Chapter 2: The Secretary’s Role in Business

Objectives:
1. Define the secretary’s role in business.
2. Identify the different secretarial duties involved in an office.
3. Identify the personality traits required for a secretary.
4. Identify and explain some pointers on how to become a successful secretary.

DEFINITION

-The National Secretaries Association (International) defines the SECRETARY this

way:
“As an assistant to an executive possessing a mastery of office skills and
ability to assume responsibility without direct supervision, who displays initiative, exercises
judgment, and makes decisions within the scope of authority.”

- The term “SECRETARY” really means keeper of secrets.

- The secretary is the first one to learn about the many confidential
developments involving the office staff and company policies thru
meetings, letters, and memos she types, in her filing, and dictation given
by her boss, etc.
- The secretary in the office is usually seated closest to the executive. She
relieves her boss of such office details plan, to coordinate future
activities, and to follow through the various projects.

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What are the starting positions you can apply for after finishing
your secretarial course?

1. Clerk-typist 5. Secretary in a small or medium-size

office
2. Filing clerk 6. Word processor
3. Receptionist 7. Data Encoder
4. Telephone operator

SUMMARY OF SECRETARIAL DUTIES

Use of typing skill:

1. Type from rough drafts. Organized data
from rough drafts into finished reports.
2. Type letters with proper style and
punctuations.
3. Take a dictation at the typewriter.

Use of shorthand skill:

4. Take dictation by shorthand or machine
5. Transcribe shorthand notes

Handling mail:
6. Open, read, and sort incoming mail
7. Keep a record of all incoming and outgoing mail
8. Prepare outgoing mail

Handling telephone calls:

9. Answers all incoming calls
10. Make outgoing calls for the boss

Helping with meetings:

11. Take notes at meeting and reports of minutes
12. Assist in the preparation of written reports and speeches and prepare copy for
publication.

Handling of office visitors:

13. Arrange appointments and keep a record of them
14. Meet visitors in the office

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 Letter writing:

15. Handle certain types of

correspondence and
communications.
16. Compose routine letters and
interoffice memo.

Handling travel arrangements:

17. Make travel reservations and prepare itineraries

18. Take care of the routine office duties while the boss is on trip

Handling financial records and banking activities:

19. Use adding and calculating machines

20. Keep company financial records of employer
21. Keep personal and financial records of employer
22. Help employer in filing tax returns and other financial reports
23. Handle simple banking transactions

Filing and management

24. Understand and use basic filing system

25. Keep records of company for future references

Administrative duties:

26. organize office procedures

27. Supervise other workers
28. Implement company policies
29. Initiate systems and procedures useful and effective in the office

Other related duties:

30. Help in organizing office social functions

31. Serve as buffer to relieve your employer of many details
32. Operate various automated office machines
33. Requisition and keep record of office supplies
34. Understand the use and preparation of numerous office forms
35. Use reference books of various kinds
36. Do some personal shopping for the boss
37. Keeping the office presentable at all times
38. Serve coffee for the boss and his visitor.

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SPECIALIZED SECRETARIAL JOBS

As a prospective secretary, you may choose a specialized field such as the legal,
medical, or technical area. In order to handle the jobs in these areas, you must possess
specialized knowledge and skills.

Legal Secretary

1. As a legal secretary, you

may work for a lawyer, a
law firm with a number
of attorneys or a large
corporation.

2. As a legal secretary, you

need to have a good
typing and
communication skills
and a thorough general
education. You need to
have an extensive
knowledge of legal terminology; be able to prepare legal papers such as deeds, briefs,
wills, and contracts; and have a knowledge of the legal system in general such as the
court system and law as it relates to the business world.

3. Your skills need to be top-notch. You should be able to type at least 60 words a
minute and preferably 70 to 80. In some law offices you will take shorthand while in
others you will use voice recording machines. However, if you are preparing for legal
secretarial career, you should take shorthand and attempt to develop your skill to at
least 100 words per minute since you may work for an attorney/s that require this
ability.

4. You should be particularly adept at dealing with all types of people. People who
come into law office for solutions of extremely serious problems, which you should
be able to handle efficiently with understanding, and concern.

Medical Secretary

1. As a medical secretary, you may work in a

hospital, a clinic, a doctor’s or dentist’s
office, an insurance company, a research
organization, a medical publishing company,
a medical supply company, etc.

2. If you work for a doctor, you will probably

work for one who is highly specialized such

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 as pediatrician, a gynecologist, an anesthesiologist, or an ophthalmologist.

