EA Mentor

Tag: earn trust

  • The first 90 days on the job

    The first 90 days on the job

    Starting a new job as an EA can be both exciting and overwhelming. In your first 90 days, you have the opportunity to make a positive impression on your new leader and the team, as well as set yourself up for success. In this blog post, I provide my thoughts for what to focus on in the first 90 days.

    Responsibilities & Expectations

    In a perfect world, someone is assigned to help you get situated in your new role, understand your responsibilities and expectations, how you fit into the EA team, who is your Lead EA, get your workstation set-up and hand over key information for the job. It may be the outgoing EA or an onboarding buddy.

    If you’re fortunate enough to get a hand-off from the out-going EA, ask for guidance on how to prioritize the work, who are the key players, the leader’s proxies, where are the documents kept. Otherwise, check with your lead EA. Your onboarding buddy may know some answers to org-specific questions if they’ve served as back-up.

    I’ve rarely had a transition as the incoming EA but I like to leave a place better than I found it. For each job, I create a playbook with key info, contacts, leader and team information.

    Whatever the case, you’ll need a clear understanding of your job. Depending on the leader or time of year you join the team, you may be able to dedicate a lot of time in the first couple of weeks to learning the ropes. If you’re thrown into the deep end, block time on your calendar for regular review of new material while you hone the basics.

    Set up your email and calendar mechanisms, get access to the tools and systems you need, get delegate access to your leader’s resources, review (or create) the org chart and take any mandatory training. Take time to explore the team website and whatever shared files are available as well as the company intranet. Start collecting resources you’ll use regularly like travel, expenses, and procurement. Get a corportate credit card if it’s available.

    It’s going to take some time to understand the team’s language. I am a huge fan of joining all the meetings you can, asking questions and taking notes. Your exec needs you to learn the business and will probably allow, if not encourage you, to sit in on meetings.

    As the newbie, you get a free pass for at lease 6 months to ask all the questions. Do it! You may be asking questions other people were afraid to ask because they’ve been there a while they feel they should know the answers. In the process, you gain trust because you’re brave enough to ask questions.

    The first meeting with your leader

    Even when you get a hand-off, it’s up to you and your leader to figure out how to work together. Just because the last EA ran things a certain way, doesn’t mean you need to keep those processes. Use these as a starting point, but it has to make sense to you and your leader.

    Schedule a weekly sync with your new leaders at soon as possible. Depending on the leader and business, you may need more frequent touch points, such as 10 minute morning huddles. This is for you two to work out in the first meeting. You’ll probably touch base every day in some fashion.

    The first meeting is where you re-introduce yourself and collect the basic information you need to work with them: delegate access to the resources you need, meeting and delegate questions, their preferences, key stakeholders, meeting rules and personal information.

    Meet & Greets

    During your first month on the job, get to know your new leader’s colleagues. Schedule one-on-one meetings with their directs and key stakeholders to introduce yourself and learn about their role and how they interact with your leader and the org.

    Ask questions, take notes, learn their names and job titles. You’re going to work with these people moving forward so build a solid foundation to help you work effectively and efficiently.

    Learn the company culture

    Understanding the company culture is important for fitting in and working effectively. Observe how people communicate, dress, and interact with one another. You have to strike a balance between being yourself and fitting in. For example, I work in a very casual, warehouse environment but I’m a suit kinda gal.

    At my interview for my current job, I wore what I thought was pretty casual: a Universal Standard ponte blazer and their Geneva dress (a tee shirt knit fabric). I hit it off with the leader and at the end of the interview, she told me: you’ll need to dress way down for this job or take a lot of guff from the guys. Jeans and a tee shirt are not the most flattering for me but I don’t like to stand out either so I split the difference by wearing a blazer with my jeans & tee or sweater with my slacks and blouse.

    If you didn’t research this information before your interview, learn about the company’s values and mission, and how they are put into practice. If there is an employee handbook, read it to understand the company’s policies and procedures.

    Identify opportunities

    Take a critical look at your current skills and identify areas for improvement. Discuss your goals with your supervisor and lead EA and develop a plan to achieve them. Taking a proactive approach to your professional development will help you grow in your role and make a positive impact on the organization.

    Start building your internal EA network, initially with the EAs you’re most closely connected to. Over time, you can expand your network further. You never know where your next job will be or when you’ll need help finding a new role. Your internal network will be your lifeline when shit goes sideways.

    Establish your brand

    Intentionally creating a reputation that showcases your skills and strengths. While EAs share the core responsibilities, each EA shapes their role to suit their skill set and leaders. What do you want to be know for?

    For example, projects and data are my jam. My leaders think of me first when they need a quick turnaround on data analysis or a project. For the longest time, I dreaded event coordination. While I still lean toward opportunities that use my strengths, I’ve come to appreciate event planning because my team is dispersed across the US. The only time I see them in person is during our team summits. Still not getting super excited about event planning, but I have trackers and lists to jumpstart planning the next team summit.

