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2 parts Advertisement done with log for the financial review in Sydney and a case study report

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2 parts Advertisement done with log for the financial review in Sydney and a case study report

Introduction

An executive assistant plays a crucial role in an organisation. In the ever changing business environment, it is the executive assistant’s job is to assist the key decision maker to stay focused, effective, and a better leader. The key skills of this position are excellent communication, creativity, and ability to work independently.

Given that the tasks involve being in charge of managing most of the support activities within the administrative sector, that is, ascertaining that ideal operations of the senior management team carries out all the goals of the organisation. Normally this job entails being an office manager or working as a secretary to the managers of a company. Hancock Pty Ltd is a small firm wishing to recruit an office manager, this position has three direct report; the receptionist and two administrative staff.

Critical Skills of Senior Executive Assistants

In the ever changing office environment, the critical skills required of an effective senior executive assistant is communication. How the incumbent interacts with peers and other decision makers is paramount on how ideas exchange across the organisation. Other vital skills are interpersonal effectiveness, project management skills, financial planning abilities, and effective writing skills.

Effective writing skills are particularly essential for an office manager to put the right words on paper quickly. Therefore, they must be able to communicate more clearly, concisely, and persuasively. Words matter and an effective office assistant must learn, develop, and enhance how to use them. The key areas that require effective principle of writing: successful correspondence, message shaping, writing to the point, avoiding writing traps, diplomacy and politics, refining the writing, and managing minutes in a meeting.

An outstanding executive assistant should possess soft skills, and abilities to maximise appropriate communication skills for personal and professional potential. The positive traits needed include; self awareness, personal openness, conflict handling, frustration and stress control, assertiveness, and making commitments to development. Appropriate communication skills are key to developing a positive image, giving and receiving feedback, presenting ideas with confidence and clarity. Commitment to personal development is related to making choices and managing personal change, building self esteem and emotional intelligence, developing networks, having creative visioning abilities, and being results oriented. Being assertive implies being able to understand both external and internal sources of conflict, ability to gauge the expectations of others, developing self confidence, and having behaviours and words that count.

Project Management skills are a must for executive assistants, they must have the ability and structure to manage short term and long term projects. The incumbent should act as a central partner interacting with all the departments, checking budgets and schedules. They should be aware of factors that affect projects success or failure, developing and implementing classic ways of managing them, understanding customer needs for effective project initiation, planning, implementation, and control. The appropriate office manager should be able to deal with the unexpected, communicate the right things to the right people at the right time. They must also have excellent project closing skills, and must be able to appreciate the importance of communication within a project team. They must be confident and able to accept responsibility for new projects, ability to identify, and apply appropriate tools to effectively manage the processes. Hancock needs people who can stay in control of projects in dynamic business environments, and dealing with unexpected setbacks.

Basic financial skills are necessary for this position. An understanding of figures that give information on the business is key to better supporting the manager with preparing reports and analyses. The executive assistant must be able to talk the language of finance and accounting, financial statements, financing international business, business plan preparation, and preparing meaningful budgets.

The incumbent should have a basic understanding of how financial tools are applied in planning, measuring, and controlling an organisation’s performance. They must possess a deep awareness of the economic environment and its impact on the company with sound abilities to spot facts and figures that might affect the business. Knowledge of the function and fundamentals of accounting is essential to the construction of the profit and loss accounts, balance sheets, statements of sources and uses of funds, and statements of retained earnings. Understanding the inter-relations between these statements is necessary coupled with the company’s annual financial report.