Month: October 2020

Staying Relevant: Keeping CEOs Sane

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Meet Joanne Linden, CPS, CEAP, CWCA President and Master Trainer

So much is changing and evolving, it is enough to make anyone’s head spin – even a powerful CEO. Now is the time to have a steady and confident partner to be at your side supporting you flawlessly.

At the end of the day, the main goal for an Executive Assistant is to give the CEO the gift of time to do things that are important to him or her outside of work. To make this possible, EAs must fully understand the Executive’s professional priorities. With hundreds – often thousands – of people depending on a CEO to make the correct decisions to keep his or her company afloat and progressing, most Executives feel enormous amounts of stress daily. Now, with COVID keeping them at home, responsibilities outside of work blur together with means that must be met when (?) leading an entire company. Two out of three of the suggestions from chiefexecutive.net in an article called How Not To Burn Out In A Time Of Crisis instruct CEOs to “delegate with trust” and “listen to your people.” Delegated tasks begin with the Executive Assistant, who must keep business running smoothly during the current crisis by using communication and thinking outside the box.

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Staying Relevant: Morale Boosting Maven

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Meet Joanne Linden, CPS, CEAP, CWCA President and Master Trainer

Robots just don’t have the same warmth that a human being has. Is there even an app for boosting morale? In these times of remote working, it is more important than ever to find ways to connect with your team, support them and boost the positive morale in your digital workplace. 

We are all experiencing the negative effects of living in a world of COVID for six months straight now and a big one involves the effect it has on depression and anxiety. According to an online article written by William Wan of The Washington Post, “A federal emergency hotline for people in emotional distress registered a more than 1,000 percent increase in April compared with the same time last year.” This spike in the above hotline, “run by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,” is an obvious display of the negative mental health effects of quarantine including fear, economic instability, and isolation. The team of an Executive Assistant is most likely feeling the effects of isolation due to the lack of interactions he or she is used to when working alongside coworkers in the office every week. Now more than ever, finding ways to keep your team’s morale on the upside is incredibly important.

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Staying Relevant: Taking Charge of Onboarding

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Meet Joanne Linden, CPS, CEAP, CWCA President and Master Trainer

Businesses are still growing, bringing on new team members constantly. Executive Assistants are an integral piece of welcoming and onboarding new staff.

Who knows the inner workings of a business better than an EA who has firsthand knowledge of what happens behind the closed doors of management and amongst the Assistants of different levels? Nobody. This is why Executive Assistants need to understand why a smooth plan for onboarding new hires is important to the company and how he or she can make sure the plan functions efficiently. OrangeHRM, a popular open-source human resource management software company, describes this process perfectly in a blog entry entitled Efficiently Managing Onboarding of quick Hires that states “In a nutshell, onboarding is the process of bringing new employees into the company in a seamless manner so they may become productive in less time.”

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Staying Relevant: Collaboration is King

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Meet Joanne Linden, CPS, CEAP, CWCA President and Master Trainer

There’s nothing quite like having someone you work closely with, who understands your industry, day-to-day, struggles, etc. Being able to brainstorm with your Executive is something an app can’t do. Are you exercising your collaborative muscles?

Some people prefer to go to work, put in their eight hours, and go home. How does keeping your head down and limiting human interaction contribute to the success of the business or organization you work for? Some of the largest, most influential companies are made up of partnerships for a reason. Having business partners and/or coworkers by your side can turn a singular idea into a multifaceted creation to incorporate into the workings of a company. Even in a time of pure remote communication like now, partnerships and brainstorming can easily be achieved. For an Administrative Professional, forming this type of partnership with your Executive is not only the most valuable, but in an ever-changing landscape and with the looming threat of automation, demonstrating the value of this element of your partnership is one of the best ways that you will stay relevant in your industry and in your role. 

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Staying Relevant: Networking Extraordinaire

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Meet Joanne Linden, CPS, CEAP, CWCA President and Master Trainer
Networking has taken on a new form these days, but the effort is more important than ever before. Leaving the networking research and connections up to your EA is the best way to make those connections happen in an Executive’s busy schedule.

Networking has taken on a new form these days, but the effort is more important than ever before. Leaving the networking research and connections up to your EA is the best way to make those connections happen in an Executive’s busy schedule.

Current circumstances surrounding the global pandemic have changed the landscape of connecting with others because of the new limited ability to travel, whether it’s downtown or to another state. Technological advances have now given Executive Assistants ways to conduct networking through Virtual Networking Events, resulting in an even more preferable medium to many. 

Participating in these events is beneficial to the Assistant in many ways, instilling confidence in the value of their role. Executives will benefit from the connections the Assistant makes, opening doors to new business relationships – vendors, potential customers/clients, peers and business partners. So how do you take the first step into the virtual networking world? 

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