Bridging the L&D Gap
By Trish Butera
There is a firm agreement in the global workforce community that all employees must be given mechanisms that ensure career opportunities through professional development, leading to organizational success. However, even with this greater attention given to Learning & Development, there is still a wide chasm in career development that disproportionately affects administrative and business support staff.
This L&D gap can be due to several factors, such as limited opportunities for advancement, limited resources available to support professional growth, and even unconscious biases which allow outdated role-specific stereotypes to prevail within an organization. The impact of this gap on the individual level can be devastating, resulting in feelings of stagnation, frustration, and unhappiness at work. On the organizational level, it can harm productivity levels, impacting the EA/Manager dynamic and overall performance.
There are several possible solutions to help close this gap and ensure that all employees – including a leader's 'right hand' person and broader administrative support teams - can thrive at work.
One approach is to create more structured career development programs within the organization, providing business support staff with clear goals and milestones to work toward. Another solution is to provide targeted training and education programs, allowing administrative employees to continue developing their skills.
Additionally, managers could play a more prominent role in supporting the growth of their executive and personal assistants by providing constructive feedback and actively connecting them with opportunities for advancement within the organization. To ensure that these solutions are effective, it is also essential to address any unconscious biases within the organization or even within an individual manager's practice. Formal diversity and inclusion training and ongoing monitoring of employee performance and engagement levels effectively address these issues.
A BRIGHT FUTURE – LEADING THE WAY
The opportunity exists for executives to leverage their administrative support teams to be active and ongoing contributors to business growth. Positioning your teams to evolve with the business needs requires specialized consideration. The following is a guide to how you might consider developing your administrative support team to ensure that they are in a position to take advantage of the opportunities that come with our ever-evolving workplace and the future of work.
Define What Success Looks Like: As a priority, establish a shared understanding of what success looks like for the administrative support team in your workplace context. Additionally, there must be a concise articulation of both the desired outcome and the metrics used to measure progress against this goal.
Assess Current Capabilities: Once you have defined what your ideal end-state looks like, you need to gain an understanding of where your current capabilities lie. This means identifying and assessing the skills, competencies, and attributes your administrative support teams currently possess. This step will help you identify any gaps between your desired goal and what is currently possible.
Develop a Strategy for Development: Armed with an understanding of the skill needs of your team, you can now develop a strategy for equity in career development for your administrative and executive support teams. This may involve offering skills training courses or workshops to help them develop the necessary competencies and capabilities to thrive in a future-of-work context. It may also include creating opportunities for cross-level collaboration and equity in career progression to help them gain the visibility and recognition they deserve.
Implement and Evaluate: Once you have developed your strategy, it is time to implement it and assess its effectiveness. This will require close monitoring and regular evaluation to ensure that your team is progressing as planned. It is also essential to ensure that you are providing the necessary support and resources to ensure your team's success continues. With these steps in place, you can help your administrative support professionals thrive.
Implementing professional development and training programs for executive support is essential for organizations looking to further identify diverse skills within their talent and close the gap in career development. Strategies that showcase equity in professional development across the board promote greater job satisfaction amongst staff.
Studies have demonstrated that these processes can be effective in helping employees reach their full potential and improve their overall career outcomes. Furthermore, by investing in educational training programs and professional growth opportunities tailored to executive support professionals, organizations can create a positive culture that encourages employees to pursue meaningful paths of advancement. Taking advantage of the available tools is a smart move for building a strong administrative team that leads to enhanced employee loyalty, increased productivity, and better long-term results for businesses.
The executive assistant role is no longer simply a role that follows transactional requests but has instead become its own distinct field requiring specific abilities ranging from highly evolved interpersonal skills to technical proficiencies. Assistants help eliminate any potential roadblocks standing in an executive's way and ensure they work at optimum levels. As such, Executives with strong executive support can continually drive the next wave of progress.
Executive support professionals should not be forgotten as senior leadership teams continue seeking ways to sustainably create diverse and inclusive work environments. While executive/leadership roles receive a wealth of resources, executive support staff often do not have access to professional development resources or guidance. Without proper access to these resources, they cannot grow professionally and within the organization, a direct result of inadvertent marginalization.
To truly create an inclusive L&D culture that is accessible for all employees, it is imperative to provide administrative staff with equitable access to professional development opportunities. Doing so acknowledges their value while ensuring they have the resources they need to reach their maximum potential. To make meaningful progress toward bridging the L&D gap, companies must prioritize offering admin support staff members comprehensive career growth outcomes. It's a win-win situation: inclusive L&D cultures reap the benefits of having a more empowered and enabled team, and admin staff gain valuable skills that further contribute to organizational success.