Last week was Administrative Professionals week. I baked some cookies and brought them in on Wednesday. Everyone I encountered said the same thing, “Administrative Professionals week is this week??” Even though Administrative Professionals Week is one of the largest workplace observances, I’m guessing that many other people forgot, too.
If you forgot to thank your administrative professionals, you might consider an alternative. Of course I’m biased since I’m a corporate trainer, but I think that a gift of a 3-hour custom deskside training would be a great idea!
You can still give the gift of training this week. It is not too late. I can imagine that any administrative assistant would really love some time to ask a trainer sitting right beside them at their desk some questions about Microsoft Office or other software.
Since I am a trainer, I’ve given that gift myself. I have sat down many times at one of our administrative professionals desks to help them through a problem or issue they have encourtered. However, most administrative professionals do not have that opportunity. They have a whole laundry list of questions that they would love some help to answer.
When I was working with one person, she showed me the steps she did each day when she received a database file that had to be pulled into Excel. I showed her a few shortcut tips and how to record a macro. A few days later, she told me that I had saved her over 1 hour a day. That is 5 hours a week and 20 hours in an average month. The training provided a cost and time savings to her and her employer that would pay for itself many times over in a year!
When you figured in her frustration each day with having to repeat the same steps, you can see how much her morale was boosted in just a short amount of training time. I wish I could video tape the look of happiness on her face as she was telling me how thankful she was for that training.
She said she never would have been able to get that from just reading a training manual. I’m really amazed at the number of corporations who hand their employees a book and expect them to learn. As a trainer, I see every day how important it is for people to learn hands-on with someone walking them through the steps.
So, if you forgot to thank your administrative professionals, I’ve got a great suggestion. Give me a call and learn more about our training today!
On one of my grocery shopping trips the other day, I went to the refrigerated section to purchase eggs. I am usually in a rush so don’t even look at the selection. I just grab and go. This time, I looked over the eggs that were available. 
Last week, I wrote a friend of mine an email for her birthday. I started thinking about how long we had been friends…over 32 years! I met her when we moved to Texas when I was just a little kid. My sister and I walked around in our neighborhood and asked if there were any little kids to play with at each house. We met Krista on our second day in Texas.
Recently I was reading a survey of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) conducted by a very well-respect staffing and recruiting firm. The survey found that the CIOs listed technology skills as the area where their staff needed the most improvement.
