What Type of Work Does an Administrative Assistant Usually Do?

Administrative assistants are a hugely valuable asset to any business. When an office runs smoothly, that’s usually thanks to the vital role played by the administrative assistants.

While duties can differ from one company to another, the responsibilities of the administrative assistant will be largely similar.

When you take on a position as an administrative assistant, you’ll be gaining skills and experience that are highly transferable. With this knowledge, you can easily find work in another company, or take a step up the career ladder to become an office manager or executive assistant.

Being an administrative assistant is an ideal starting point for anyone looking to build a career in office admin, HR or management. 

Let’s take a closer look at some of the tasks that generally fall under the remit of the administrative assistant…

Communication management

The average office is inundated with calls and emails, and dealing with all of this is usually the job of the administrative assistant.

The work involves taking calls, responding to queries in a polite and knowledgeable manner, fielding those calls that don’t require a response or are just junk or telemarketing calls, taking messages for non-urgent action, and putting through important calls to the relevant person or department.

The same applies to email and postal correspondence. By sorting the wheat from the chaff, deleting the spam, and recycling the junk mail, the administrative assistant is streamlining the amount of correspondence that needs to be dealt with by others. It’s a huge time saver!

Scheduling appointments

Administrative assistants may also be responsible for managing the diaries of company executives.

This can be quite an involved task, for example, ensuring that everyone scheduled for a meeting has no overlapping plans and that any external attendees can make a particular time and location.

Over time, a truly great administrative assistant learns everyone’s individual preferences and does their best to keep everyone happy.

For instance, when setting up a meeting with two people, one who prefers morning meetings and another with a preference for afternoons, a noon meeting would be the perfect compromise.

It is this attention to detail that makes an administrative assistant truly invaluable.

Handling information

Filing, data input, updating records, and making backups. It’s all routine, but it’s all incredibly important.

Everything needs to be stored, securely, in the right place, and be accessible when needed. Data loss can cause catastrophic repercussions.

An administrative assistant also needs to know the legal requirements for data storage, both from the point of view of protection of data, but also for longevity, for example, is the business legally required to keep records for a certain length of time?

Secure removal or destruction of sensitive data is also a consideration.

Organizing travel arrangements

Whether it’s a short taxi ride to a local meeting, or a flight and hotel stay halfway across the world, organizing travel is another task that administrative assistants often undertake.

As we all know from planning our own vacations, researching and booking travel and accommodation can be very time-consuming, and when you’re booking it for your boss, it needs to be right!

A good administrative assistant will look at reviews, take location into consideration, and make travel arrangements that ensure a stress-free business trip.

Setting up meetings

As well as arranging a time and ensuring all attendees have been invited, an administrative assistant is likely to be involved in physically setting up meetings too.

This could start with hiring or reserving a room or event space and include arranging catering, having materials printed, welcoming guests and setting up the space ready for the meeting.

Tip: We have free resources to help with meetings here.

Preparing documents and generating reports

An administrative assistant will also be called upon to prepare documents and reports, and perhaps create presentations.

This could be for one person, or to be distributed at a meeting or even a large conference.

The work will also involve proofreading and formatting documents, to ensure they are professionally presented.

Welcoming visitors

Administrative assistants need excellent interpersonal skills as they’ll often be the first point of contact for any visitors to the premises.

From welcoming an important client at the door with a smile and an offer of a seat and refreshments to introducing them to the person they’re visiting, first impressions count. The key point here is to make every guest feel welcome.

Keeping the office running smoothly

There are so many aspects of office life that an administrative assistant has to keep track of.

The office needs to run smoothly, and that involves supplies, equipment, and people!

An administrative assistant may be expected to keep an eye on office supplies to make sure the printer never runs out of paper and the kitchen never runs out of coffee. If equipment fails, it’s the administrative assistant who will be expected to have an engineer on speed dial for a quick solution to the problem.

People can be even trickier to deal with, and so problem-solving skills come into play when issues such as a clash of personalities within the office, or a dissatisfaction with the work environment crop up.

This is where those excellent interpersonal skills are a real benefit.

Maintaining confidentiality

An administrative assistant comes into contact with so much information, discretion and confidentiality are vital in this role.

From employee records to financial transactions, an administrative assistant must comply with all data protection requirements, and understand the need for privacy and protection of data, and personal information.

Organizing events

From the office Christmas party to a large-scale conference, event organizing can often be a task given to an administrative assistant.

This is a true demonstration of the versatility of such an employee when being requested to turn from filing and answering the phone to being a large-scale party planner!

Dealing with invoices, expenses and accounts

There may also be a financial aspect to an administrative assistant job.

The work could involve dealing with invoices, sending them out and making payments for those received. It may also include handling employees’ expense accounts.

An administrative assistant will be an expert spreadsheet user, and have a great eye for detail to ensure accurate financial record keeping.

The Final Word

Administrative assistants are incredibly important in keeping organizations running smoothly, taking on a wide range of tasks from managing schedules to handling communications and maintaining efficient office systems.

Their responsibilities may vary depending on the industry, but the core skills of organization, communication, and multitasking remain essential across the board.

If you want to break into this career or advance your current role, consider earning your Administrative Assistant Certification from us here at the Administrative Assistant Institute, where you will learn many of the skills listed in this article!