3. To become a medical secretary, you need to have an extensive knowledge of medical

terminology.

4. Some of the duties that you will perform as a medical secretary include completing
hospitalization forms, making appointments, ordering medical supplies, transcribing
record of patients, and preparing patients for examination.

5. As a medical secretary you need to be perceptive and sensitive in the needs of clients.
Many of the people that come into a doctor’s office or to a hospital may be critically
ill. You will be expected to deal with not are your verbal communications important,
but your non-verbal behavior is quite significant also. A look or a gesture can convey
much about your feelings. Your effectiveness in dealing with all types of clients will
determine to a large extent your success as a medical assistant.

Technical Secretary

1. The technical secretary is one whose

education and experience qualifies him
or her to work in an engineer’s or a
scientist’s office.

2. As a technical secretary, you will

prepare correspondence containing
formulas, equations, mathematical
symbols, and statistical calculations.

3. As a technical secretary, you may be

working for a company that is developing products or materials of a highly
confidential of a research project in the hands of a competition could cost your
company millions of pesos.

Education Secretary

1. The education secretary may

work at an elementary school,
a secondary school, college or
university.

2. The educational secretary

deals with administrators,
teachers, students, parents, the
board of education and the
general public.

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 3. This secretary must be able to relate to a wide range of age groups and diverse needs
of various individuals.

4. The duties of an educational secretary include ordering books, filing grade, preparing
class schedules, working on the budget, handling inventory, typing tests, etc.

PERSONALITY TRAITS REQUIRED FOR A SECRETARY

1. Ability to build goodwill

- a good secretary is a good public relation person of her immediate
superior as well as the company.
- She should always make her boss looks good to his subordinates, fellow
executives, and other people especially to clients and customers.
- She should create a good image of the boss and the company where she
belongs.

2. Tactfulness
- the word “tact” means doing and saying the right thing at the right time
and in the right place.
- She should not only know the right thing to say and do, but equally
important is knowing how and where to do it.

3. Sense of Anticipation

- an efficient secretary should know what the boss will need before he asks
for it and what activity the boss will do next and is always prepared for it.

- this means knowing in

advance what will be
needed and being prepared
for it when the need arises.

4. Ability to follow through

-this means secretary

should see to it that every
job is carried to its
completion.
- An efficient secretary
follows up frequently and seriously every job she undertakes until it is
completed.
- The secretary should check from time to time the work to be done to be
sure that she will not fail in her commitments with her immediate
superior.

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5. Loyalty

- a person who is loyal sticks to someone or to the company not only in

times of “plenty” but also in times of “crisis” until it can recover and in
due time bounce back to prosperity.
- A loyal secretary understands her boss’s weaknesses and does not reveal
them to others.
- A loyal secretary should defend her boss, if need be, to anyone who
question his motives.
- A loyal secretary should believe in the company as a whole –in its
objectives and its management.
- A loyal secretary should be dedicated to her work always by giving an
honest work for a day’s pay.

6. Dependability
-

- a secretary is said
to be dependable
if she can be
relied upon in
any activity.

- A secretary who
is dependable is
always prompt in
reporting to the
office and stands
by in any
emergency.

- A dependable secretary is willing to make personal sacrifices for the call

of duty.

7. Ability to reflect company objectives and policies

- the secretary being part of the management team should help interpret
the management’s point of view to her co-workers, to the clients or
customers, and to the public. To do this, she should be thoroughly
familiar with the objectives and policies under which the company
operates.
- As an assistant to the executive, the secretary should be a “model”
because of her attitude, work habits, and the way she interprets the rules
and regulations of the company will influence the attitude of the other
members of the organization.

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8. Ability to keep confidential information

- it is an undeniable fact that the secretary knows about what is going on in

the company than anyone else in the organization. Secretaries are often
used by bosses as sounding boards when they want to talk about
confidential matters. They can do this only if they know that their
secretaries will keep to herself all confidential matters revealed to her.
- Secretaries who talk about what they know about the company can cause
incalculable damage to the company and their bosses.
- A secretary who reveals confidential information even destroys herself
because nobody wants to have or to work with a secretary who does not
know how to keep secrets to herself.
- A secretary who knows how to keep confidential information is well
trusted by her superiors and her co-workers.

