Benefits of Training Your Administrative Professionals

Everyone thrives in a job where they feel supported. Right? Right!

Administrative professionals are no different. They have the potential to be a powerful force that guides your company’s success. Given the right support and investment, they can help achieve your company’s goals. 

If you’re not investing in them, you’re not allowing them the opportunity to live up to their full potential.

“Investing is a broad term, where do I start?”

That’s where we come in. In this article, we discuss where training is crucial, why training is important and how to get a strong return on investment with training. By the end, you will know exactly how training your administrative professionals can grow your bottom line.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

Training can be a broad term so we took the liberty of outlining the many ways you can effectively train your administrative professionals. Here are three crucial types of training that benefit your executive assistants the most.

Three Crucial Types of Training:

1. Professional Development: This is typically on-location training where your executive assistant goes to a live experience focused on empowering, educating and strengthening the abilities of executive assistants. This is an in-person event where your administrative professionals can meet and collaborate with other administrative professionals, and learn directly from industry-leading experts in their field. It is an opportunity for them to grow together. (Don’t know where to start? Check out our list of training events here!)
2. Online Training: Sometimes, the flexibility of online training suits your admins best. Online training can offer an on-demand option that allows your executive assistants to fit it in their schedule when they can. If that is the case, you can offer online training that can be done at the pace of the administrative assistant. This way, work can stay a top priority.
3. In-House Training: Create value in your organization by starting with your executive assistants and their executives. In-House training helps you deliver experiential, unique and innovative training that maximizes the potential of the relationship between your executives and their assistants. (Well, the good ones do that. Thankfully, we offer on-site training so you don’t have to search for one!) In-house training provides your executive assistants the chance to become your executive’s strategic business partner. I

Executive Assistant Training can increase your bottom line. 

We’ve discussed the three main types of training, so now let’s discuss why executive assistant training is important. Here are six benefits you will receive when you train your administrative professional:

1. Automation: Automation has the ability to increase work output and optimize workflow if used appropriately. A major downside is that automation takes time to learn. By allowing your administrative professional the opportunity to learn about new software and products, you create a way for new technology to become seamlessly integrated throughout your business by someone who has the ability and confidence to put it all together.
2. Increased Workload Ability: Most administrative professionals aren’t being utilized to their full potential. In addition to booking flights and keeping their executives organized, administrative professionals can help with project management, optimizing workflow and can become the eyes and ears for their executives. Administrative professionals have more mobility than executives and can gather intel easier. By providing appropriate training, you empower the administrative professionals to use their full set of skills.
3. Agility: As you know, in business, it isn’t about how people respond to best-case scenarios, it’s how they respond to the worst case. If your administrative professional is confidently trained and up-to-date on the newest trends and issues, they can help steer your company ahead of your competition.Given the proper training, administrative professionals can become an extension of the executive.
4. Attract Higher-Quality Administrative Professionals: Employees across the board want the opportunity to learn more than anything else. In fact, ongoing job training is considered the most important decision-making factor by job seekers today. If you have administrative professionals that are leading the skill-development race and you are providing them with the support they crave, they are more likely to give their loyalty to your company.
5. Lower Overall Personnel Cost: Since valuable administrative professionals are an extension of their executive, high turnover can cause turmoil. If you invest in better staff, including administrative professionals, you end up with high-quality staff members who become invested in your company’s success. Take the money you would have spent on new staff and use it to invest in the staff you currently have. Allow them the opportunity to grow and thrive in their position. They feel great and your business will in turn grow!
6. Improves Your Organization’s Reputation: A strong reputation as an employer and as a business can bode well for new employees and customers alike. Word gets around fast. When highly qualified administrative professionals are looking for a new opportunity, they will be looking for competitiveness in all fields. If you can provide them the support and education to help them succeed, you might become a top runner. Customers also favor businesses that support their employees.

We’ve established how training can be a valuable asset to your administrative professional and your company. Now, we are going to go over four ways to get the most return on investment for your training.

How to Get the Best ROI on Executive Assistant Training:

1. Train Your Executives: Training goes both ways. Not only can you train your administrative professionals to become an extension of your executive, but you can train your executives to learn how to best communicate and utilize their administrative professionals. If both parties are trained, they form a strategic partnership. (Is this something you’re interested in? We offer executive training as well as administrative professional training!)
2. Listen: Always start by listening. Ask what they are looking to get out of their jobs. Optimize their time by working with them to embrace skills they are already excited about. Perhaps they have a passion for project management and had never mentioned it. They could potentially start taking on additional work to help other employees. Training will magnify those hidden talents.
3. Ask for Summaries Post-Training: Take an interest in what your administrative professionals are learning. Have them write a post-training summary or have them put together a proposal to show you what they learned and how they believe they can invest that knowledge back into the company.
4. Value Their Opinion: Most companies have administrative professionals that are bright and resourceful (they figured out how to schedule in three meetings that overlapped while getting you on your flight and providing a packing list while finishing up their lunch and bringing you yours… all in the same hour). Most companies haven’t offered them support and they have still succeeded. Your company cannot succeed without continued assistance. Ask them what would help them succeed and deliver on that.

 “Ok, we get it. Training is valuable. Now, how do we find and vet all the training options out there?”

Oh, what a wonderful question. We thought you would never ask! There are plenty of executive assistant training opportunities, so how do you choose the best fit for your employees?

4 Tips for Finding the Best Executive Assistant Training

1. Research: Research is vital. Take some time to look at the different options, compare and contrast benefits and read through client testimonials. You want to look for training that offers tangible outcomes and an organized schedule.
2. Location: Some training is only offered once or twice a year in one location. If you are in (or close to) a big city, look for training that will be close by OR look for companies that have conveniently located training in multiple cities.
3. Specify: If a company is offering training in addition to hundreds of other products or services, the quality might not be there. Look for companies that specialize in training for administrative professionals. You don’t want to spend time or money on a diluted program that was created for a general workforce. You want training that is focused on your administrative assistant.
4. Understand: Know what you want your administrative professional to get out of the training. Is it a better workflow? More confidence? A better grasp on project management? Use these expectations against agendas and workshop descriptions to make sure you’re sending your administrative professional to the right training.

Your administrative professional is your gatekeeper. They are the ones yielding calls and doing everything they can to make your life as seamless and easy as possible. They invest their time and energy into making your day and job run smoothly. We hope that you take this information, turn around and do your part to help them become their most optimized selves.

Interested in learning more about our training programs? Drop us a message and we’ll schedule a time to chat about your specific needs.