Course Details

Secretaries, Personal Assistants and Administrative Officers Competency Programme

This course will focus target participants on processes and style of work expected of them:

  • How to work smart, not just hard, putting the most emphasis on the most critical functions
  • How they appreciate that nothing will help their career more than a reputation for high quality work that makes their boss look good
  • How they make their boss become comfortably dependent on them for new ideas and support
  • Ways in which to develop and continuously assess their Emotional Intelligence capabilities
  • Work place communication and interpersonal skills
  • How to arrange their thoughts clearly before communicating in writing
  • A practice of writing styles that are clear, concrete and courteous

 

Broad Competencies Addressed:

  • Ability to prioritize and cope with multiple tasks
  • Ability to think like a manager – planning, making decisions and solving problems
  • Ability to improve communication skills to enhance relationships
  • Ability to manage your thoughts and feelings and improve self-confidence
  • Ability to be assertive and therefore more effective in the workplace
  • Ability to understand and develop interpersonal skills
  • Ability to write memos, letters, reports, mails and proposals excellently by presenting their contents with mechanical precision

Course Module

DAY ONE

Essential Administrative Skills

Roles and Competencies of Secretaries and Administrative Officers

– Traditional Roles

– Emerging Roles

Understanding Changes Affecting Business
Maintaining Corporate Secrecy and Confidentiality
Records Keeping and Good Memory
Office Etiquette
– Business

– Social

– Telephone Manners

– Visitor

– Grooming and Dress Code.

DAY TWO
Vital Communication Skills
Different styles of communication
Understanding and using body language
Listening skills
– seeking to understand before being understood

– Best practices for delivering positive Feedback

Communication skills for internal customers:

– Positive listening habits

– Eye-contact

– Body-positioning

– Life-in-your-voice

– Telephone manners

– Equal-treatment

– Thanking

Personal Attitudes and Customer Service Experience
Long term relationship management.


DAY THREE

Written Communication

The Challenge of Communicating Effectively
              – The business case

              – Communication and culture.

Writing Guidelines
              – Essence of effective business writing

              – Planning the writing

              – Organizing thought before writing.

Prewriting & Planning
              – Establishing purpose

              – Clarifying readership

              – Researching for facts.

Doing the Writing
Scheduling Meetings and Writing Minutes
     – Minutes: what it is, what it is not

     – The importance of Minutes

     – Types of Minutes

     – Minutes Format

     – Steps to Effective Minutes

     – Qualities of Good Minutes

Email, Internet and Intranet Proficiency


DAY FOUR

Emotional Intelligence Framework

Self-awareness
– Emotional awareness

– Accurate self-assessment

– Self confidence

Self-regulation
– Self control

– Trustworthiness

– Conscientiousness

– Adaptability

– Innovativeness

Self-motivation
– Achievement drive

– Commitment

– Initiative

– Optimism

Social competence
– Empathy

– Customer Service Orientation.

DAY FIVE


Time Management
•Managing Self for Effective Time Use
– Prioritization

– Personal effectiveness

– Goal setting

The Time Wasters
– Ineffective meetings

– Unproductive gist and talks

– Coming late to the office

– The “African time” syndrome

– Unskilled managers and subordinates

Managing the Boss
– Everyone’s Pal Boss

– Self Promoter Boss

– High Achiever Boss

– Roadblocks Boss

Managing Routines.

Who Should Attend

Management Trainees, Project Team Members and Middle Management Staff 

Training Delivery Techniques

For learning to be more impactful and effective, we adopt a seamless combination of Lectures, Group Discussions, Case Studies, Individual/Group Exercises, Videos and Role Play. Participants will gain both theoretical and practical knowledge of the topics. The emphasis is on the practical application of the topics and this will aid attendees to apply the knowledge gained both at work and personally.

Strategic Talent Management Course

Pre-Retirement Workshop (How to Effectively Manage Life After Service)

Managing the Training and Development Function

HR Skills for Non-HR Professionals

Foundation Skills for New HR Officers

Recruitment and Selection Best Practices

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