Evaluate an Administrative Assistant

Administrative assistants are often the glue that holds an office together. Today, an administrative assistant's role extends beyond the traditional secretarial role of typing memos and answering phones. From managing the boss' schedule to planning events to customer relations, administrative assistants play a key role in maintaining your company's operations. If your job duties require you to evaluate an administrative assistant, you should first define what you expect from the role and decide on goals.

Steps

Creating an Evaluation Form

  1. Establish main duties and responsibilities. The first step is to determine what exactly the duties of the administrative assistant are. You can't evaluate the person until you know what you are evaluating them on.
    • For instance, some standard responsibilities include answering phones, greeting people, managing equipment, relaying messages and mail, proofing letters and publications, organizing files and documents, coordinating events, and maintaining office supplies.
    • Other responsibilities could be learning the industry jargon, being able to manage the office schedule well, and being available to run errands as needed.
  2. List other qualities. Evaluation criteria do not need to be duty-specific. For instance, you could also list qualities you expect from the person such as professional, organized, available, and positive attitude.[1]
    • Some qualities that might be specific to administrative assistants include punctual, professional in greeting customers, strong communicator, diplomatic, able to manage time well, adaptable, and discreet.[2]
  3. Write out expectations. Under each duty, responsibility, or quality, write out what is expected to achieve a high mark for performance. You can also write out what would count against this trait.
    • For instance, under "professional," you could write "dresses in business casual," "greets customers politely and promptly," "maintains a neat area for entering customers," while things that would count against it include "not dressing in business casual," "being rude to customers," or "leaving entrance area messy."
  4. Have a standard grading method. For instance, you can have a 1 to 10 grading system, where 10 is outstanding and anywhere below 4 is not acceptable. Leave a place below each trait where the reviewer can write out a justification for the score.
  5. Discuss these expectations with your administrative assistant. Your employee cannot be expected to guess at what you want. When you hire an employee on, you should have a job description that lays out these expectations. You can include the evaluation form so your administrative assistant knows exactly what is ahead.[3]
    • In addition, discuss how meeting your prescribed rubric will affect his or her place in the company. Maybe you will give bonuses to employees who do well, or you will use the rubric to decide who advances. In turn, maybe employees who score badly will be put on probation until their work improves, and if they get bad reviews for three evaluations in a row, they will be fired.[4]

Setting Goals

  1. Create realistic goals. For an office assistant, realistic goals may be learning a new software system or incorporating new tasks, such as scheduling. It could also mean learning a new skill, such as basic web maintenance.
    • It can be helpful to sit down with your administrative assistant to discuss what goals he or she has in mind, as well, as the person may already be pursuing certain professional interests.
  2. Set realistic timelines. Break the big tasks down into smaller goals. For instance, if you want your administrative assistant to learn basic web maintenance, you could have smaller goals for the year, such as take a class (12 weeks), practice skills (12 weeks), learn basic system from web tech (12 weeks), and begin maintenance of website.[4]
  3. Communicate the goals. If you did not sit down with your employee to decide on goals, you should communicate what you expect of the person. A written document is good because it provides a permanent record of what you would like to see, but you should also go over the goals with the person.[3]
  4. Evaluate at the performance review. At the next performance review, include the goals from last year. Evaluate whether the person met or failed the goals, and whether it was because he or she failed to perform adequately. In other words, don't punish the person if he or she couldn't meet the goals because of outside circumstances, such as no class was available in the given time period.[3]
  5. Decide how to best put new skills to use. Once an administrative assistant has achieved certain goals, it's time to decide how to best put those to use. Use the performance evaluation to guide new goals for the next year, based on what the person learned in the previous year.

Deciding When and How to Evaluate

  1. Pick a schedule. Maybe you want to review you administrative assistant annually. However, you may decide that quarterly review works better, as you can continue to touch base with him or her. Going longer periods gives your employees longer to work towards goals, but reviewing at closer intervals means you touch base with them more often on their performance. In turn, they can make adjustments throughout the year.[4]
    • Some companies have one big performance reviews each year, supplemented by smaller reviews throughout the year.
  2. Decide who will review. If your administrative assistant works for more than one person, maybe you want each person to fill out a form and provide feedback. If your administrative assistant just works for you, then you should be the reviewer.
  3. Decide on a format. Maybe you just want to provide feedback in a written form. In turn, maybe you want to discuss the review in a one-on-one meeting with your administrative assistant. Another alternative is having a small meeting with several other supervisors.

Making Evaluations

  1. Make it part of your daily or weekly job. That is, you can't review an employee once a year without notes to back you up. You simply can't rely on memory. Throughout the year, make notes on your administrative assistant's performance on at least a weekly basis with specific details.[4]
    • For instance, you should write, "Three customers complimented X employee today. They said she was doing a good job helping with their problem" not "X did a good job today." Or you could write "X was disorganized this week. She lost three important files. She has promised to do better" not "X lacks organizational skills."
  2. Fill out the evaluation form. When review time comes around, use your notes to fill in your evaluation form. Add in details to justify each score you give. Also, evaluate whether your administrative assistant has met the required goals.
  3. Present the information to the administrative assistant. Once you have reviewed your employee, present the information in the format you've decided on. Even if you meet with the employee, you should still have a written record to hand him or her that discusses performance.[3]
    • Even when presenting a bad review, try to remain professional. For instance, you shouldn't say, "You're an emotional jerk, and you need to get control of your life." Instead, you should say, "We've noticed that your home life has been affecting your personal life in the last 3 months. While we appreciate that your problems at home have been difficult, we expect you to remain professional while on the job."
    • Discuss any consequences. For instance, if the person received a good review, note that she will receive a bonus, while if she received a bad one, she will be placed on probation.
  4. Reach a mutual agreement about areas that need improvement. Collaborate to reveal realistic ways the employee can improve, such as allowing more time to meet daily report deadlines. Both of you should be willing to compromise. That is, if the employee cannot realistically meet certain goals, you should adjust the goals. However, if the employee is not getting work done because he or she is not focusing, the employee should be the one to figure out a way to adjust.
    • Offer to coach the employee to help overcome weaknesses. Ensure that the administrative assistant feels valued.
  5. Don't review personality. Unless the person's personality is affecting his or her work, focus solely on the job the person is doing. In other words, be objective in evaluating how the person is doing without getting into personality conflicts.[5]
    • If the person's personality is affecting the job, focus on the job not the person. For instance, you could say, "X has been rude to a customer at least once a week, causing lost revenue," not "X is too emotional."
  6. Try secret callers. If you want to test how your administrative assistant is interacting with people when you're not around, hire testers to come in and ask for help or to call on the phone. Give them a script and a form to evaluate how your assistant performed.

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Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.chamber101.com/1operations/staff/9performance/Administrative07.html
  2. ↑ http://www.skillpath.com/index.cfm/blog/post/Administrative-Support-Training/Top-10-Qualities-in-an-Administrative-Assistant#sthash.6UEp2WwT.dpbs
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 https://daf.csulb.edu/offices/bhr/staffpersonnel/perf_eval_guide/
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/employee-evaluations-how-to-conduct-29547.html
  5. ↑ http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/employee-evaluations-how-to-conduct-29547.html
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