Admin Meetings

[talgrl]

Good Afternoon!



I am considering talking to HR about holding admin staff meetings on a regular basis. However, I've been involved with meetings like this and have found them, generally, to be a waste of time.  My first order of business would be to get some continuity between the different departments.  I would also like for us to create a "library" of resources (Gregg Ref Manual, Business Etiquette) as well as info on local caterers, meeting space, etc.  But, after that I am at a loss. I would be interested in software tips  

[adminwithatude]

Hi! My company usually holds these meeting about once a year, and we have approximately 25 admins.  Normally, about the only thing that is discussed is accounting issues (correct way of doing expenses and making travel arrangements), though we don't have a high turnover of admins.  I've been there 4 years now.  



I'd recommend something that we call an "Administrative Support Fact Book".  Inside of this "manual" is a number of very useful things, especially is one of the admins get hit by a mac truck or something.  This book should start off with everyone that you support, what you do with their mail, what do you do with their phone calls etc.  You should have any and all passwords to everything a substitute or temp may need.  All procedures to all the tasks you perform.  There should be a section for all the companies that your company uses for catering along with the account numbers;  a section for overnighting packages; a section called "who do I see about..."; section of phone extensions and titles of the employees; phone tips, including how to set up conference calls; a section for the different mileages to the most frequented companies for expense reports; a section of maps to the most frequented companies; a section for conference room and meeting guidelines.



I hope this helps!

[andrea843]

I love the Office Fact book, we call mine a desk manual,, however I would point out that placing the passwords to programs or computers etc, is in most cases a serious breech of security and sharing passwords is often prohibited by policy. Many P&P's state that sharing or giving out passwords is punishable by possible termination.



  A better approach is to clearly name an IT person, or contact who can issue temporary passwords, or authorize the release of existing passwords to a temp. Provide the phone number or extension of this individual and a list for the manual of programs or procedures that are password protected. thereby saving you from violating company policy and at the same time giving a new person a "heads up" about what he/she will need to ask IT or the tech contact to do for them.



My four an a half pence...



Andrea

[adminwithatude]

Why would sharing passwords be against policy?  I guess it would depend on which field you work in, huh?  I really don't work with anything confidential, that no one else in the company can't know about.  I believe that SOMEONE needs to be given this information, for example, whoever your backup is.

[breezyblnd]

I am so glad to see this topic on the board.  I have been with this company since 4/1/00 (temp to perm til 7/1/00).  Anywhere I have worked I have always had a notebook of what I called "whatever information".....names, numbers, duties, daily routine, where what is located.

 I came into my position as Exec. Sec. to VP/Operations with one page of job description and NOTHING else.  Thru the months I have developed my notebook.  There are 2 other Exec. Sec., 3 Administrative Assist. and we are support for each other.  Only thing is no one knows what anybody else does....this includes the Presidents Exec. Sec., she has not procedure, etc type book.  I have pushed for admin. meetings and while we have had a few they quickly fall to a b*t** session.  I have never seen the unprofessionalism that I am encountering at this company.

 We have one admin. assist. who has very people to support and has never gotten her arms around a project and taken it from start to completion, or has involved so many other people that it is not her work that gets it done.

I have made it a point to get the ofc. ext.# for each of us, home phone #, cell #, pager #, any way to contact...and put all the information on a business card and given it to each of us...never know when you might end up in the hospital and need to reach a co-worker to give them some advance notice of your whereabouts.

I also made it a point for the 3 of us Exec. Sec's to have each others computer system passwords since we are backup for each other and are called upon to find things in the system when someone is out.

[andrea843]

WHY would sharing passwords be against company policy? well gee in my case I hold the passwords to the bank for making employment tax deposits via computer transfer, passwords to the servers, passwords to the network admin console, none of which I'd consider for one moment giving to a temp for ANY Reason.



Further, even giving out my computer password allows a user to send email under my name, again, something I'd not allow.



We have in place a Set of "Temp passwords" which gives  access to office programs and not to the system itself, and as far as policy, you might investigate yours, I don't know of a company that doesnt have some disclaimer somewhere about the sharing of passwords.  



But writing them down? In so easily found a place? Bad policy,,, BAAAD policy. and it defeats the purpose OF passwords.  Most companies don't bother with them for things that don't need at least some level of security.



