Just like the print version of your professional portfolio, the social version includes proof of your work history, education and training, and specific skills you want to draw attention to. The biggest difference is you’re only showcasing the best of the best to pique the viewer’s interest on your social portfolio. Unless you are just starting your print version and only have a couple of work samples, you don’t need every item from the print version.

There are several key places you can enhance your social portfolio to make it more dynamic and engaging for those who visit your online profiles.

• Featured media: LinkedIn offers a “Featured” section where you can showcase your best work and highlight key skills. You can include photos, audio and video clips, documents, links, and presentations that are most relevant to the work you have done or want to do more of in the future.
• Experience: Use your resume to fill out the experience section but focus on specific accomplishments rather than just listing job duties. Employers are more interested in what you can achieve for them. Highlight instances where you took initiative, created new procedures, or streamlined processes. Be sure to quantify the results when possible, such as time or cost savings. It’s fine to include a brief job description, but prioritize showcasing your achievements.
• Education: Add any completed courses or degrees to your profile to show your educational background.
• Skills and endorsements: LinkedIn provides skill quizzes that allow you to earn badges for your profile. You can also highlight key skills and seek endorsements from your network. Endorsements can enhance your credibility and visibility.
• Recommendations: Consider requesting recommendations from managers and colleagues. Offer recommendations to others only if you’re comfortable attaching your name to theirs. Recommending others may encourage them to reciprocate.
• Accomplishments: Use the “Accomplishments” section to showcase honors, awards, publications, courses, projects, and other notable achievements. Explore LinkedIn’s list of accomplishment categories to identify additional items you may want to include.

Need help getting started?

My book, Prove Your Skills! With a Powerful Professional Portfolio, will help you quickly and easily create your print, digital, and social portfolios. Get your copy here and don’t forget to download the complimentary resources that come with it, including a resume update workbook, portfolio contents brainstorming checklist, strategic career report, career planning template, and more!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

Work samples are one of the most important components of your professional portfolio. They allow you to visually showcase your skills and prove that you can do what you say you can.

But what if you don’t have access to old samples, projects, or other things you’ve worked on? In that case, you have a few options.

If you really want to demonstrate a specific skill, you can recreate some samples. After all, you already did it once; you can do it again.

If you’re low on work samples, or you’re not currently employed, volunteering is a great way to add to your portfolio.

You can also use extracurricular activities, such as community involvement or professional association membership, to demonstrate proof of what you can do. I actually have an entire binder dedicated to my community service, board work, and committee involvement for my professional association that allows me to quickly and easily add experience and samples to my professional portfolio.

I share more about overcoming a lack of work samples in this article.

Sometimes it’s not that you lack work samples, it’s that you can’t share them for confidentiality reasons. If this sounds like you, here are some tips that will help you create a robust work sample section without breaching any current or former privacy restrictions.

Help! Everything I Do is Confidential!

People often tell me that everything they do is confidential, so they can’t use or find work samples to include.

While I understand where they are coming from, in almost every case, I’ve been able to point them to things they do that are not confidential or can be converted into a suitable, sharable work sample.

My husband works in the legal field. While he could argue that everything he does is confidential, over the years, he has been able to assemble an impressive professional portfolio of work samples that have not breached confidentiality in any way. He has database improvement samples, project planning templates, writing samples, process improvement samples, and more.

Remove, Replace, or Redact

The simplest way to get around confidentiality rules is to remove, replace, or redact any identifiable information. Someone reviewing your professional portfolio just wants to see the form, template, or checklist you created. They don’t care about the data it once included.

This Due Diligence Visit Checklist was used when I worked for a global insurance company that regularly hosted potential clients. Anything that was a possible issue has been redacted with the blue boxes so I can share this example of how I systemize, organize, and pay attention to the details in my work.

I have done this with spreadsheet samples, as well. I wanted to err on the side of caution even though I didn’t think what I was sharing would be a problem because all the data was publicly accessible on the internet. But I could still show how I organized the details and did my research by sharing the spreadsheet with all the data removed.

When you include a P.A.R. statement, it makes a great work sample.

Recreate a Comparable Work Sample

If that’s not an option, you can always recreate a work sample from scratch. Retirement party invitations, year-end holiday celebration announcements, all-employee meeting agendas, travel itinerary or project planning templates are all relatively easy to create and fill in with made up information. You can also include mock writing samples or create a procedure for something.

In some cases, you’ll have to get a bit creative. Where else can you pull a work sample from to help you demonstrate a key skill?

For example: Create a procedure for how to order office supplies from Amazon.com. You can explain the process step-by-step with screenshots from your personal account, and you haven’t violated confidentiality in any way. This becomes a work sample that showcases your writing skills and your ability to create useful procedures. I’d also argue that it shows your ability to think creatively about how to showcase your skills without breaching any confidentiality in your current position.

You can also use personal experiences to find work samples. When I planned our 30th wedding anniversary party a couple of years ago, I had invitations, checklists, and project planning timelines to keep the details organized and the planning on track. When the event was over, I had dozens of pictures to pull from as well. Every single one of these items could be used in my professional portfolio as a work sample to demonstrate my event planning, organization, and project management skills without any confidentiality issues whatsoever. Start thinking more broadly about where you can pull work samples from to include in your professional portfolio also!