9. Emotional Stability

- This trait involves a thorough knowledge of the job and self-control no

matter what happens in the office.
- Almost every office experience crises like peak work loads, unexpected
absence of the boss, or a key employee creates situation in which the
secretary should always remain calm in solving each problem.
- Personal emotions like anger, hatred, irritations, envy, sadness, and the
like must be controlled so that everyone will the work moving and no
office function will be delayed or hampered

10. Ability to communicate ideas effectively.

- the secretary should be able to express her idea clearly.

- Since the secretary often speaks for her boss, she should communicate
her ideas effectively.
- Having a pleasant voice is not enough, although that is very important
for a secretary. She should learn to put ideas into words what she want to
say or communicate.

11. Cost-consciousness

- a secretary is expected to perform her job in the most economical way.

- A cost-conscious secretary should know how to budget her time and
carefully organize her work so that no time, money, and effort will be
wasted.
- A secretary who is cost-conscious avoids waste in everything he or she
does.

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 12. Ability to develop variety of interest

- a secretary is expected to keep up-to-date in outside affairs because being

interested in the world happenings is a sign of a healthy mind.
- A secretary should be involved in civic, community, and social affairs.
This will keep her mind active and her whole being alive.

13. Independent mind

- an alert secretary should have a mind of her own.

- A secretary should promptly and tactfully speaks up her ideas, and is not
even afraid to say “NO” tactfully whenever she is not in agreement with
the other person’s point of view.

14. Sense of moral value

- A good secretary should have a high sense of moral values and not easily
overcome by temptations.
- She should do everything well even without an observer because she
knows it is her duty and she values highly every job assigned to her.
- She is tolerant and understanding about gossips, criticisms, jealousies,
and shortcomings of others.

15. Sense of responsibility

- a responsible secretary accepts and does her job with seriousness

- a responsible secretary tries all means to finish any task assigned to him
or her on due time and with satisfactory results.

GROOMING REQUIREMENTS FOR A SECRETARY

1. A secretary should always have a clean, neat, and businesslike appearance from the
head down to the feet.
2. She should always look her best and presentable at all times.
3. She should show that she is an organized person by her appearance. This is
obviously true because how can you as a secretary organize your work properly if
you can not even make yourself presentable.
4. Dress should be simple and appropriate for office wear.
5. Hair should be neatly combed with becoming hairstyle.
6. She should be sweet-smelling at all times with the right fragrance.
7. Jewelries and other accessories should be simple and well-coordinated with her basic
wardrobe.
8. Fingernails are well cared and properly trimmed.
9. Make-up should be suitable and evenly applied.
10. Shoes and bags should be in matching colors. Shoes should be clean and well-shined.

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JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN THE SECRETARIAL FIELD

1. Career in the secretarial field is exciting and challenging. Classified sections of

newspapers reveal that there are always great needs for secretaries.
2. The job market today and in the predictable future is very encouraging. Every year
thousands and thousands of persons are being hired in occupations requiring
secretarial skills.
3. The number of employed secretaries is expected to continuously increase in the years
to come due to fast expansion of business and to thousand of jobs that will be
available as secretaries retire form the labor market.

SECRETARY’S IMPORTANCE IN BUSINESS

1. Business people recognized the importance of the SECRETARY as an

administrative assistant who is able to take the responsibility of initiating and completing
varied assignments and duties.
2. The SECRETARY is an extremely important part of the business world today. Many
executives, after working with an efficient secretary remarked, “if I lose my secretary,
it would be like losing my right arm.” Another one said, “It would be very difficult
for me to perform my duties and responsibilities without my secretary assisting me
in the performance of many routine activities in my office.

HOW TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL SECRETARY

Your success in the secretarial field depends on you. You can be become a
valuable member of an organization if you:

1. Acquire knowledge and skills required of a secretarial job.

2. Train yourself well in various office procedures.
3. Develop your personality and acquire the right kind of attitude towards yourself
and other people.
4. Learn to operate as many modern office machines as you can, particularly
computers.
5. Learn to deal with and adjust yourself to different kinds of people.

Student Activities

ENGLISH REFRESHER: PRONOUNS are words that serves as substitutes for nouns.
They must agree with their antecedents (nouns for which they stand) in person, number, and
gender..
Underline the correct pronoun:
1. Joyce and Jamie submitted (her, their) projects today.
2. The computer (who, that) Jerico is using is IBM PC.
3. All students need dictionaries available to (them, they).
4. The secretary, as well as the office clerks, was given the instructions on what (she,
they) should do about the problem.

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- END -

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