Help your colleagues be happy

When it comes to work woes, issues with admin can drive employees round the bend.

Many workers are finding that, despite the advances of technology designed to streamline tasks, they’re actually losing more time.

Admin_1_smallIn fact, a recent survey of more than 2000 UK employees discovered a staggering 42 per cent spent the majority of their workday on “work about work” tasks.

This included attending meetings, organising their workload and looking up information.

While this has become almost an accepted part of office life, the impact on productivity is hard to shrug off.

The Office for Budget Responsibility revealed this month the UK’s productivity has grown at only 0.2 per cent a year for the past five years and is expected to be weak for the next five years.

Technology has transformed many industries for the better but when it comes to its effect on administrative tasks, the picture is more complex.

It’s becoming clear having numerous different ways to keep in touch with colleagues – email, phone, chat spaces and cloud-shared documents – is often making life more difficult for teams, especially in larger companies, to get clarity on how to move forward.

You know the scenario: every suggestion put forward in a group conversation is met with two reasons why it wouldn’t work and three alternatives. And so it continues until another cyber meeting is organised.

It’s no surprise larger companies with between 500 and 1000 members of staff have a particular problem. Around 58 per cent of employees in such businesses report their work is duplicated by someone else within the organisation.

It seems the bigger the company, the more time can be wasted on unnecessary and doubled up admin.

Of course, you know where all of this is heading, don’t you?

Yes, if you’re determined to shine as an admin professional, in a world such as this red hot administrators like you really can sparkle.

After all, as an administrator, you’re the oil in the company cogs and the coal in the business boiler.

If you can identify admin bottlenecks and inefficient ways of working then demonstrate working solutions, you’ll be a valuable asset to any company.

Any admin assistant, PA or researcher who can contribute to making the business more productive and freeing up time for everyone else is worth their weight in gold.

If you think you’ve got what it takes, check out the current Admin roles at s1jobs.