Use P.A.R. Statements to Showcase Your Skills

Using P.A.R. statements as standalone work samples is another great way to showcase your abilities without disclosing confidential information. P.A.R. stands for:

• P – Project or problem
• A – Action
• R – Result

The two examples below show how you can create P.A.R. descriptions for various skills.

Don’t forget to mine previous volunteer activities for potential work samples. Just because you didn’t get paid for something doesn’t mean it doesn’t count! I didn’t make a dime for chairing the committee to create this cookbook as a fundraiser for United Way, but it serves as a great work sample in my professional portfolio.

This also applies to professional association activities such as meeting and event planning, writing samples, etc. Take pictures of the event to include as a representation of the skills you outline in the P.A.R. description that you create to accompany it in your portfolio.

In the P.A.R. statement for this image, I would explain the event I was tasked with planning, detail the specific actions I took to organize and coordinate it, and highlight the successful results and feedback received from my team and attendees.

Example: Filing System Work Sample

How your file and organize things is another great example. There is nothing confidential about anything I show in these pictures. I can explain the SMEAD VIEWABLES system, my color code, and my tickler file with these three images and a PAR statement in my portfolio without disclosing any private information.

For digital filing, I can use a screenshot of my digital files and explain my filing structure and naming conventions that I use to keep my files and projects organized.

Create a Hypothetical Work Scenario

Here is a question I often ask someone who tells me they can’t share anything from their current work: if I hired you today and asked you to begin coordinating the annual company holiday party, what types of forms, templates, and checklists would you immediately create to do it? Then go create them and put them in your professional portfolio. When you explain this in a PAR statement as a typical work scenario you have coordinated throughout your career, and these are the types of documents you use to do it, that can become a fantastic work sample.

There’s Always a Workaround!

If you work in a highly confidential position, it can be tough to find work samples that you’re able to share in your professional portfolio. Tough – but not impossible! By recreating past projects, learning to think innovatively, and including unpaid work such as volunteer or professional association activities, everyone can come up with at least a few work samples that help them showcase their skills!

Need help getting started? Join us for this upcoming webinar, and check out all of our portfolio development resources. You can also download free resources including checklists and templates to help you get started at ProveYourSkillsBook.com. 

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

But there is one component in particular that can add tremendous value in a variety of ways – personality and strengths profiles. Using personality profiles in portfolio development is a strategic way to highlight your strengths and address your weaknesses, ultimately presenting a well-rounded and self-aware professional image.

Use a Personality Profile to Write Your Bio

Personality profile tools typically have an overview or summary page plus a more in depth report format. The summaries can be used for creating a career profile statement for your print portfolio or a personal bio on your social and digital portfolios. Many times, you can pull words, phrases, and entire sentences from these summaries to describe yourself in positive and helpful ways you may not have come up with on your own.

Here is the profile overview from my MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) Form Q profile for an ESTJ:

ESTJs are typically logical, analytical, and objectively critical. They like to organize projects and then act to get things done in a systematic, timely, and efficient manner.

ESTJs focus on seeing things as they are, not as they might be. They are matter of fact, practical, realistic, and concerned with the here and now. Past experience helps them solve problems, and they want to be sure that ideas, plans, and decisions are based on solid fact.

They like having definite rules to govern the way they do things. If they are to change their way of doing something, they need to change their rules for doing it. Logical and consistent, ESTJs make quick decisions.

Their focus is on the immediate, visible, and tangible. They like to solve problems and organize things and then move on. They have little patience for confusion or inefficiency and may proceed—sometimes with a heavy hand—to help the groups they are part of get the task done.

ESTJs are likely to be most satisfied in a work environment that values setting goals, making decisions, being organized, and getting things done. People can count on them to follow through in an organized, efficient, and practical manner.

Here is a sample professional portfolio bio summary that I drafted based on this information:

As an administrative professional, I bring a logical and analytical approach to every project. I thrive on organizing tasks and acting systematically to achieve goals in a timely, practical, and efficient manner.

I am driven by clear rules and consistency, making quick, well-informed decisions to keep projects on track. My emphasis on immediate, visible, and tangible results means I excel at solving problems, organizing systems and procedures, and driving initiatives to completion. I have little patience for inefficiency and am known for stepping in to help teams get the job done effectively.

In a work environment that values goalsetting, decision-making, and organization, I am most satisfied and productive. Colleagues and clients can count on me to follow through with organized, efficient, and practical solutions, ensuring that objectives are met and surpassed.

While I would say the ESTJ profile summary describes me very well, it would have taken me an inordinate amount of time to come up with those words, phrases, and descriptions to describe my overall work and communication styles. This is why I love personality and strengths assessment tools for career use!

