Introduction

Offices typically need administrative professionals to keep it organized, efficient

and productive. Using secretarial skills is a key way to ensure a company runs
smoothly. You can use secretarial skills throughout the workday to complete
administrative and clerical duties and to manage your tasks effectively.

A Secretary, or Administrative Assistant, is responsible for facilitating

communications within an office and fielding interactions with the public. Their
duties include answering and redirecting phone calls, scheduling meetings and
providing personalized support for other employees in their office.

Secretaries are typically the first impression of your company, often working at a
front desk. They might perform tasks such as keeping files, booking meetings,
setting appointments and managing day-to-day operations of a company.
Secretaries might have access to customer accounts and may be required to resolve
a customer’s issue.

Definition of Secretary:

Functionally the term Secretary means a person who writes in secret on behalf of
his superior or for body. The word Secretary has been derived from the Latin word
Secretarius which means a confidant or a confidential officer. The Latin words
Secretarius contains a sense of secretion or secrete.

The competency to be posse be a secretary are:

1. Time-Management and Multitasking

Executives may assign several tasks and projects at once that you're
expected to submit within tight deadlines. Consider adopting a task
management system to effectively organize your assignments and their due

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 dates to prioritize them accordingly. This can prevent you from forgetting to
complete any tasks or falling behind on important projects.

There may also be days where you're assigned several projects that you must
submit around the same time. When this occurs, executives may expect you
to use your multitasking skills to complete these items while working on
other assignments. This may especially occur if you're completing several
responsibilities for many executives or employees at once.

2. Presentation and Public Speaking

You may be responsible for building presentations for executives, which

requires knowledge of different presentation platforms and of key company
information. Use your presentation and research skills to gather company
information, data, statistics and graphics to build informational and valuable
presentations for employees, clients or stakeholders to view and learn from.

Employers may ask you speak to audiences during meetings or events, so

strong public speaking abilities can help you deliver compelling and
engaging presentations.

3. Verbal and Written Communication

Professionals often use verbal and written communication in an office to

complete numerous tasks, such as emailing clients or employees, answering
phone calls and greeting guests if working at the front of the office. Being
able to clearly communicate with others allows you to relay important
messages or correspondence between executives, customers and employees.

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4. Typing and Note-Taking

Many administrative professionals must take notes during meetings. You

should have impressive note-taking skills in order to quickly write down
essential information and takeaways to relay to employees and executives.
Quick typing skills can help you efficiently take notes during the meeting
and write them into a clear, structured and clean email format for others to
view and reference. Knowing shorthand can also help you keep up with
conversation and prevent you from missing any key talking points during the
meeting.

5. Organization

As an administrative professional, a key responsibility may be to keep all

files, company information and documents sorted and organized. This allows
yourself and other employees to quickly retrieve them and keeps the
documents stored safely to prevent important company data from leaking.

You may be responsible for storing different forms of company information,

like electronic databases or paper files. Consider building an organizational
system and detailing it in a folder or file so others can use it to quickly find
the particular files they're searching for.

6. Problem Solving and Critical Thinking

Executives may expect you to make critical company decisions efficiently.

There may also be certain challenges the organization may undergo that
requires quick and logical solutions. You must use your problem solving and
critical thinking abilities to come up with innovative strategies that can
improve the company's performance and solve any company issues.

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7. Attention to Detail

Some executives may ask administrative professionals to review or

proofread documents for them. You must have impressive attention to detail
to spot any errors or inconsistencies in these materials before they're sent to
clients, stakeholders or the public. There may be other tasks you're expected
to complete quickly throughout the day that require you to detect any issues
or errors, like making travel arrangements or scheduling appointments.

Conclusion

It's important to have secretarial skills because they help an organization

operate smoothly by professionally handling important organizational and
administrative tasks. Secretarial skills allow you to handle a wide range of
responsibilities, from scheduling appointments to taking meeting notes to
organizing essential company files.

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 Reference

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Whetzel, D. (2013). The Secretary of Labor's. Striving for excellence: The
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Wichroski, M. (2014). The secretary: Invisible labor in the workworld of
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