Administrative Assistant's Update

7 Administrative Assistant's UPDATE Credit: Piotr Marcinski/Shutterstock Crisis management: 5 ways to come out on top By Naz Araghian How well administrative profession- als handle crises says much about their leadership skills and manage- ment potential. Perhaps you forgot to submit expense reports on time which resulted in late reimbursements — and an angry boss. Or maybe you for- got to book travel on time, causing an increase in fare costs for the company. Next time there's an emergency work situation, turn it into an oppor- tunity to demonstrate leadership by following these crisis management tips: 1. Keep your cool. It's easy to panic when something bad happens. Be the person who stays calm and ap- proaches the situation with a level head. Take some deep breaths before going into action. You don't want to make the problem worse by overre- acting and making poor decisions. 2. Don't assign blame. It's natural to make excuses and point fingers. But doing so is unproductive, slows down crisis management and creates a poisonous workplace environment. If you made the mistake, take responsibility, apologize and help fix the problem. Even when someone else is at fault (maybe your boss forgot to tell you about a busi- ness trip!), the wise next step is to work toward a solution as a team, not to play the blame game. 3. Gather data. To solve the problem, you need to know exactly what went wrong. Retrace your steps or, if other people were responsible for the crisis, help them discover the source of the mistake. The sooner you find the source of the mistake, the sooner you can suggest ways to fix it (see the next step). 4. Offer solutions. During a crisis, management does not need hand- wringers. If you were the one who discovered the mess, approach your boss with not just the problem, but also possible next steps. Being a problem solver will show leadership potential. 5. Do a post-mortem. After the emergency has passed, speak to your manager about gathering the team, where appropriate, to discuss ways to prevent it from happening again. To cut down on human error, for example, suggest a checklist for commonly performed tasks. Emergencies at work can happen at any time. By drawing on your crisis management skills, your department can get back to business with mini - mal disruption, and you can impress your supervisor with your leadership potential. For more information, contact Naz Araghian at naz.araghian@roberthalf.com. OfficeTeam specializes in the placement of highly skilled administrative and office support professionals. Grammar watch: Read it once more By George Pearson It's always a good idea to re-read your writing product for errors and ambiguities before sending it off. It's even better if you have time to have it critiqued by someone whose own writing skill you trust and appreciate. Here are two examples of writ- ing, both for public consumption, containing errors that should have been discovered and fixed. (1) From a major daily newspaper, a story about the newly designed public spaces in a downtown bank: One of the first things a custom- er sees when they walk through the doors at King and Bay are a bank of iPads loaded with BMO's products and services. (2) From an online newsletter published by a major Canadian applied research organization: In another larger study of 4,757 adults, those who broke up there sedentary time more often were more likely to have lower waist circumference and better health markers then those who had less breaks in their sedentary time. What are the errors? How would you fix them? Answers on page 8.

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