3 Important Ways to Use A Personality Assessment Tool

Here are some other examples of how you can leverage the content of an assessment tool profile for your professional portfolio development:

• Highlighting Strengths: Personality profiles like the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or StrengthsFinder allow you to clearly identify and emphasize your strengths – and most times, they do it far better than our words alone can. For example, if StrengthsFinder indicates that you excel in organization and responsibility, you can include specific examples and accomplishments that showcase these strengths. You’re no longer telling someone you’re organized and responsible – you’re showing them real-world proof that backs up your claims.
• Addressing Weaknesses: Although your professional portfolio exists to cast you in the best light possible, everyone has weaknesses, and those who don’t address them honestly and take steps to improve aren’t doing themselves (or their current/future employers) any favors. Addressing your weaknesses and showing how you’re actively working to improve them demonstrates self-awareness, a commitment to personal development, and the ability to turn challenges into opportunities for growth. For instance, if your MBTI profile shows that you sometimes overlook details, you can share the steps you’ve taken to improve your attention to detail, such as implementing specific organizational tools or systems. Most of the time, being forthcoming about your weaknesses makes a much better impression than sweeping them under the rug!
• Tailored Communication: The way you communicate with others (and prefer to be communicated with in return) is an important thing to share in your professional portfolio. Consider including a section on how your personality traits influence your work style and interaction with others. This shows potential employers that you can adapt and work effectively with diverse teams.

Personality Assessment Tool Options

If you don’t have any personality profiles available to use, here are some options to consider:

• The Standout Assessment by The Marcus Buckingham Company https://www.tmbc.com/standout-assessment/ (Now completely free!)
• StrengthsFinder 2.0 From Gallup Book (includes code for the assessment) https://amzn.to/4fihLWj
• DiSC Profiles https://www.discprofile.com/products?categories=Tests_Profiles
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) https://www.mbtionline.com/en-US/Products/For-you

I believe any of these tools (and others not listed) can provide insight that helps you understand your own value and allows you to more intelligently articulate that on your resume and in the print, social, and digital versions of your professional portfolio.

Incorporating personality profiles into your portfolio provides a more complete view of who you are as a professional. It goes beyond just listing your skills and experiences and offers a deeper, more personal insight into your work ethic, values, and potential for growth. While showcasing your talents and accomplishments is fantastic, showcasing your personality is just as important!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

Infographic updated 7/16/2024.

Understanding how to use the latest technology resources is crucial to an admin’s ability to be innovative and successfully support their executives. Yet tackling a new tool can be intimidating if you’re not tech-savvy. Don’t let the fear of the unknown detour you from exploring, though! Use the All Things Admin proven process for trying new tools, and find out just how helpful technology can be to your profession and your career!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

“In the last newsletter, you encouraged your readers to set up a professional portfolio. I am new to the administrative field, and I am unemployed and no longer have access to professional documents I have written. What other documents can you suggest that I use? I am currently in school pursuing an associate’s degree, have a great resume that is getting me interviews, and have a profile on LinkedIn. I also have been attending my local IAAP chapter meetings and enjoy them very much, and will be a member soon. Your suggestions would be appreciated.”

This is a great question, and one that I receive a lot. When admins don’t think they have the materials they need to create a professional portfolio, they’re hesitant to start the project. Work samples are incredibly important, but they are only one component of a long list of things to include in a portfolio.

Here are some portfolio items you may already have on hand:

• Resume
• Thank you notes
• Letters of recommendation
• LinkedIn testimonials
• Professional references
• Personality type assessments and/or Strengths Finder assessments
• Past reviews
• Previous training
• Course descriptions of completed training, as well as the certificates of completion
• A list of workshops, seminars, or conferences attended
• Degrees
• Certifications
• Licenses
• Awards
• Academic honors
• Internships
• Transcripts
• Non-profit/charity/volunteer work (personal or corporate)
• Leadership offices
• Community service project participation
• Personal or professional mission statement
• Research projects
• Travel or vacation planning projects

You don’t need to include all the items on the list. If you don’t have something (or it’s not relevant), it’s fine to leave it out. Having something is better than nothing, and your professional portfolio will always be a work in progress. You can easily add, remove, or change anything at any time.

How to Include Work Samples When You Don’t Have Any

One of the most important parts of your professional portfolio is your work sample section. This is where you can impress your executive or a hiring manager because these sample demonstrate your skills.

Some examples of work samples include:

• Processes or procedures
• Sample forms or templates
• Photos from events
• Evidence of specific soft skills (writing, leadership, communication, conflict resolution)
• Evidence of specific technical skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, website development, event planning)
• Class projects and educational development

But what if you don’t have access to prior work samples?

This is something that many admins struggle with – whether it’s because they didn’t save them, or because they don’t have access to them anymore.

If this sounds like you, here are some tips that can help.

• Recreate your work samples. If you create something once, you can create it again. The skill doesn’t disappear with the physical proof, so recreate the template, checklist, or document that you used in a previous job and add it to your portfolio.
• Join a professional association. The work you do for a professional association counts just as much as the work you do for your employer. Whether you’re planning events, coordinating meetings, or serving in a leadership capacity, you should include those skills in your professional portfolio.
• Roll up your sleeves and volunteer. Unpaid work is still work. Volunteering for a hospital, charity, or other local organization is a great way to get new samples for your portfolio.

Every admin needs a professional portfolio to help showcase their skills, demonstrate their abilities, and prove their value to their current or potential organization. Don’t let your lack of work samples hold you back. It’s never too late to get started!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

This July, we are celebrating a significant milestone: the 15th anniversary of All Things Admin! Reflecting on the past five years has been breathtaking—though not in the way we might have imagined five years ago when we celebrated our 10th anniversary.

Who could have foreseen the dramatic events of the past five years? We faced a global pandemic, economic impacts, cultural shifts, technological revolutions, and more. These past five years have been some of the most challenging and difficult. Being here today, celebrating 15 years of All Things Admin, and its global support for administrative professionals, fills us with immense pride.

