Today is Administrative Professionals Day! We acknowledge everyone in a support role and their contributions to companies, teams and their impact on the world. Yes, I said it — their impact on the world!

Whatever your role title is, Executive Assistant, Administrative Business Partner, Executive Operations, Chief of Staff, Administrative Assistant, Coordinator, Receptionist, Office Assistant, Administrative Management, Personal Assistant, Virtual Assistant, Executive Business Partner  — you enable the success of organizations worldwide. Without your support, leaders would not have the bandwidth to be visionary and innovative, nor execute on business goals.

2020 was full of ambiguity and challenged everyone beyond their limits. Support roles saw huge shifts in the types of work they were doing. Gone was all the rich context from working side-by-side with executives and teams. Gone was the complexity of global travel and ground logistics. Gone was the work of putting together location based off-sites and conferences. The world saw a shift to working remotely, and with this, new types of work emerged as critical to supporting leadership:

1. Expertly written and visual internal team communications.
2. Increased process documentation.
3. Creation and implementation of remote onboarding programs and virtual events that foster company culture and increase employee engagement.
4. Remote workforce management on behalf of the executives they support.
5. Vetting and implementation of automation.
6. Managing the production of small to large-scale, publicly facing virtual events.
7. Administrative professionals adapted on the job to these new needs with great success and continue to do so under challenging global circumstances. They are the general operators that make a business tick. These individuals keep your leadership leading, your businesses running and deserve regular recognition, acknowledgement of the evolution of their skills and experience through meaningful career development and equitable compensation

Administrative professionals adapted on the job to these new needs with great success and continue to do so under challenging global circumstances. They are the general operators that make a business tick. These individuals keep your leadership leading, your businesses running and deserve regular recognition, acknowledgement of the evolution of their skills and experience through meaningful career development and equitable compensation.

Let’s all take a moment today and every day to acknowledge the contributions of all support roles and impact on the success of your company or organization.

Thank you.