How COVID has changed executive assistant roles forever
Executive assistants – and the executives they assist – have been working from home more than ever before. As lockdown eases, EAs can’t expect to return to normal; they need to be prepared for a new role. Here’s why.
Executives will travel less
Even after lockdown, executives who’ve grown used to doing their meetings with the Paris office via Zoom are unlikely to want to jump back on a plane. That gives them and their EAs more time: but how will that time be used?
EAs whose role has been focused on travel booking will see a big drop in their workload.
Executives will be more self-sufficient
Many execs have seriously rethought their lives during COVID and will want more downtime and family time going forward, so they’ll be less frantic and will need to push fewer tasks down to their EAs.
Both these facts lead up to a third:
EAs will need to add wider organisational value
With fewer admin duties, EAs will need to make themselves conspicuously useful to avoid becoming superfluous. That means shifting to more of a business manager role, with more focus on operational communication, team management and project management.
Many EAs and execs will continue remote working
Again, this means the EA needs to focus actively on staying visible and staying in the loop. That means proactively setting routines like regular 1:1s.
In summary, EAs need to future-proof themselves going forward by proving what they themselves have always known: that they are not glorified admin assistants, they are leaders in their own right, and capable of managing much higher-level responsibilities than they’ve hitherto been given.