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Latest News

Skilled secs ensure traditional role stays ‘dead and buried’

by Personnel Today 3 Jul 2003
by Personnel Today 3 Jul 2003

The
traditional role of the British secretary is ‘dead and buried’, with the
majority of PAs now multi-skilled and expected to contribute more strategically
to the business.

A
poll of more than 1,200 administrative staff by recruitment specialist
Officeteam shows that secretaries who just take dictation, write shorthand and
answer the bosses phone are now in the minority.

According
to the figures today’s secretary is more likely to be organising company events
(71 per cent) setting up conferences (64 per cent) or writing reports on a
daily basis (58 per cent).

Secretaries
are also taking on a range of new tasks such as increased office management (62
per cent) finding new staff (38 per cent) and even managing current employees
(23 per cent).

Steve
Carter, managing director of Officeteam, said modern technology such as e-mail
and mobile phones has eclipsed the traditional ‘gatekeeper’ role of PAs to
enable them to widen their skills.

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The
economic downturn is also contributing to the changes, with secretaries being
called on to fill many of the gaps left by redundancies.

By Ross Wigham

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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Personnel Today
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