How to gain independence as an Administrative Assistant?
Asked by smw_91
As part of my performance goals set this year, I have chosen to apply independent initiative. What should I stress focus on as an Administrative Assistant being that my primary job is dependent upon other to provide my work. I already seek additional tasking when I'm complete with my list for each day. What are other areas I can emphasize my independence on that will help me achieve this goal and also get noticed by my boss?

Best Answer:
Are you at a company where there are other Administrative Assistants? If so, start providing internal training. I'm the chair of a committee here, where we offer training, to insure that our Admin Community is best-in-class. We've done training sessions on creating org charts in various software packages, how to use our internal Accounting, HR and Shipping applications, reviews of our travel policies and how these relate to our expense reporting application, and many other things. The training is all done by internal experts. If we're talking about an Accounts Payable application, we would have A/P either provide the training, or train one of us well enough that we could provide the training. Most of the time, these other departments are happy and eager to help, as it makes their day-to-day work easier, since they don't have to answer all of the little questions that they'd otherwise get all the time. It also relieves some of their workload, in that we Admins sometimes become the expert, and can answer the questions before they need to be 'escalated' to other departments. It has been great for our company, and has been a great asset for my annual performance evaluation.