Administrative Professionals Day

Yesterday was Administrative Professionals Day (so Linked In reminded me)

I have very mixed feelings about this because while I am passionate about how good administration staff are the absolute back bone of any organization it can feel like tokenism or lip service.

The above poster for example is so patronizing.

I can see it means well but honestly no.  Coffee and cake and a wellbeing activity – great but they’ll still be overworked and underpaid and if someone needs to be reminded to thank me for what I do then I’d rather they didn’t bother thanks all the same.  Never mind the fact that they’ll still have all their work to do after coffee and cake and a wellbeing activity!

Don’t get me wrong, I was always a team player and regularly went above and beyond for my team and my execs and I truly appreciate the times I was genuinely thanked and appreciated.

A genuine thank you for a job well done is much more meaningful than a coffee and cake break once a year.

Admin staff should (like all staff) be valued and appreciated every day because they work hard every day – long hours, often the “boring” stuff that no one else wants to do, things that don’t really fit in the job description but can tagged under “and any other duties”. 

• Admin staff are the ones who set up and tidy up the meeting rooms, the ones who photocopy/scan/print/email all the papers for meetings that someone always forgets to bring with them

• Admin staff are the ones who wait “just ten minutes” (actually 45) for someone who has missed the deadline but has an absolutely essential paper that needs to go to the board.

• Admin staff come in early and leave late to make sure everything is done, they often have drop everything to deal with emergencies and fix things. 

• Admin staff are the ones who notice the diary clash no one else saw, we’re the ones who correct the typos and re-format the document so it looks better and of course admin staff are the ones who get blamed for an “administrative error” when something goes wrong. 

• Admin staff are often the first roles to be cut in re-structures because “anyone can do admin” until someone realizes that expenses are late being submitted, deadlines are being missed, the photocopier doesn't work and there’s no coffee left…..

With good admin everything runs better, smoother and quicker.

Without good admin everything falls apart.