With all that has transpired in the past five years, we find ourselves wondering what the next five have in store for us.

Artificial Intelligence is definitely the next game changer. It’s poised to transform our careers and industry in the next 12 months, as well as the next five years. But here’s what we know for sure: The Innovative Admin^TM is the antidote to AI replacing administrative professionals in the 21st-century office.

As your career evolves with workplace and industry trends, adopting the Innovation Mindset is crucial. This choice will provide you with the insight and awareness needed to adjust and embrace the new world of work. And our team remains dedicated to supporting you in achieving your career potential as The Innovative Admin.

To mark this special occasion, we are excited to announce a series of fun activities and special offers throughout July. Stay tuned for more details and join us in celebrating 15 years of growth, resilience, and innovation.

Thank you for being part of our journey. Here’s to many more years of success together!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

I can still see the most beautiful and perfect red roses my grandma used to put on our cakes, and I’ve wanted to recreate them for years!

Last summer, my nieces (ages nine and six) wanted to make their mom a cake. Not just any cake, however. A fancy decorated cake. They love the Georgia’s Cakes channel on YouTube, so we began watching some videos to learn some piping techniques for beginners.

One of the videos also explained how to make various buttercream flowers. Of course, both girls were convinced they could do it. I’m very careful not to squash their interests and enthusiasm (no matter how complicated or messy the task may be), so I helped them give it a test run.

I was stunned at how well my nine-year-old niece did on creating buttercream flowers with zero prior experience! The difference? Determination, education, and support. Even the six year old was able to successfully learn how to pipe and create some basic flowers.

We were all delighted with our progress. But I was still not happy with the final product when it came to my buttercream roses. I had created a flower, but it didn’t look like my grandma’s.

Fast forward a few months, and we begin planning for my older niece’s college graduation in early May. I know my husband’s family loves a nicely decorated cake, so I asked if I could make her graduation cake instead of buying one at the local store. They happily agreed.

I began diagramming out what I envisioned for my niece’s cake, and I definitely wanted buttercream roses. Knowing that I didn’t have the skills to create them the way I wanted, I asked my baker friends if they would make them for me so I could just place them on the cake myself. No luck. But one of my friends sent me a YouTube video on how to do it, so I decided to try again. I was determined to figure it out.

I committed to practicing daily for a week to see if I could make some progress. I mixed some frosting, colored it, filled my frosting bags, and watched the first YouTube video. It helped me get started. But I wasn’t thrilled with the final product. I saved every single one of the roses I made, though, just in case they were the best I could do.

Then I did a different search a couple days later and began watching several other bakers show and explain their technique. In a single moment on one of those videos, I figured out exactly what I was doing wrong. I needed to start with a taller, wider cone base of frosting.

It made all the difference. This one person’s extra details and explanation were the missing links. The next plate of roses that I created were my best yet. And many of them were certainly cake worthy. I was delighted! Just like my nine-year-old niece, the difference in learning how to finally master the skill myself was determination, education, and support.

No matter what skill you need to learn – whether it’s one you want to learn or one you feel like you have to learn in order to stay relevant in the workplace – these three elements make the biggest difference.

Determination: Set your mind to figuring out how to do it and your mind will help you find the path to accomplish it. When you make time to figure it out, you can and will figure it out.

Education: Be open to learning from others. The Internet is packed full of training and resources (some of it’s even free) to help you learn just about anything you have an interest in. Ask those in your network to recommend or refer you to the best resources they’ve discovered in their pursuits.

Support: Whether it’s finding an accountability partner, sharing it with a friend or family member, or finding a teacher to work with directly, support matters. My nieces have been some of my biggest motivators in learning this new skill. I want to be able to teach them how to do it too. I want them to add this skillset now at ages 10 and 7 instead of after 50 like I did. My husband has also been a huge encourager. He’s seen the evolution of my buttercream roses over the past week. I can tell I’ve made progress by the excitement in his voice when he comments on the next plate on display. Having someone supporting and cheering you on makes a positive difference!

As I write this, I’m preparing to host a live webinar on May 21 with my friend and colleague, Donna Gilliland. The webinar focuses on how AI tools, like ChatGPT, are transforming the way we work and how essential it is to understand and utilize these technologies.

It got me thinking about how learning advanced AI skills and learning how to make frosting roses aren’t really all that different. The principles are the same.

If you spend one week of dedicated focus on figuring out how to use ChatGPT for your work, you would be off and running in ways you never imagined.

If you’re determined to figure it out before you need it or can even access it at the office, that determination will pay off down the road. Choosing to spend 15-30 minutes per day for one week will help you figure it out.

If you educate yourself on all the applications it can play in helping you do your work more effectively or efficiently, then you’ll know when and how to use it (and when not to use it) when it becomes available in the workplace.

If you get support in the form of formal training or brainstorming with a fellow admin or colleague, you can expedite the learning curve even more.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re learning how to future-proof your career or learning how to make grandma’s frosting roses. With determination, education, and support, the results are always sweet.

Would you like to join me May 21 and learn how to unlock the power of advanced ChatGPT? Click here to register!

And in case you’re wondering how that graduation cake turned out, here’s the final result – complete with frosting roses I made myself.

