Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive

Job purpose

To answer telephones and e-mail, receive visitors, draft correspondence, maintain calendars and appointments and run the office's paper and electronic filing systems, so that enquiries reach the right people promptly and office records and arrangements stay accurate and current.

Skills

• Knowledge of office and administrative procedure — records and file management, document formats and workplace terminology — with a command of written English sufficient to compose correspondence, meeting notes and routine reports and to check colleagues' drafts against house format. Confident use of word processing, database and electronic mail applications. School-level education is the norm, with a substantial minority holding an associate's degree or equivalent, plus several months to a year of related experience and on-the-job training.
• Handles a high volume of contact by telephone, e-mail, letter and in person: takes messages, transfers calls, greets visitors and either answers enquiries or directs them onward. Deals with external customers and the public as well as colleagues, occasionally with people who are unpleasant or discourteous. Recommends revisions to others' drafts and assists staff in using office applications.
• Determines where an unclear enquiry or item of correspondence belongs, locates the file or information needed from internal records and internet searches, checks work against company format policies and arranges repairs when equipment fails. Decisions are frequent but the problems are procedural, with precedent available.
• Maintains scheduling and event calendars, confirms appointments for supervisors, clients and customers, arranges meeting and travel reservations and prepares event materials. Works to deadlines under recurrent time pressure and largely sets the order of its own work within the office routine.
• Desk-based keyboard work, with repeated use of the hands in typing, filing and operating copiers and telephone systems. No handling demands beyond moving files and printed material.

Responsibilities

• Ordinarily no line management, but may supervise other clerical staff, provide their training and orientation and track their daily work, and coordinate colleagues in shared tasks.
• Holds no budget and commits no expenditure. Orders and dispenses supplies, and may maintain timekeeping information and submit payroll, handle cheques and banking, disburse cash to settle bills and invoices and record collections and disbursements so that accounts balance — all transactional and bounded by company procedure.
• Ordinary care of a workstation and of shared office equipment — copiers, fax machines and telephone systems — arranging repair when it fails and keeping supplies available.
• Sets up and runs the office's paper and electronic filing systems, creates and updates databases, and maintains attendance records and correspondence. Coordinates the flow of information internally and with other organisations. Accuracy is central and error carries consequences for co-workers and office results, though the content and structure of the records are set by others.

Effort required

• Sustained accuracy across a high volume of routine documentation, data entry and repeated tasks, with frequent small judgements about routing, priority and format made under time pressure. The demand is vigilance rather than analysis.
• Continuous contact with colleagues, customers and the public, some of whom are angry or discourteous, and occasional conflict situations, calling for courtesy and self-control.
• Long periods seated at a workstation with repetitive hand and finger movements. No standing, walking or lifting demands are recorded.

Working conditions

• An indoor, environmentally controlled office with no material physical hazard. The notable demand is interpersonal: a high volume of face-to-face, telephone and written contact, some of it with discourteous or angry people, and occasional conflict situations.
• Schedules are regular and established, most working a standard full-time week and the remainder divided between shorter and longer weeks; there is no shift, seasonal or on-call working. Time pressure recurs and decisions bear on co-workers and office results. Within a settled procedural framework, considerable latitude is exercised over the order and method of daily work.