I've copied my boss on sensitive passwords in fact he laughs because I usally preface such information with "In case I get hit by a truck,,,, here's so and so" and if I DO Get hit by that truck , It's up to the boss to give out sensative passwords, not to anyone who might pick up a manual.



That's how it is in my world...



Andrea

 

[yankeestarbuck]

Andrea's right, that is BAD.  In my office, we use Windows NT so the IT staff can crack my password in a moment, should they need to.  But even THEY don't want my password for fear that they may get the blame for something I do. Think about that a moment.  All passwords are available.  I get a bad evaluation and get angry about it. I send a scathing and rude email to the evaluator under SOMEONE ELSE'S email address. I don't get nailed for it, someone else did it.  Don't ever underestimate what human's will do in strange situations with a lot of different resources at their fingertips.

[adminwithatude]

I guess I never thought about having IT get passwords if need be.  Interesting.  That's good to know.

[solargal]

That's one thing in our office that we are told not to give out and that is passwords.  I'm the only assistant in our dept. so if something happened to me there would be chaos for a little while although we have others around the office in different departments and the person with least seniority has 4 years with the company.  Around here they stay a long time - I'm proud to say I've been here 10 years in June.  I can't really understand why there is such a secret about voice mail passwords though I get very boring voice messages.  Everyone would fall asleep if they heard them!

[daisylee]

Is indeed a very bad idea, and should only be given out when working with your support desk.  Our IT group can and does give out temporary passwords if necessary.  In fact our company recommends that you change your passwords every six months or more, and every password sensitive application use a different password. (Talk about information security!)



It seems a shame, but think about it...we had an incident in an office where somebody left their email signed on, and somebody came along and sent out a very damning email to a manager with that persons logon!  And in another company, we traced someone embezzling funds by tracking their logon and password.  And you never know what unscrupulous people will do get what they want!



Daisy

[msrobbie]

As the office manager for our company, I have access to everyone's passwords for everything (along with my Network Administrator).  Someone has to have access to everything in case of major catastrophe.  I also take home a back-up tape of our entire network server once a week.  Our Network Administrator gives me an updated tape each a week, I take it home, and I bring him back the old one.  That way, there is always a complete copy of recent server files away from the office in case of fire or theft.



Voice mail passwords!!  We have a server that runs our voice mail, and I can go in to that and change anyone's password at any time and retreive their messages.  This is necessary in case an employee is out for an extended period of time or is terminated.  We do require that all employees provide all passwords during their "exit interview", but it is probably safe to say that an employee being terminated might be just a tad upset and give the wrong password on purpose.



As far as admin meetings, I meet with my group once a month (or more if necessary), and we discuss situations in the office, new employees, departing employees, office facilities issues, and whatever I can tell them about changes that will affect the office.  I also have other non-admin employees come in occasionally to either talk with us about recent training they have attended, or to discuss ways that administration might work better with that person's department.



I also hold spur-of-the-moment "mini meetings", usually at the reception desk, for five minutes or less, to give them a heads-up on any breaking news.  



Our general manager holds monthly "All Hands Meetings" which are very beneficial to administration and all other departments . . . gives us all a chance to ask questions and see how the people in each department are handling our day to day trials and tribulations and successes.



Testing the waters and finding out what all the employees think about the company's operations is so important.  And admin personnel need to be kept up to date on all activities since we are, after all, the force that keeps the company running!  

 

[djpcps]

I have been holding Admin meetings for the last 3 years - we started a continuous improvement team for administrative support and I serve as team lead.  We started off by opening the first 2 or 3 meetings for venting and brainstorming.  Then we began looking at ways to improve policies and procedures and implement the improvements. We have had around $30K cost savings each year from different areas within our control.



We also use a manual, called a Mac Truck Book (in case someone gets hit by either a literal or a figurative truck), this was one of our improvements, with a little help from examples provided by friends at AdminAuthority - and passwords are NOT included per company policy.



Right now our team is split between two locations about 15 miles apart, so separate meetings are needed and different projects for each sub-team, but I serve as team lead for both groups and attend all the meetings.  This way I am able to help prevent duplication of effort - if one group solves something and puts a procedure in place, then the other group is able to adopt the procedure full-blown.