From the course: Administrative Professional Tips
Grow your dream team
- As I travel around the country and speak to fellow administrative support professionals, one of the things that is a recurring theme is how to get administrative support professionals to communicate and work together better. You have more than likely experienced some challenges or lackluster result in this area yourself. I spend considerable time sharing my success stories with admins in a variety of industries and sectors. I created a national award-winning program called H.E.A.R.T. H.E.A.R.T. stands for Helping Empower Administrative support professionals through Resources and Training. This program was developed out of sheer frustration when working in a previous school district that was composed of approximately 150 administrative support professionals. We rarely interacted as a group, had barely any professional development training, and were normally the last one to know critical district-wide information that directly affected our job assignments. H.E.A.R.T. directly addressed the challenges by creating a program that allowed us to communicate more effectively, have access to technological resources, train and develop as a team, take advantage of networking opportunities, and raise the profile of administrative support professionals throughout the district. Addressing all of these areas resulted in a vibrant program that we were extremely proud of and highly recognized for. Here are the principles we applied to make the team more cohesive. In our first goal of improving communications, we aimed to establish identified channels for sharing vital information. By doing so, this would allow us to receive timely updates, accurate messages, and answers to critical questions. This resulted in higher levels of customer service when dealing with students, parents, administration, and the general public. Next, we wanted to ensure access to needed resources that allowed us to do our respective jobs with excellence and efficiency. We felt this was important to address the lack of resources that existed among some of our personnel and to provide all of them with the tools they needed. We wanted to provide networking opportunities where we could come together to build community, solve problems, share information, and collaborate. These formal and informal gatherings would highlight our connections and diminish differences. One of the most important things that we did in this area was having the group participate in community service projects together. In terms of training and development, our goal was to provide voluntary professional development opportunities. These offerings would strengthen current skills, develop areas for improvement, and assist in growing and keeping competency levels high. Finally, we wanted to raise the profile of administrative support professionals throughout the organization. We knew that no one else could do this for us. It was up to the administrative support professionals within the district to display our professionalism and commitment to excellence. By combining efforts in all of these areas, we created a program that had immediate results and allowed us to strengthen and develop as not only support professionals, but it also served to significantly impact our personal development as well. Incorporate these principles and goals in your own work area to bring your dream team together in new and exciting ways, which can result in a more productive and healthy workplace. This not only benefits your team, but it has a lasting effect on the organization for years to come.
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