The Professional Assistant

Secrets of the Meetings Contract

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:02:00 +0000

This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro at Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

When you need to plan the big corporate meeting, there are so many elements to consider that it can be overwhelming. You have to make the travel plans, get the meals right, make sure everyone gets there on time and to the right place, make the hotel reservations, not to mention accomplish a million other things. Before you even get to that part, you have to decide on a location and sign a contract with that location – usually a hotel or resort. This is where the details lie and if you aren’t careful, you could end up paying for things that you did not want, do not need or do not understand.

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Portuguese Assistants

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:59:00 +0000

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This is a guest post from Diana Ferreira from Secretariando.

There is a lot to be made here in Portugal regarding this career. The first problem is that being an Assistant is still not seen as a career at all. Executives have a career and assistants have a “small job” which consists of serving executives. The role of assistants inside corporations or public companies only recently started to change but changes are always difficult and slow.

When I started working as an assistant, there was no need for a degree and the number of courses, university and professional, related to being an assistant were scarce. Assistants were not considered a part of the team. They were not included in meetings and would not present suggestions or participate in any matter. They would do the tasks that where given to them.

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Corporate Social Responsibility and the Corporate Meeting

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:55:00 +0000

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This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro from Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an emerging segment of corporate meetings that is likely here to stay. There is a good deal of debate among corporate managers over whether companies should engage in CSR. Although altruistic as well as a good PR move, there is a cost associated with performing a CSR volunteer activity both in terms of money and risk management. Besides being one more line item in the meeting budget, there are risks of possible injuries that might be sustained during some of the volunteer activities. However, the sense of pride and accomplishment experienced by the volunteers, as well as the good press generated, means that CSR is quite worth exploring for your next meeting.

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Planning a Green Meeting

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:10:00 +0000

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This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro from Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

Across the country, companies large and small are putting “best practices” policies into place. One such resolution concerns measures that a company can take to mitigate the environmental footprint that their actions have on the planet as a whole and on their small corner of the world in particular. Also known as “green policies”, the targeted outcome is to prevent, reduce, or mitigate harmful effects on natural resources. But what does “green” actually mean? As the event manager charged with following said policy, how do you make sure that you are doing everything possible to be “clean and green”?

In the simplest terms, being “green” means creating an event that has as minimal impact on the environment as possible. While that may seem a formidable task, there are steps you can take to plan accordingly:

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The New Face of Corporate Meetings

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:30:00 +0000

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This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro from Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

There was a time when corporate meetings were the definition of elaborate. Opulent hotels were booked, big-name entertainment flown in, and extravagance seemed the norm. For better or worse, those days are long gone. With the economic crisis, companies are looking for new things to do when they plan a corporate-wide meeting. And it’s often the already overburdened administrative professional that gets tasked with making the arrangements.
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Administrative Committees Can Help When You Need It Most

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:53:00 +0000

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An interesting thing happened to me today. One of the managers that is going to be moving into our offices from another location asked me if I could do her a small favour. Of course, I wanted to help out. She asked me if I could hunt down an iPad charger for her, as she left hers in her office and needed to give it a little boost for a meeting that she was having later today.
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Is Your Internet Browser Slowing Down Your Research?

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:53:00 +0000

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You're working on some research your manager asked you to do. Things are going well, but you notice that your Internet browser is running really slowly, especially, when trying to load pages with quite a bit of content.

Has this ever happened to you? It has many times for me. Personally, I think that using Internet Explorer is not the way to go. I've tried using Google Chrome, but it lacks stability. I have to admit that it's super-fast, but it keeps crashing, even after researching details on how to get fixes.
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Urgent Tasks? Many Mistakes!

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:00:00 +0000

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You get an e-mail from your boss asking you to do a very urgent task. You realize that you are leaving in an hour and can't stay behind. You explain to your boss that you would be able to complete the task in time, but due to the lack of time on your side, there might be errors made and would prefer to postpone it until the following day.

Has this ever happened to you? I'm sure it has many times. You know that your boss will likely ask you to complete the task, even you knowing that some mistakes will be made along the way, as you are rushed to do it within the allotted time.
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Cover Your Butt: Using E-mails To Track Dialogue

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:00:00 +0000

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Do you get numerous requests from your staff on a regular basis? Of course, who doesn't. But the question really is, are you able to prove that you did the task that you were asked to do?

