Are you teaching your assistant?

One of the most common challenges we hear from Administrative and Executive Assistants is this: “I’m underutilized.”

In our experience, Executives across the board fail to fully leverage the time and talents of their support staff. Many argue this is for good reason: Delegating a task or project often requires that you first teach your Assistant how to do it, and teaching takes time.

If there’s one thing every Executive has in common it’s that time is a precious and incredibly scarce resource.

However, every Executive we’ve worked with has also been a very savvy businessperson. They’re willing to invest in things, but only when it really makes sense—only when there’s a very good chance of a high return on that investment.

In our recently released Guide, Executives & Assistants: Working in Partnership, we offer many strategies for effective delegation, and one particularly important point addresses this idea of the potential return on time invested. We call it the “long-term time savings.” [Read more…]