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

Being able to locate what you need when you need it helps you become a reliable, go-to resource on your team. And it helps build confidence and trust with everyone you work with.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the technology and tools available to help us do our work. In my opinion, technology should definitely be part of the solution, but it can’t be the entire solution. Here are three simple yet effective strategies to help you enhance your information management system.

1. Color Coding for Clarity

Color coding is a visually intuitive way to categorize and organize information, both in physical and digital formats. By assigning different colors to various categories or types of documents, you can quickly identify and retrieve them when needed. Here’s how you can implement color coding:

• Physical Files: Use colored folders or labels to differentiate between different projects or document types. If your office already uses color to represent certain topics or themes, begin with that. If there isn’t an existing color code, then you can brainstorm a system that makes sense for you. If you’re going to implement this across calendars and digital tools that overlap with others, it’s important to discuss it and create something that makes sense to everyone on your team.

As an example, this is the color code I established for my team:

• • Red: Speaking Engagements and Legal
  • Blue: Business Development / Operations
  • Purple: Marketing / Advertising
  • Orange: Vendors / Suppliers
  • Dark Green: Financial / Accounting
  • Lime Green: All Things Admin Team
  • Yellow: Training
  • Pink: Personal

To work successfully with my neurodivergent brain, I need to have things printed for follow-up and review, but that can get unwieldy in a hurry without a good system for gathering, containing, labeling, and creating a home for these printed pieces. I love translucent colored poly pockets combined with colored file folders to create instant visual distinction of what’s waiting for me each day in my priority sorter.

Here are a few additional resources that I use consistently to keep my printed materials organized and visually distinct:

• • Poly expandable document folders with button and string
  • Inspirational / decorative folders
  • Three tier acrylic file folder sorter

• Digital Tools: Leverage the color-coding features available in digital tools such as email clients or file management systems. Assign specific colors to categories in your email inbox or use tags to visually group related items together.

Here are two examples of this.

In Microsoft Office, categories carry across email, tasks, and calendar. So, once you create a list of color-coded categories in Outlook, you can use them in all three areas.

When I see a red block on my calendar, I know it’s a speaking event. When I see a red box on my email or tasks, I know it’s related to a speaking engagement. At a glance, I can quickly click through each week of my calendar without reading each individual appointment’s details and know exactly what I need to think about and prepare for.

In Gmail, you can use the stars to color code and tag your email and calendar items.

You can also organize your inbox by sections based on these color-coded segments.

It will look something like this:

Here is a procedure that explains how to do this in Gmail.

2. Adopt Consistent File Naming Conventions

File naming conventions make it easy for you and others to search for and find the information you’re looking for. I suggest beginning each file name with a three- or four-letter abbreviation to categorize it.

Think about the main types of documents you create. Then, pick an abbreviation that represents it. For example:

• • FORM – Forms
  • LTR – Letters
  • MEMO – Memos
  • LBL – Labels
  • MAP – Maps
  • ENV – Envelopes
  • RPT – Reports
  • SIGN – Signs
  • BOD – Board of Directors

Keep this list of abbreviations posted where you and others who may need it can easily reference it when creating or searching for files.

What’s nice about this is that all your files will show up together in alphabetical order by the name of the file. So, if I’m looking for an envelope template, I don’t have to remember exactly what I named it; I just scroll down the ENV file names and it’s right there.

If your file names include dates, always use a six-digit naming convention. This way, they’ll always appear numerically by date. For instance, this blog post is saved as:

ATA Blog Post for 04.17.24 – Getting Organized With Information Management

This naming convention tells us what type of file it is (a blog post), when it will publish (April 17, 2024), and what it’s about (information management). This gives us three different ways to find the file in our system.

Taking a few extra seconds to create a specific file name that utilizes standard naming conventions and includes relevant information for context goes a long way towards staying organized!

3. Utilize Tools That Integrate Seamlessly

We’re all using technology to do our work. So, choosing the right tools that integrate well with your primary software suites can greatly enhance your information management workflow. Our goal is to streamline our work with technology, not make it more complicated. With that in mind, here are some examples of tools my team uses that offer seamless integration:

• OneDrive and Dropbox: These cloud storage solutions integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Office, allowing for easy collaboration and document sharing within the Office suite. We typically don’t use Google Workspace apps, but we do use Google Drive for some specific use cases and can easily link to folders or files from our Microsoft Office applications when needed.
• Teamwork: Our project management tools integrate with email, Dropbox, Slack, and a variety of other applications providing a centralized platform for project management, communication, and file sharing. We can send project updates via email, and they stay threaded on the appropriate task lists for future reference. We can track task completion via email or Slack so that we stay current on what stages of completion tasks are at.
• Slack: Offers integration with a wide range of tools, including Dropbox, Zoom, Teamwork, Google Workspace, and Microsoft Office Apps, enabling efficient communication and collaboration across different platforms.

With a fully remote team that includes people with a variety of workstyles and communication preferences, integrating these tools has helped the information and updates flow more easily while keeping all the details organized and easily accessible.

A couple team members prefer notifications flow into their inbox. Others prefer to log in to the Teamwork platform daily to review their notifications. Some track things via Slack. But because we have these tools integrated with each other, all of us have access to the same information, no matter which communication form we prefer.

Administrative professionals handle a lot of information each day, so it’s crucial to find the best ways to manage and organize it. Creating a color code, developing naming conventions, and using the right tech tools make information management simple.