I'm sure that everyone one of us has encountered this at least once in our careers, more so for the veteran Administrative Assistants. You are asked to do a task by your manager and you do it. Then your manager comes back to you and asks if it was done. Or you would have a client contact you and ask that you do something for them. You then have to pass on the request to a fellow colleague. Then someone comes to you and states that the task or the forwarding of the request wasn't done. This is where e-mail comes in.
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Managing Meeting Meltdowns: Technology Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Fri, 27 May 2011 09:00:00 +0000

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You have an important meeting to set up and you've prepared the handouts and the PowerPoint presentation on your boss' laptop. The speakerphone and projectors are in the room. Everything is fine and dandy, until... uh-oh! The speakerphone isn't working properly! What do you do?

I'm sure that this has happened to the best of us at some point in time. You have everything ready, you made sure you gave yourself ample time to get into the meeting room to set everything up and a small snafu like this happens.

Here are the steps to fixing this:
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The E-tiquette of E-mail - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Professional Assistant) — Thu, 26 May 2011 18:28:00 +0000

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You send an e-mail to a colleague only to get an e-mail back stating that you should ask another person they mention. Don't you just love it when this happens?

You ask a simple question and the person doesn't know the answer, but either thinks or knows another person knows the answer. Then they send an e-mail back to you stating that you should contact this person. Why couldn't they forward your e-mail to the other person and CC you on it as well? Is it really that difficult to do?

Of course, now you have to forward it yourself. I don't mean to sound lazy, but come on. Be a little courteous towards your colleagues. I understand that everyone is busy, but a 30 second e-mail is not going to kill you. Productivity is the key here!

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Persistence Makes Perfect

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:17:00 +0000

Have you ever had a problem at work that you couldn't solve right away? Did you keep asking your manager on the status of the ordeal?

This recently happened to me. My department merged with two others and moved to a different floor. I sat at the same desk for just over 5 years, so the change was a little scary at first. Everything seemed fine, as I got a brand new cubicle with windows behind and on the side of me. Ahh, complete privacy! So I thought.

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I'm Back!

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:00:00 +0000

Well, I have to admit, it was nice to be on hiatus for quite a bit of time. Wow, time flies!

I can’t believe that my last post was back in July of 2010. I had quite a bit of things to do in the last year or so and will try to start posting on a regular basis again. There’s been quite a bit of changes on this blog, as some of you veterans have already noticed.
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The Workplace is a Productivity Killer

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0000

You walk into your office, sit down and unpack your bag, possibly your lunch and agenda, like I do each morning. Then you turn on your computer, put your food in the fridge and head back to your desk.

Before you can even open the first e-mail that’s marked urgent, your boss shows up and asks you to send him the latest sales report on the department’s products. Then your co-worker starts chatting up with you about his weekend. Then you have another person come to you and mentions that the printer is down. Next, your phone is ringing off the hook, but you’re worried about letting it go to voice mail.
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Need to Change Excel Details from Vertical to Horizontal or Vice Versa?

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Your boss calls you over to their office and asks that you send her a list of something that you’ve created in Microsoft Excel. The list is in a vertical fashion, but she wants it a horizontal way instead.

You check your contact list and see that you have about 50 names in your Excel spreadsheet. How in the world will you get this to her in the next few minutes?

Believe me, this happened to me a few times and it took me quite a bit of time to get this done, before I discovered the Transpose function in Excel.
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Mobile Technology – Helping or Hindering?

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Does your boss have a BlackBerry? Do you know of someone that has some sort of wireless device? Chances are that you are able to answer “Yes” to one of these questions.

Cell phones and laptops have come a long way from the clunky old items back in the 80’s. If you’re like me, you remember the old brick phones with shoulder straps and laptops that were so heavy, you needed a crane to haul them around. Of course, times have changed and the nostalgia wears on.

Technology has advanced so much in the past 30 years. Cell phones have become credit card thin and laptops are slowly getting there. Take a look at the iPad. Everything you need in a small paper thin box. Just make sure not to snap it in half.

Everyone’s using them these days and getting a lot more done in a 24 hour period. People feel more productive and have a better sense of accomplishment of getting tasks done in such a rapid manner.
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Getting Job Postings in your Mailbox

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:57:00 +0000

Are you currently looking for a job? Have you recently been laid off and want to get back into the workforce as soon as possible? If you are part of this scenario, you are not alone.

