Assistants ask you to stop calling them assistants

Before the pandemic, executive assistant Yasmin Chung ran thousands of meetings right from her desk, keeping an eye on meeting rooms, participants and their bosses – including the ceremonial mayor of London. Today, her work is often virtual.

“Sometimes my boss sends a last-minute Slack message when a meeting is overrun, but it depends on how easily he can message me,” Chung said of her EA appearance at Juro, the legal contracting platform she works with. now works. “It is a bit more difficult to predict where people are. I feel more attached to a screen.”

Just as secretarial roles have been upgraded by technology and the women’s movement, the assistant’s position is now changing. Since the pandemic, the feature has evolved from a mostly personal and practical role to an often virtual and digital one, focused on a seemingly impossible task: keeping tabs on people in numerous locations, similar to a Pokemon Go surprise game. T. In turn, job titles, responsibilities and daily tasks change.

“They’re doing a lot of video calling and also attending more meetings than before the pandemic to keep up,” said Bonnie Low-Kramen, owner of Ultimate Assistant Training & Consulting, who has worked for actress Olympia Dukakis for 25 years. . “We are seeing the word ‘assistant’ being completely phased out in some companies.”

Some of the favorite new titles are causing a stir, such as: B. strategic business partner, administrative partner, administrative manager or coordinator, business project manager and managing partner. But aides say the titles reflect their increasing responsibilities.

“The ‘assistant’ stigma has to do with the stereotypes of secretaries as lackeys in ‘The Devil Wears Prada,'” Low-Kramen said. “Some people are really bothered by old ideas about what an assistant is.”

Assistant roles now regularly attract people who don’t want to be labeled as admins, especially in competitive companies where assistant roles are the easiest entry points. At TransPerfect, a translation agency with 7,500 employees, the changing profession of the assistant is clearly visible. Some employees have gone on to lead departments and a former top executive is now chief of staff, according to CEO Phil Shawe, who has eight employees worldwide. Nor are primary entry-level tasks such as booking appointments and travel.

“Often they hold meetings for me and represent the company until they eventually become leaders themselves,” said Shawe. “I always tell people to hire someone you want to do business with, even if it doesn’t seem like they have the necessary skills.”

According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. executive assistants are 93% female and have an average salary of $66,870 in 2021. Executive assistants in fields such as technology and finance earn much more, averaging nearly $90,000. According to Low-Kramen, positions supporting the C-suite often start at $100,000, while a chief of staff starts at $125,000 to $150,000. As a rule, managing other assistants pay significantly more. The data does not include those with enhanced job titles.

The pay increases that come with these new titles can be significant.

“If I designate myself as an associate, I’m more likely to receive executive-level compensation,” says Jill Larmer, who has served as a secretary and assistant on four continents since 1979. resolutions, eventually taking entire projects off executives’ desks, she felt “assistant” was no longer appropriate.

“I’ve mentored great leaders and they’ve mentored me in management skills,” she said. “It got to the point where I decided to change my title to managing partner as a sign of respect for them and also in recognition of the level of skill achieved.”

Perhaps the biggest change in this area is a new preference for extreme self-starters. Support roles used to mean being three steps ahead of the boss, but today it’s often about figuring out how to make things work while working physically separated from others.

“Nobody puts to-do lists in their face every day,” Shawe said.

While assistant roles vary widely by industry, the pandemic ethos of having all hands on deck has led to an increased workload, with assistants crossing their fingers in a wider range of specialized work.

“I’m involved in the finer details of the business, and it’s probably more intense now,” Rebecca Burgess says of her role as executive assistant to the CEO of international banking firm Interpolitan Money. “I attend many meetings on behalf of the CEO.”

A rapidly growing task is monitoring communication. A penchant for back-to-back Zoom meetings is bothering many bosses more now than before the pandemic. Some assistants have formal check-ins with their bosses up to twice a day, which wasn’t necessary if they worked in the same office. Others now serve as mission controls for full hybrid stings, answering questions that were once casually answered in the corridors.

“I’ve talked to most people at the company because they feel comfortable giving me some clemency,” Chung said.

The average enterprise has 187 applications in its technology stack. For Chung, this includes email, text messages, Slack, Google Drive, an HR platform, and Not, where she can see tasks her boss is working on. Chung also manages seven email inboxes: her boss’s, her own, several company-wide addresses, and her boss’s personal accounts. Other companies use organizational tools like Trello or Asana, as well as internal communication apps.

“Information flows are very fragmented,” Low-Kramen said. “It feels very new to even the most seasoned assistants, and many have come to the point where they raise it as a problem. Things fall between the cracks.”

Chung noted that the new expanded roles of the assistants are getting more appreciation from employees who see their day-to-day efforts. “There’s more respect now compared to previous roles I’ve had.”