When there’s a place for everything and everything is in its place, your entire team will be more efficient!

Need help getting organized? Check out more of our resources for you here!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

According to a report by the American Society of Administrative Professionals, non-managing APs tend to be involved only in the upkeep of existing systems, with their managing counterparts playing a more substantial role in enhancing and developing new processes. This distinction underscores a critical opportunity for APs aspiring to climb the career ladder – to step into leadership roles, they must go beyond mere maintenance and become architects of improvement and efficiency.

The Leadership Manual: Crafting Procedures as a Path to Recognition

In my book, Become a Procedures Pro^®, I emphasize the unparalleled value of taking the initiative to develop and refine organizational procedures. From my 30 years of career experience, I’ve seen firsthand how creating a procedures manual can establish an admin as an indispensable leader. Rarely did any company I joined have a comprehensive procedures manual, but every position had a binder or two when I left. This earned me recognition as an administrative leader and a go-to resource for new admins and their executives within those companies.

Here’s another standout example from one of our star community members illustrating the profound impact of such initiatives. Anticipating a medical leave, Lá Shawn Sandifer crafted an administrative procedures binder to ensure continuity in her absence. This tool not only empowered her temporary replacement but also showcased her foresight and dedication to her team’s success. The response was overwhelmingly positive, leading to further opportunities to share her knowledge and standardize practices across the organization.

“I was preparing to go on medical leave and would be gone for at least eight weeks. At the time, I was supporting two busy senior officers and knew that anyone coming in to cover for me would be totally overwhelmed. So, to prevent that from happening, I started developing my administrative procedures binder. The person covering in my absence would have to hit the ground running, and this guide would serve as the tool to help them do it.

Before leaving, I was able to spend a few days going over the binder with my temp. She was very appreciative to have such a detailed point of reference to help her quickly get up to speed. As a result, she felt more confident about covering for me. While out on leave, I would check on her periodically, and she would always comment on how helpful the binder had been to her.

From a professional development perspective, my managers were blown away by my administrative procedures binder. A few initiatives were developed out of the creation of this guide.

• I was asked to share my binder with the legal secretaries in my division in our Chicago and Washington, D.C. offices, and train them in how to create their own desk reference guide.
• At the completion of the first initiative, I will present the guide to other administrative staff in my association to get them on board.
• After I complete that initiative, I will revise my current guide to fit a general association standard for presentation to my HR division to possibly implement into a company standard for administrative personnel.

These initiatives are essentially goals for my professional development plan, and each goal will be weighed and rated. Needless to say, this entire process has become very near and dear to me. A few of my direct manager’s comments on my administrative procedures binder were:

‘A very impressive piece of work!’

‘I do not know of any document like it in the association. I’m going to suggest that each secretary in the legal and governance division prepare a similar desk reference manual for their positions.’

‘The binder, which could potentially be used by all employees with secretarial functions throughout the association, demonstrated not only that she has a thorough understanding of her job duties, responsibilities, and performance expectations, but also that she is willing to share her knowledge with others for the benefit of the association.’

I am very pleased with the results and the many compliments I have received. It’s a very rewarding feeling. I am excited to share with my colleagues this product and how it can make a difference for them in their professional development as it has done for me.”

–Lá Shawn Sandifer, executive assistant, insurance industry, Chicago

These experiences aren’t just personal victories; they were stepping stones on our professional development journeys. By creating tangible proof of your expertise and showing a willingness to contribute to the organization’s greater good, you can position yourself as a leader among your peers and gain the attention of upper management, too.

Demonstrating Leadership Through Initiative

The actions described above are not mere administrative tasks; they are demonstrations of leadership. By identifying needs and addressing them proactively, admins exhibit qualities essential for leadership roles, including:

• Initiative: Seeing what needs to be done and doing it without being asked is the hallmark of a leader. Creating or refining procedures shows foresight and a proactive mindset.
• Communication Skills: Recommending improvements and sharing knowledge requires clear and effective communication, ensuring that valuable insights are accessible and actionable.
• Analytical Thinking: Developing and analyzing office systems demands a keen understanding of the organization’s workings and the ability to envision more efficient and effective methods.

Stepping into Leadership

For admins who want to advance their careers, the message is clear: systems and procedures set you apart and demonstrate your ability to lead. This in turn makes you indispensable to the organization. Whether it’s through developing a comprehensive procedures manual, as I did, or by recommending systemic improvements, your actions set the stage for professional growth and recognition.

Leadership isn’t just about a title. It’s about the action and impact each admin brings to the organization. By taking concrete steps to become more efficient, innovative, and resilient through systems and procedures development, you’re contributing directly to your organization’s success and enhancing your own career and professional reputation. This makes you a leader in your own right!

We Have Even More Procedures Development Resources For You Here!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

Fostering a culture of continuous improvement in procedures is vital for any organization aiming to stay efficient, competitive, and adaptive.

The Importance of Continuous Procedures Improvement

In the early 90s, dial-up internet was cutting edge. It’s how most people accessed the worldwide web, and we couldn’t imagine life without it.

Now, we wonder how we ever managed to get anything done with it. Do you remember asking people in your household to hang up the phone so you could send an email? Or being tied to bulky, desktop computers that couldn’t function more than five feet away from a phone jack?

