you are going to achieve your objec4ves. You need to know that it is okay to develop yourself and that you have to take 4me out of your busy schedule to develop your skills. Before I close I’ve got two more points on this theme.
18
My career development and reward – not necessarily recogni4on – has come from job-‐hopping. The longest job I had was just over 3 years. I was promoted in that role and would have stayed longer if I wasn’t made redundant. Other than that most of my jobs have lasted around 2 years because aUer two years I felt like I was no longer being challenged and had no further to go with that Execu4ve or in that company. This was quite frowned upon at the 4me and I always made sure I had an answer during interviews if my job hopping ever came up. I s4ll think it is without doubt the easiest way I found to progress my career and get a be@er salary and according to a recent survey it is much less frowned upon than it used to be and losing its s4gma with 57% of 18-‐34 year olds saying that changing jobs every few years can help careers (38% 25-‐54 year olds) *Accountemp. The reason I’m offering this as a bit of advise is because it sucks having a manager or working for a company that don’t invest in you and don’t take your career seriously. If you are in this situa4on you’ve got to ask yourself if trying something new within your organisa4on or in another organisa4on is maybe a good op4on.
19
A lot of the thought leaders in our industry are referring to us as ‘strategic business partners’. I agree with this approach if only because it moves us further away from the ‘secretary’ stereotype and towards a professional and well regarded part of the organisa4on. Also, I've always believed that your job 4tle shouldn't’ define you so even if you are regarded as ‘just the assistant’ it doesn’t mean you have to act that way. Think of yourself as a strategic business partner and the scope of opportuni4es really does open up for you.
20
To 4e everything together I want to ask the most important ques4on that you will be asked today and it is worth thinking about – do you see your current role as a career or is it just a job? Either answer is fine, you just need to know but this impacts everything you do. In my early career I definitely just had a job but once I realised I wanted to move on up my outlook completely changed. There is a huge different between someone who has a job and someone who has a career. If you want to have a career you have to work at it – par4cularly in our industry.
21