    What sets you apart from others and how you can contribute to the team? How do you want to be perceived? Take the initiative to offer your help and expertise, and look for opportunities to showcase your skills. You can’t directly support everyone on your executive’s team but you can be a teacher and coach. Or as my friend Candace says, “teach them to fish.”

    The first 90 days on the job as an EA are critical for establishing yourself as a valuable member of the team. You were hired because you have a valuable skill set. Taking time to get to know your new leader and colleagues, understanding your responsibilities and expectations, asking questions, learning about the company culture, identifying areas for improvement, and establishing your personal brand, will set you up for success in your new role. Remember to stay positive, be flexible, and own your professional development

  • What it takes to become an Executive Assistant

    What it takes to become an Executive Assistant

    When you read a job posting for an EA role, it sounds easy enough, right? These job descriptions are generic because each role is tailored to the executive needs and the specific EAs unique skillset. In today’s post, I’ll explore the top skills I feel are needed for an entry-level EA. This is a long post because the EA role is complex.

    I’m writing this post for 2 reasons:

    1. To educate non EAs about what this role is actually about.
    2. To educate people considering the role but don’t know what is required. It’s much more involved than people realize.

    Earn trust & related skills

    In the Earn Trust post, I wrote why it’s important to earn trust. It’s at the top of this post because without trust, you simply will not be an effective EA. A trust broken is very difficult to mend.

    Here is a short list of advice related to trust: do not gossip, under promise and over deliver, do your best work, ask for help when you need it and learn when to say no.

    While everything can be learned on the job, the more you bring to the table at the start will better positioned for success. This is by no means an exhaustive list and I could easily write more detailed posts on each.

    Calendar management

    Priorities are ever-shifting and need to be managed. Scheduling and rescheduling meetings is a fact of life and a core skill for EAs. You need to regularly review your executive’s calendar and proactively manage scheduling conflicts.

    Beyond meetings, leaders need time to do their work, take breaks, have lunch, complete pre-reads, process meeting information, travel from one meeting to the next, coach their directs, develop their network, and dream up the Next Big Thing.

    All day back-to-back meetings is the quickest path to burnout.

    EAs coordinate with other EAs to schedule meetings. You need to develop solid relationships with your peers in order to effectively schedule meetings. Don’t forget to effectively and efficiently manage your own calendar.

    Email management

    Managing an executive’s email may or may not be required. A high level of trust between you and your leader is required because you have access to highly confidential information.

    You need an effective system to manage your own inbox effectively. I recommend implementing simple automation tools, such as Outlook Quick Parts, to quickly generate repetitive email content.

    Apps, Policies

    In my opinion, EAs need to be at least intermediate users of word processing, spreadsheets, slides, org charts, instant messaging, and teleconferencing apps. As the people always in the office, EAs can expect to troubleshoot printers, copiers, computers, laptops, network connections. I’ve Google-searched and solved my own laptop issues on multiple occasions. Guess what?

    In addition, you have to learn and master the systems your company uses for expense reporting, procurement, customer/client management, travel, conference room booking, space and project management.

    EAs are expected to provide advice and guidance on company policies and procedures or know who to contact for such information.

    Travel coordination

    You’ll coordinate all aspects of your leader’s travel: flights, hotels, ground transport, restaurant reservations. Complex multi-city travel may require a spreadsheet to plan the trip. International travel may require researching and applying for visas, understanding local culture and customs, obtaining local currency, special charging cables/plugs for laptops and mobile phones.

    You need to understand your leader’s travel preferences for flights, lodging, ground transport, dietary restrictions, travel times to/from the airport.

    Once the travel is booked, you need to provide your executive with an itinerary, with contacts, confirmation numbers,

    I supported a Medical Director who REFUSED to layover at O’Hare International Airport. Under. Any. Circumstance. Every trip to the Midwest had to be routed to a different airport. This requirement not only added travel time to/from his destination and impacted where he could stay when he visited Chicago, it meant more time for me to research options to develop the itinerary.

    Expense reporting

    You need a system to collect receipts from your leader and process expenses according to company policy. You need to learn the app your organization uses. I’ve used Concur at my 3 most recent companies and it looked and behaved differently at each.

    Documents

    Depending on the team, you may be responsible for writing content, proofreading, copy editing, managing paper/digital files, publishing content, taking meeting minutes.

    Document control includes additional responsibilities: managing shared network drives, managing access, platforms like SharePoint and Google Drive and distribution and rules-based permissions lists.

    It is useful to know how to create and edit templates. It’s a great time-saver to use Styles and the Navigator in Word to easily move content around.