Today, that sounds as archaic as manual typewriters and carbon paper.

Now, business operates 24/7 globally. The companies that are focused on staying competitive know they must find efficiency gains every place they can.

But it’s not just the production lines that need to work effectively. Every employee needs to be committed to saving time, effort, and money by eliminating bottlenecks, streamlining workflows, and working smarter.

This is why continuous procedures improvement is so important. If your systems and procedures aren’t working efficiently, you may as well be on dial-up. By embracing a culture of ongoing refinement and innovation, you can ensure that your procedures don’t become stagnant.

Establishing a Foundation for Continuous Improvement

In many companies, leaders are emphasizing operational efficiency. But not all of them are good at helping their team members understand what that means and how they can individually contribute in a meaningful way. However, you can still make a positive difference by developing systems and procedures that streamline your work.

When you do achieve operational gains, be sure to document and share those with your manager. And make sure it’s noted in your annual performance review. These are quantifiable savings of time and money that add up.

Strategies for Implementing Continuous Improvement

Sometimes a company will already have clear, measurable goals for what they want to achieve with continuous improvement. Find out what these goals are and brainstorm ways your efforts can make a difference on both an individual and organizational level.

Even if there aren’t any set goals, you know your job better than anyone. Look for areas where you know you can improve.

For example, let’s say you spend three hours each week assembling the weekly sales reports in Excel to present at the Monday morning team meeting. But you know that part of the reason it takes so long is that you’re not an efficient Excel user. You’re not comfortable with pivot tables. You aren’t confident with some of the basic functions. So, you end up doing a lot of manual work that could be automated if you had more training in this area.

If you take a couple Excel classes, learn how to streamline the report assembly process, and save yourself at least an hour per week, that’s 50+ hours over the course of the year. That’s more than a full week of vacation! This is meaningful time savings that allows you to do something else more productive with your time that will benefit the company.

When you set measurable goals related to efficiency gains, you have a visible target to aim for.

Overcoming Challenges with Continuous Improvement

Just like procedures development has to be an ongoing habit, the same applies to finding time for improving things in your daily work. This needs to become a habitual thing as well.

Sometimes your systems don’t need a massive overhaul, they just need some fine tuning. Other times they may require a fresh start. But you have to make updating or refreshing our systems and procedures an ongoing quest rather an annual project.

Remember, not all improvements need to be broad, large-scale changes. By making a few simple tweaks here and there as time permits, you’re eventually able to overhaul even the most complex procedures and leverage them to their fullest potential.

Every time you do something, you should look for ways to do it smarter than the last time. Documenting your processes is the first step. From there, you can see the process more holistically and logically organize it.

Continuous Improvement: The Key to Organizational Success!

If you kept doing things the way you’ve always done them because that way was “good enough”, innovation would cease to exist. It’s only by continuously improving your systems and procedures that you find more efficient ways to work and keep up with the changing times.

By fostering a culture of continuous procedures improvement, you’re helping yourself, your team, your executive, and the entire organization!

Would you like some help creating your administrative procedures?

Join us for the 5-Day Procedures Blitz beginning March 26!

We Have Even More Procedures Development Resources For You Here!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

There are many benefits to leveraging technology in procedures. It helps reduce time and effort, accommodates more complex procedures and processes, and makes it easy for remote teams to work together.

Many administrative professionals are still hesitant to experiment with automation and AI tools. Some think the learning curve is too steep; others believe that the emerging technology will eventually replace them, and they don’t want to speed up what they see as an inevitable “rise of the robots.”

But taking advantage of the tools at your disposal doesn’t mean you ultimately become replaceable. It simply means that you can work more efficiently and course-correct more quickly when something needs to be adjusted – and it won’t be such a manual, clunky process to change the things that need changing.

Just as we have evolved from typewriters to handheld computers, procedures development has evolved from printed instructions next to each workstation to digitally automated instructions that can be accessed from anywhere. And that’s a good thing!

The Role of Automation in Procedures Development

Automation tools can help streamline your procedures by using templates, automated workflows and standardized processes. These tools help provide consistency and accuracy, reduce human error, and ensure that the end product will be the same regardless of who performs the task.

One of our favorite tech tools for enhancing our procedures is Teamwork, a project management app that keeps me and my fully remote team on the same page. In Teamwork, we can create task lists that break down our procedures into manageable chunks,  and assign those chunks to various team members. At any given time, we can see exactly where we are on any Teamwork task, including what’s done and what needs to be tackled.

Other popular project management tools include Asana, Basecamp, Trello, ClickUp, and Monday.com. Each has their own list of features to help support procedures management. If you’re not sure where to start, I suggest you play around with each option and get a feel for which one will work best for your company’s specific needs.

One thing to look for in a project management system is the way it integrates with your existing CRM, ERP, HR systems, etc. Choosing something that integrates seamlessly will make the learning curve shorter for everyone who uses it.

One of the things I love most about Teamwork, for instance, is that it integrates with email. So instead of my team having to log into the website each time, task assignment and completion notices can be managed through email.

When you choose the right tools for the job and ensure that your staff understands how to use them, automation is easier than ever!

The Automation of a Procedure: From 10 Years Ago to Today

The first step to automating a procedure is to get it out of your head and document it digitally or on paper. Writing things down will help you organize your thoughts, streamline processes, and find efficiencies. From there, you can create order from chaos.

