4 Skills Every Administrator Should Develop/Learn
Applicants to administrative roles are often subject to changing requirements. New technology, new skills & new systems can sometimes make an admin role quite demanding and many businesses now require their admin staff to undertake a wider range of tasks. In this blog, we discuss the various administrative skills that are beneficial and how best to go about learning or developing them.
Let’s start with the big question – what is administration?
Administration is the process behind a business. It includes the planning, organising and execution of ideas and processes within an organisation. Administrators often control the resources of the business and are instrumental in helping to achieve aims or goals that have been set by the business.
Administrators are quite often thought of as ‘paperwork handlers’, however they do lots more than that!
So what are the key skills every administrator should learn or develop further?
1. Communication skills
Yes, we know it’s a super obvious one but it regularly gets forgotten! Administrators regularly deal with phone calls, emails and documents, so great written and verbal communication skills are a must have.
How can you improve your communication skills?
Practicing ‘active listening’ is a very important part of communication. You need to be fully engaged with whoever you are in conversation with so they feel heard and considered.
Being aware of your body language and tone of voice whilst talking will also help the receiver feel heard.
If your written communication skills need some work, it might be helpful to have someone proof read any documents/emails you produce for a while. This means that the chance of mistakes decreases and you can get suggestions on how to improve.
2. Customer service skills
Although you are probably not the first point of call for customers, customer service skills are essential in an administration role. You will likely deal with complaints and enquiries, as well as dealing with suppliers or clients. This means good ‘people skills’ are beneficial as bad customer service can ruin a business’s reputation.
If you feel your customer service skills need improvement you could ask for feedback so you can see where you need to improve. It’s also important to keep up date on your industry and organisation so you can deal with enquiries and complaints efficiently and effectively.
3. Technological skills
We aren’t talking about complicated technological skills here, just the simple stuff. Things like being able to confidently use laptops and phones, as well as Microsoft systems such as word and excel. You’ll be trained on the individual businesses technology when you start a role but having a bit of previous experience with simple technology will really help you get a head start.
Taking an online course could be a great way of expanding your technological knowledge or learning new skills.
4. Time management/organisation skills
Working in admin often requires you to balance and manage a large number of tasks at one time. Therefore, being organised and able to manage your time effectively is a must.
There are various different ways you can manage your time and we suggest finding one that works for you. Blocking chunks of time out for certain tasks is a popular one, there are also a number of applications / systems that can help with time management and of course the good old fashioned list. What works for one won’t work for everyone so make sure you find a system that works for you!