    Meeting minutes

    Many EAs dread taking minutes. I’ve worked in a variety of industries and took minutes on unfamiliar, technical topics ranging from the radioactive safety, surgical teams, sales meetings, and mechanical engineering. I was the only admin support in a room full of very smart, very technical professionals. Everywhere I worked, my minutes were praised for accuracy and usefulness post-meeting. Did I know what they were talking about? Not at first but eventually, I learned enough to take effective notes.

    One of the questions I get asked most: how do you take meeting minutes when you don’t understand the subject? Here is my 5 things to take effective minutes:

    1. Learn to disconnect your fingers from your brain. Don’t fall into the rabbit hole of trying to understand WHAT the attendees are talking about. Instead, listen for clues as to what the group deems important and listen for action items, owners and due dates.
    2. Unless the notes will be used for legal purposes, there is no need to record word-for-word discussions. Record the gist using Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.
    3. Develop the habit of summarizing information. It is an extremely useful skill in all areas of the EA world. Practice by taking notes in your weekly sync meeting with your leaders and making notes for yourself on tasks and projects.
    4. When you find yourself stuck trying to understand a specific topic in a meeting, make a note to ask your exec or one of their directs later. People love to talk about their work and will gladly explain All the Things.
    5. Understand your leader’s business, goals, initiatives, objectives and the lingo. It takes time and questions. Again, taking notes on the answers will help you retain the information.

    Project management

    A project could be anything with a defined start and end date, related to the business. These can be big or small projects that may particular to the team and leaders.

    Obvious EA projects include managing office space and coordinating team events.

    Space management

    Covid sent everyone home, but now folks are returning to the office. I’ve worked in organizations with a dedicated space manager and where the EAs manage their team’s space.

    In 2022, I managed space for over 800 people in 55 corporate office buildings around the US and Canada. In 2023, I manage 2 seats: one of my Directors and my own. In 2024, who knows? If your company requires people to work in office full or part time, then you need mechanisms to manage space effectively.

    Managing space requires understanding processes, apps, policies, managing people, offices and desks. People are weirdly possessive about space: feelings of entitlement, preferences for location, requesting non-standard desk set-ups. Everyone is special and they’ll tell you all about it.

    And not always in the most polite manner.

    Event management

    Events can range from small team off sites to hundreds or thousands of attendees at a large conference. Events may be held locally or the group may travel to a special location. You are expected to coordinate all aspects of the event: the agenda, swag, travel, hotel booking, conference room booking, catering, off site meals, team-building events.

    You have to communicate details to attendees, send invites and manage attendees, wrangle presentation decks, AV and room configurations.

    People management

    EAs work with a wide variety of people: their own leaders, directs, skip level leaders, other EAs, administrative staff, stakeholders and business partners, basically, everyone from housekeeping to the President/CEO.

    Lead EAs oversee other EAs or Administrative Assistants, often without being their direct manager. Lead EAs serve as the administrative hiring manager, interview and onboard new team members, as well as coach their peers.

    You need to understand people, communication styles, earn trust, manage confidential information (people WILL cozy up to you to get the inside scoop).

    You may be asked to run meetings on behalf of your leader. As you advance in the role, you’ll be expected to lead meetings.

    Communication

    Being an EA can be isolating: people treat you as if you are at your leader’s level. They come to you as the subject matter expert, pump you for information then they exclude you from informal events because they are afraid you’ll blab to the boss.

    Your leader expects you to share your knowledge and observations about the team. They need to understand the pulse of the team: who’s dissatisfied, what are they talking about, who’s a flight risk.

    My first experience with this aspect of the role was when I was interim EA to a regional Partner. My first week on the job, he sat me down to set ground rules and expectations. When he got to Keep Me Informed About the Team, he said, “you’re not snitching. I need to know what the team is feeling. That’s part of your job.”

    I wasn’t very successful with this at that job, but I’ve come to understand the importance of keeping my leaders appraised without gossiping. Stick to the facts. At. All. Times. Don’t let emotions drive you. That’s the quickest way to burnout. It is possible to focus on facts without becoming an automaton.

    You’ll notice there was no mention of running personal errands, buying leaders coffee and lunches. Unless specified in the job description, it is NOT an expectation that EAs run errands for their executive.

    In summary, being an EA is not just about being a calendar jockey. You need to exceed expectations EVERYDAY. Not just when you feel like it. This is a demanding role that requires an extensive skill set for a long, successful career.

  • Why trust is important for an Executive Assistant

    Why trust is important for an Executive Assistant

    As an executive assistant, I know firsthand the importance of trust in the workplace. Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship. I believe that EAs need to build trust with everyone, not just with the executives they support. Trust is built with the executives, their directs, stakeholders, business partners and other administrative professionals.

    Trust is important for several reasons. First and foremost, it fosters open communication. When employees trust each other, they feel comfortable sharing ideas, opinions, and feedback without fear of judgment or retribution. This leads to better decision-making, as all viewpoints are considered and evaluated.