Once the procedure is on paper, you can automate it for consistent ongoing use. Whether that’s a third-party project management tool like Teamwork, Trello, or ClickUp, or leveraging the functionality of Microsoft Office apps like Outlook Tasks or Project, you can convert more complex processes into templates that can be used repeatedly.

Here’s an example from my team:

This was how I outlined our 5-day challenge system on paper the first time we did one 10 years ago.

We used this as our guide to execute a couple 5-day challenges and streamlined the process each time we did one. Then we converted this to a type-written procedure our team could follow.

That was helpful, but with so many moving parts, we quickly realized it would be more useful to set up this process in our Teamwork project management system where we could assign team members and start dates and due dates for each component of the system.

Today, we have a template in Teamwork that includes every single step required to execute a 5-day challenge — from concept development to marketing to delivering the training and wrapping up the event when it finishes.

This is the section for the free webinar preparation by the speaker.

This is what’s required to set up the free webinar so people can register.

Based on this template, we can create a new task list in Teamwork, choose the start date and, with the click of one button, all 66 tasks in this system for running a 5-day challenge are scheduled and assigned to our team members.

It’s a game changer! Nothing gets missed or overlooked from start to finish, and automation made it all possible.

It’s Time to Embrace Automation and Technology!

A documented procedure is still a procedure, no matter how rudimentary it may be. By adopting automation, AI, and technology, you’re making a good thing better. Even the smallest steps now can make a huge difference down the road!

Would you like some help creating your administrative procedures?

Join us for the 5-Day Procedures Blitz beginning March 26!

We Have Even More Procedures Development Resources For You Here!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC

For example, when we do webinars, there are things that happen before the webinar to set it up, tasks we need to perform the day of the event, and post-event procedures for adding the replay to our online training center.

This series of procedures, forms, templates, and checklists combines to create our system for producing new training webinars.

Documenting complex office systems and procedures is crucial for ensuring consistency, efficiency, and continuity within an organization. Here are some best practices for creating clear, comprehensive, and accessible documentation:

1. Create a comprehensive outline of the procedure. Begin with a brain dump of the process from start to finish. If possible, capture the details as you complete the task.
2. Identify segments in the procedure to break it down into smaller parts. For longer, more complex procedures, you’ll see natural sections you can break the procedure into. For example, if you help manage monthly staff meetings or quarterly board meetings, procedures for these events can be broken down into smaller parts with specific procedures, checklists, and templates you use to accomplish it.
3. Document the step-by-step details for each section.
4. Use or create visual aids. Color code your documentation. Create flow charts and diagrams, if helpful. Add screenshots and videos to support all learning styles who may be referring to this procedure.
5. Make it easy to read. Use numbers for steps that must be completed in a specific order. Use bullets for information that is important for someone to know. Bullets make text easier to scan when we are in a hurry. Use Information Mapping^® to format your documents so they are easy to read and find information.
6. Test your procedure. Once you draft a procedure, go through the entire process and follow only the written instructions. If you can successfully complete the task, you’re almost done. If you find steps are missing, update the procedure as you go. (It can also be helpful to have someone else test it. This eliminates the risk of unknowingly doing a step yourself.)
7. Finalize the procedure. When you complete all of these steps and can successfully accomplish the task, your procedure is complete. Save it to the designated location and communicate the completion of it to those who will need to access it.

Remember, once you create a procedure or a system, it’s not set in stone. It may go through several evolutions as you discover ways to make it easier, clearer, or more efficient.

Below is an example procedure for the All Things Admin team on how to add a new Training On Demand course to LearnDash. This is a 12-page procedure today. It initially was a six-page procedure that we continued to edit and improve over time, so it was more user friendly for everyone who references it.

The first section of this procedure is called prerequisites. It’s the list of things that must be completed before starting the LearnDash course setup steps. This was the first draft of this section of the procedure:

This was a good start, but it wasn’t nearly detailed enough for those on my team who were not as familiar with the KEAP or Canva programs.

After testing and completing the process a few times, this section expanded to this:

To improve this section of the procedure, the following things were added:

• Video demo links
• Sample template links
• Bookmark links to different sections of the document to make it easier to jump from place to place
• Styles in Microsoft Word so it can be easily navigated in outline view
• Graphics to illustrate the type of image to create or look for in our Canva library
• Bolded keywords to make it easier to scan

As this procedure was tested for each new course set-up, we added details and points of clarification for each step of the process.

Sometimes, one person is doing all these steps. Other times, we need to divide and conquer. We’ve broken the prerequisite section down in such a way that each individual step could be delegated to a different member of my team.

Michelle could do step 1. Mary – step 2. Amber – step 3. Brit  – step 4. Tina – step 5. Julie – step 6. Once step 1 is complete, steps 2, 3, and 4 can be completed simultaneously. These types of notes can also be added to your documentation to make them even more helpful.

For the novice, systems and procedures can seem complicated and troublesome. But once you understand the basics and build your knowledge base, it becomes second nature. From the simple to the most complex, systems and procedures make your job easier than ever!

Would you like some help creating your administrative procedures?

Join us for the 5-Day Procedures Blitz beginning March 26!

We Have Even More Procedures Development Resources For You Here!

© 2024 Julie Perrine International, LLC