IAAP 2005 Profile of Administrative Professionals Survey

 

Rating of importance of following workplace challenges pertaining to day-to-day job responsibilities/tasks
(On rating scale of 0 to 10; 10 being most important; 0 least important)

Juggling multiple priorities	8.4
Dealing with difficult people and personalities	6.1
Volume of work	6.1
Understanding and using technology	6.0
Serving multiple supervisors	5.7
Adapting to organizational changes	4.5
Working for difficult supervisor	3.4
Lack of equipment/facilities to do job well	3.0
Other responses (See below)

 

Sampling of "Other" Responses...

• Balancing home life and work life

• Being trapped at the phone; having to get someone to cover for me when I leave my desk

• Bored with current job

• Confidentiality - knowing things (downsizings, etc.) that are about to happen and not being able to tell anyone

• Corporate mandates that create inefficiencies

• Corporate management not having a vested interest in the company

• Dealing with a coworker who is obsessive/compulsive

• Dealing with sometimes outlandish client requests

• Dealing with difficult work colleagues

• Dealing with inadequate resources to have an efficient business administrative infrastructure

• Dealing with managers who are unable to make decisions

• Desire to take on added responsibilities

• Engineering industry is a contract-based environment.  Always uncertainty here.

• Environment - poor working conditions/office resources

• Finding skilled subcontractors for overloads

• Functioning as a unit of multi-lingual people

• Getting people to get a project finished before the deadline

• Getting work back from staff/department in timely fashion

• I currently work in an environment where micro-management prevents individual creativity.

• I have no major issues to deal with in my position.

• I like change and work very well with difficult people

• I usually feel pressured to get multiple things done in a limited amount of time.

• I'm in the same organization but with a second manager in less than 2 1/2 years.

• Improving negative view of administrative professional’s role in meeting mission goals

• Incompetent/unprofessional coworkers

• Increased volume of work/supervisors to assist

• Industrial equipment malfunctions (i.e., sprinklers or alarms)

• Lack of employer support for flex time or telecommuting arrangements

• Lack of advanced training a hindrance

• Lack of appreciation for how much I get done in a day compared to other assistants

• Lack of communication from upper management

• Lack of communication or poor communication from management

• Lack of information to perform job in a quality manner

• Lack of recognition for my contributions to success of my employer/manager

• Lack of standard operating procedures, accountability, audits, employee training, communications, efficiency

• Lack of team work

• Lack of training for accounting specific software

• Learning new parts of the business

• Learning new skills/keeping up with my supervisor

• Manager travels constantly providing little training/development

• Micromanagement by CEO

• Navigating the politics of the organization

• New full-time admin coworker very difficult to deal with

• No staff to delegate work to

• Not enough challenges in my current job

• Not enough projects/work to do in current position

• Not enough work to keep me satisfied and busy and feeling challenged and productive

• Not getting return phone calls

• Occasionally dealing with lows/highs of work volume.

• Office politics

• Outsourcing

• Political aspects in my office are definitely challenging

• Recruiting new clients

• Respect for my skills and abilities

• Scheduling

• Selling products to customers

• Serving an entire office - due to being initial Human Resource contact

• Serving two departmental areas as needed.

• Superiors not knowing how to use support staff

• Supervising staff in three different locations within the city

• Supervisor who doesn't understand our industry..."yes" man

• There are only two of us who work in the office.  We serve the entire State for continuing education

• Traveling between two office locations

• Understanding the nature of the business

• Unproductive administrative work flow/procedures

• Utilizing outside resources

• Want my own manager to work for - don't have one at present

• Working with a supervisor with no supervisory experience

• Working with employees who are not held "accountable" for their action

• Workspace standards - shifting from private offices to open space (cubicles) and dealing with results.

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