Question: “A situation has arisen in our office involving a lack of raises for admins going back three years, while other departments get steady increases. We believe that only the whole admin team presenting our grievance at once will work to get a change made, because individual complaints just haven’t had any impact. I’m looking for guidance on the best way to present a ‘unified front’ when an issue needs to be addressed this way. Should our concerns be in writing? Should one of us act as the leader who presents them?” – Daphne, Conference Center Assistant
Kenny Nguyen, founder of Big Fish Presentations, finds that admins often have to put presentations together at the last minute. Here are some tips.
Personal assistants help ensure successful executives stay on top of their work, writes Suzanne Locke for The National. Helen Clarke, personal assistant to Richard Branson (the founder of Virgin Group), knows just how much is expected in the job.
Q: “My manager says she wants to help me get promoted, but she doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. For the past two years, she has said that my position should be reclassified as an assistant director. However, our company requires assistant directors to have people reporting to them, and I don’t have any employees. When I first came to work here, I supervised five people, but now I’m in a program manager position which has no staff. If my boss truly cared about my advancement, I believe she would either get an exception made to the policy or reorganize to give me some employees. What can I do about this?” Held Back
Q: “Our new regional manager was transferred here after being demoted from a higher-level position. This guy has no idea what our jobs involve and apparently doesn’t care. He seems to feel that cutting costs will help him return to the corporate ‘ivory tower,’ so he has started randomly reducing our work hours. Previously, schedules were posted two weeks in advance, but now they can change at a moment’s notice. Employees are frequently called at home and told not to come in the next day or instructed to leave as soon as they arrive at the office. Meanwhile, the work is piling up. How can we end this nightmare?” Frazzled
Conference calls can be productive or a chore. Here are some tips to making your calls pain free from U.S. News & World Report’s careers editor, Laura McMullen.
Collaborating can help co-workers achieve many things, but if done incorrectly, it can tear groups apart, writes Elise Mitchell for SmartBlog on Leadership. Here are seven tips to make sure your collaborations are positive ones.
Ever agreed to give a lift to a co-worker or two—maybe even your boss—only to suddenly realize on your way out to the car that it’s filled with junk, soda bottles, food wrappers and whatever the kids have cluttered it with today? It’s not your proudest moment and tends to undo someone’s image of you […]