What are administrative tasks?

Administrative tasks are the duties and responsibilities of an administrative assistant. These duties may vary depending on the size and type of the company. They usually include answering phones, scheduling appointments, sorting mail and maintaining filing systems. Administrative assistants may be responsible for handling customer inquiries, preparing reports and organizing company events. In larger organizations, administrative assistants may specialize in a particular area, such as human resources or accounting.

Benefits of hiring an administrative professional

Smaller companies may wonder whether it’s worth hiring an administrative professional. Because their role is so generalized, managers may overlook the importance of having an administrative professional around. Hiring an administrative assistant can free up time, foster work productivity and ensure streamlined office processes.

Administrative personnel serve as a communication hub for people to direct queries, and they create a welcoming office presence. Depending on their skills, they may also offset a manager’s weaknesses and offer valuable insight in times of turbulence. Their presence is highly valued in most office settings.

Six types of administrative work

Administrative tasks are an integral part of every healthy office, yet some people are more suited to them than others. While administrative duties might seem to fit into a single general category, tasks can be broken down into several subcategories:

• Communication
• Scheduling
• Bookkeeping
• Organization
• Onboarding new employees
• Technology

If you’re planning on hiring someone to take care of administrative duties at your office, getting to know the different categories of administrative work can give you a framework for formatting your job posting.

1. Communication

Communication is a necessary soft skill for administrative professionals because they’re often the backbone of communicative processes in an office. Administrators are often responsible for a variety of communication tasks, including:

• Handling incoming and outgoing mail
• Preparing correspondence
• Scheduling appointments
• Maintaining contact lists

They may also be responsible for handling phone calls, taking messages and directing calls to the appropriate department or individual. Office administrators may also be responsible for creating and distributing meeting minutes, preparing presentations and coordinating travel arrangements. As such, being an effective communicator is necessary for administrative professionals.

2. Scheduling

Scheduling is another important aspect of an administrative professional’s role. Many administrative assistants are responsible for coordinating office managers’ work schedules. Their role requires them to organize and plan each person’s calendar in a way that increases overall office efficiency. Their duties often include:

• Scheduling client appointments
• Coordinating workplace events
• Booking travel itinerary
• Scheduling conferences and company meetings
• Avoiding double-bookings and schedule clashes

3. Bookkeeping

Seeing as it’s usually an administrator’s job to keep track of receipts, invoices and client files, it makes sense for them to be responsible for bookkeeping. This duty involves ensuring that all relevant documents are properly kept so they can be transferred to the company accountant. This is especially true in smaller offices when there is nobody else assigned to supervise the organization’s finances. An administrative professional may be in charge of the following bookkeeping tasks:

• Keeping track of daily income and expenditure
• Updating office accounting
• Processing client payment
• Reconciling financial statements
• Preparing regular financial reports
• Keeping track of office receipts
• Reimbursing employees for work-related costs
• Creating customer invoices
• Performing payroll tasks

The bookkeeping aspect of administrative work makes it important to hire someone with a proven background in dealing with numbers. They might have experience in accountancy or a similar role.

4. Organization

Organizing is at the core of every administrative professional’s duties. Whether it’s creating a weekly roster, organizing other employee duties, aligning calendars or sorting through mail, it usually fits into the scope of their administrative work. Other organizing duties might include:

• Managing the office
• Taking office inventory
• Keeping on top of files

Since organizing is such an integral part of administrative work, it really helps to hire someone who is naturally detail-oriented and reliable. If you’re unsure about a hire, it might be worth including an organizational personality test during the hiring process.

5. Onboarding new employees

It’s not uncommon for onboarding new employees to be part of administrative duties, as administrative professionals often work alongside the human resources department. Onboarding tasks might include welcoming new employees by showing them around the office, providing them with the necessary tools to carry out their work and organizing documentation for candidates and new employees. They might also be responsible for briefing them on the office-wide system to help get them started.

6. Computers and technology

Every office has its own technological style. Administrative professionals might be in charge of making sure everything is running smoothly on the technological front. Using computers is part of their daily work, and they’re often the ones ensuring all software subscriptions are up-to-date and that computer files are kept in proper order. Larger companies often have a separate tech department; however, smaller companies might leave these tasks to their administrative employee.

If you have a smaller company and creating an entire tech department seems like a burden, hiring an administrative assistant with a strong background in IT could prove to be worthwhile. Every modern office needs a tech-savvy employee around for when things get technical.

Thinking of hiring an administrative professional but unsure what to include in the job posting? This run-down of administrative work should provide you with the framework you need to create your posting. An administrative professional’s role often includes taking care of scheduling, bookkeeping and organizational tasks. If new employees join the workspace, administrators will often be the ones to onboard them and make sure they have everything they need to get started.

Administrative professionals are a highly valued presence in most offices. By taking responsibility for a wide range of office tasks, they keep the company organized so there are fewer hiccups in productivity and the business runs as efficiently as possible.