Clerical roles have been an integral part of business since the beginning of commerce. But like all jobs, technology has slowly been changing what it means to be an administrative assistant. While adjustment is often required, these changes are usually positive ones that come with a lot of benefits for both employers and employees. With technology making their jobs infinitely easier, the future is bright for administrative assistants. Here are just a few of the ways technology has irrevocably changed the modern administrative assistant role.
1. It Allows Remote Work
As with most other traditional office roles, technology allows administrative assistants to work remotely. This is seen as a huge perk by many people for a number of reasons – you can cut out your daily commute, you can work from the comfort of your own home and you can spend more time with your family. This is a change technology has made possible that thousands are embracing. It’s advantageous to companies too, because it saves them money on overhead costs if they can have staff work remotely some or even all of the time. Virtual administrative assistant positions are rapidly growing in popularity, both among administrative professionals and business owners. These are usually contract positions although some are part- or even full-time for companies that do not want the overhead costs of having an administrative assistant on-site but still want the support one can provide.
2. High-Tech Skills Are Required
One big thing that’s changing for administrative assistants is the fact that they need to be more skilled in using a vaster array of technology than before. It’s now expected that administrative assistants have strong proficiency in Microsoft Office – it’s barely even worth mentioning on your resume now. These positions require additional tech skills than they did before, including in database management, troubleshooting computer and other office equipment problems and newer systems such as cloud software. It’s also helpful to have certificates from a number of software and technology vendors, including Adobe and Microsoft. All of these skills are becoming necessary to the administrative assistant role when they weren’t before, so it’s important for administrative professionals to cultivate them so they will continue to have marketable skills modern administrative assistants will need.
3. It Makes Your Job Easier
Like with most jobs, and most elements of everyday life, technology simply makes regular tasks much easier and less time-consuming. Instead of having to put together a newsletter by hand or churn out something that looks like it was made off of an old template, it’s now easier than ever to make a professional-looking, unique one on programs as varied as Publisher, Word, and Pages. Calendars now easily sync between devices so your scheduling will always be second to none and you’ll never miss an appointment. Project manager software makes it much easier to keep track of the status of a project and all the team members working on it. Cloud computing allows you to access data and files from anywhere, and it all saves automatically so you will never have to worry about losing a file you’ve been working on again. You might answer e-mail and live chat questions just as often, if not more so, than you would a phone.
The role of an administrative assistant will continue to change with the available technology, and professionals will have to change with it. Nonetheless, managers will still need humans in support roles, so while administrative assistant positions are becoming more dependent on technology, they aren’t going away anytime soon. If you are an experienced administrative assistant, be sure to remain up-to-date on new technological trends in your field to increase your marketability as an employee. You’ll remain ahead of the curve and a valuable team member to your employer.