    Trust promotes collaboration. When team members trust each other, they are more likely to work together towards a common goal. They are willing to put aside their own interests and prioritize the success of the team. This results in a more productive and efficient work environment.

    Another benefit of trust is increased accountability. When employees trust each other, they hold each other accountable for their actions and responsibilities. This creates a culture of responsibility and ownership, where everyone is invested in the success of the team.

    Trust is essential for building strong relationships with clients and customers. When clients trust that a business will deliver on its promises, they are more likely to do business with them again. This can lead to long-term relationships and increased revenue.

    However, trust is not something that can be established overnight. It takes time and effort to build and maintain trust in the workplace. It requires consistency, honesty, and transparency in all interactions. It requires a willingness to admit mistakes and take responsibility for them.

    As an executive assistant, I make it a priority to establish trust with my colleagues and customers quickly. I am honest and transparent in my communication, and I make sure to follow through on my commitments. I believe trust is essential for building strong relationships and achieving success in the workplace.

    In my opinion, loss of trust is the biggest hurdle to overcome in all areas of life. When an EA loses trust at work, it damages their reputation, ability to do the job effectively and causes coworkers to work around the EA.

    Trust is a critical component of any successful workplace. It fosters open communication, promotes collaboration, increases accountability, and builds strong relationships with clients and customers. As an executive assistant, I understand the importance of trust and work diligently to establish and maintain it in all of my professional relationships. In my experience, earning trust is the highest priority for executive assistants.

  • What to do when your executive won’t let go control of their calendar

    What to do when your executive won’t let go control of their calendar

    As an EA, one of your core responsibilities is to manage your executive’s calendar. What do you do when an executive won’t turn over control of their calendar? You are feeling frustrated and that you’re failing in one of your primary responsibilities. In this blog post, I’ll discuss some strategies to manage the situation and keep your leader organized.

    At the heart of this issue is trust: they’ve been burned by a bad EA in the past, you haven’t earned their trust yet or they can’t trust anyone (aka, The Control Freak). You need to find out what you’re dealing with then find solutions together.

    Communicate Clearly

    The first step in managing a situation where your executive won’t give up control of their calendar is to communicate clearly. At your next sync meeting, discuss your concerns and provide them with feedback on how the situation is affecting your ability to do your job effectively. Your leader’s reputation reflects on you and vice versa.

    Be specific about the challenges you are facing and use concrete examples to illustrate your points. How many meetings have they missed because you were not allowed to reschedule conflicts proactively? What comments have you received from the team because they can’t count on your leader to attend meetings? How many hours did the team spend preparing for these missed meetings?

    Make it clear that the purpose of you managing their calendar is to work together and develop a system that will help them work more effectively and regain the trust of the team. Come prepared with solutions. Don’t just whine about it. Have a plan and be prepared to present it.

    Find Common Ground

    Once you’ve communicated your concerns, it’s essential to find common ground with your executive. Ask them what is preventing them from turning over their calendar to you. Work together to create a mechanism that accommodates both of your needs.

    It’s important to approach the situation with a collaborative mindset and be willing to compromise. You may need to adjust your suggestions to accommodate their priorities, but in return, they should be willing to do the same for you. You’re a team of two and need to develop your working style. It may take time but persistence will pay off.

    For example, I worked with a leader who gave me control of his calendar but he asked that I give him a 5 minute warning before every meeting. He was in a new, more complex role and I had 3 other leaders to support. It took us a few weeks to develop a new system. Over time, we knocked the 5 minute warnings down to the very important meetings so I didn’t have to jump up every 30 – 60 minutes and tell him to go to his next meeting.

    Seek Support from other EAs

    If you’ve tried several methods and failed, seek support from other EAs. Ask how they managed to get control of their executive’s calendar. We’ve all been there. EAs are happy to provide guidance, tips or suggestions you hadn’t considered.

    The last resort

    If you have done your best and I mean you have TRIED IT ALL and still can’t get your executive to turn over their calendar, then it’s time to move on. Some leaders never give up control. That is on them for not fully appreciating the value you provide. Chances are, you are facing other barriers with this executive. You’re probably not the first EA to beat their skull against this wall.

    By staying in a frustrating role, your performance, attitude and reputation will suffer. Take your time finding your next role if you must. You have now learned a variety of calendar management techniques, ways to earn trust with your executive and have questions to ask in future job interviews.

    Managing a situation where an executive won’t hand over management of their calendar can be challenging, but is not impossible. By communicating clearly, finding common ground, being creative, and seeking support from other EAs, you can earn your leader’s trust. As a by-product, you’ll also earn respect from their team and the other EAs you work with. Remember, it’s essential to approach the situation with a positive mindset and be willing to work together to find a solution that fits both of your needs.

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