Since the fall of the global economy, many people have been trying to find a new job, sometimes even a new career. Some are just trying to make ends meet.
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4 Easy Steps to Break PDFs Into Parts

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 09:00:00 +0000

An interesting thing happened to me the other day. One of my managers asked me to scan in a large number of pages of a document and create a PDF out of it. Then he wanted me to place it on the company’s network drive, so that other managers would be able to access it as well.

So of course, in ordinary fashion, I had trouble with the scanner, took a bit of time calling tech support and finally got it to work. But that besides the point. I just thought I’d show that technology can be very finicky when you show some sort of negative emotion around it – just a theory of mine.

Once the PDF was on the network drive, one of the managers e-mailed me stating that the file was too large to review on their BlackBerry and was wondering if I could cut the file down to 10-page increments.
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To Break or Not to Break? That is the Question!

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Do people bother you during your breaks or lunch? Does your manager walk up to you and ask you to do a report or task of some sort, while you are “not on the job” so to speak?

This happens to many people that I’ve spoken to, over and over again. Don’t you wish that you could just put up a sign that says, “On Break” or “On Lunch”? I actually used to have a “Do Not Disturb” sign when I was taking online courses at work (for work purposes, of course). I am sure that I can hear you thinking to yourself, “Sure, sure!”

Well, this is the time for you, the readers, to shine, since I really don’t have a good answer for this. All I can suggest is to leave your desk during these designated times and go outside, take a walk or go to the lunch room. But then again, the lunch room is usually crowded and noisy. And if you work in an industrial/commercial area such as myself, it can be a little difficult to find a quiet place to walk around.
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The Washroom Conundrum

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Do you ever enter a washroom at your office, wash your hands and realize that the trash can for throwing out your paper towel is right beside the sink area?

If this is how your office is set up, you’re not alone. This happens even in restaurants, other offices, public washrooms, etc. It can get quite annoying, since you washed your hands and now you have to touch the handle bar of the door just to get out of the room. Who knows what germs are festering on there.

Of course, I am sure that you’ve seen people not washing their hands or lightly letting the water run on them and just dry them off. Then they touch the handle bar and off they go.
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Overlapping Calendars In Microsoft Outlook? Really?

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:24:00 +0000

Do you have trouble trying to book several managers’ meetings, yet you have access to their calendars in Microsoft Outlook 2007? Do you wish that you could somehow overlap the calendars so that you could see the availabilities for everyone at the same time, instead of straining your eyes going back and forth like a yo-yo between calendars?

Well, believe it or not, Microsoft decided to add this feature into the 2007 edition of Outlook. It really saved me a lot of hassle and strain on my eyes.
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How to Deal with Inconsiderate Co-Workers

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Do you find that some of your co-workers can be extremely annoying, rude or just plain inconsiderate? Do you want to walk over to their cubicle while their talking loudly on the phone and give them a piece of your mind?

This happens to the best of us all of the time. There's always someone that annoys us and tries to make our lives more difficult than it already is.
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Find Project Management Answers In A Flash!

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Do you have questions about project management, but can't seem to get a proper answer? Do you scour the Internet for some sort of clue to what you are trying to accomplish? Do you wish that a real human being would be able to help you out?

A great website for this is Ask About Projects. This site enables you to create an account and post questions that you have about any type of project or task that you are having trouble with. People in turn would log into their own accounts and try to answer your question as best as possible.

You can even vote on the answer whether it was helpful or not, so that others can benefit from the details. It even has tags that you can click on, which bring you to questions and answers of different categories that you are trying to find information on.
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Make No Mistakes With Meeting Request Attachments in Outlook 2007

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

You sent a meeting request to a bunch of people. Your boss calls you up and tells you that you need to add an agenda to this meeting, but you don’t want everyone to get the meeting request again and have to accept/decline it. Trust me, people start to get irritated when this happens over and over again.

The other issue might be that they see a meeting request, usually don’t open it if it’s an update and decide to just accept the updated version. They don’t see the attached agenda or other attachment that you’ve added and go to the meeting oblivious of what’s going on or if they should have prepared for the meeting.
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Administrative Procedures Manual - Does Your Department Need One?

noreply@blogger.com (The Professional Assistant) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Does your department have an administrative procedures manual? Do you find that your staff are not being consistent with their memos, e-mails, the way they answer the phone, etc.?

I worked in quite a few firms, small and large, but my current one is the largest organization that I worked in - well, currently working in. As I worked in smaller firms, I didn't have to create an administrative procedures manual, as I was the only one that held this particular role. But once I moved to my current job, things changed quite a bit.

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