IAAP 2005 Profile of Administrative Professionals Survey

Rating of most significant issues
affecting the administrative profession in next five to 10 years
(On rating scale of 0-10; 10 being most significant; 0 least significant)

Sampling of "Other" Responses

• Lack of training and skills of those entering the field

• Improving negative view of admins’ role in meeting organization's mission and goals

• Ability to be promoted within current department requires significant change in job responsibilities

• Accessing continuing education opportunities

• Adapting to the Sarbannes-Oxley regulations

• Added pay with added responsibilities

• All the above will pretty much equally play a huge role

• As companies become more lean, self-training more significant

• Attracting educated people to secretarial field

• Authority to go with increased responsibility

• Baby boomers reaching retirement age

• Being adequately compensated

• Being creative in working smarter

• Being expected to do more with no training

• Being our own best advocates

• Below average salary

• Biased attitude from management

• Certification

• Change in job expectations

• Changes in management mentality

• Changing responsibilities which include those outside the normal administrative position

• Collaboration and teamwork

• Colleague respect for administrative assistants

• Commuting to/from work

• Companies merging/buyouts

• Companies that do not see the need for administrative personnel

• Company support for professional associations like IAAP

• Compensation

• Competing with those who have a higher education level

• Competitive pay

• Competitive salaries

• Corporate security issues

• Cutting benefits

• Dealing with replacing large number of retirees with qualified admin; most young people are not looking to get into admin field

• Decreasing professional demeanor and office etiquette

• Defining what role administrative professionals will play within a company

• Devaluing of assistant roles

• Diminishing workload

• Disconnect between management and administrative support team

• Education

• Eliminating administrative professional jobs to be covered by less qualified staff (clerks, etc.)

• Empowerment

• Equity

• Execs getting/learning to use administrative tools and thus requiring less administrative support

• Federal budget cuts

• Finding workers who want to do the job correctly

• For our company, I feel the primary issue affecting all the assistants is proving our worth

• Gaining respect in the workplace for our skills and contributions to employers

• Government budget cuts

• Hardest to do: move to analyst or other exempt position

• Having a vague title and handling way too many responsibilities that are constantly changing

• Having the support of management

• Health benefits

• Health concerns due to sitting at a desk/computer long periods of time.  Stress related health concerns

• Heightened degree requirements

• High-level management not accepting the changing role of the new assistants

• Honing time management skills

• I believe continuing education, including bachelor and master's degrees will be required more often

• I believe experienced admin professionals will still face lower salaries for more work performance.

• Increased travel for boss

• Insufficient recognition for role

• Keeping qualified people in the field

• Keeping the profession viewed as a career choice, not just something we do because we have to.

• Knowledge of industries and functions

• Lack of communication from upper management

• Lack of employer-paid, quality administrative training

• Lack of interest in support positions

• Lack of management support of educational goals

• Lack of opportunity staying with current employer

• Lack of recognition in general

• Lack of respect from executives

• Lack of soft skills

• Learning entirely new skills

• Less flexibility in hours

• Low pay for increased work

• Maintaining proper pay rates

• Management thinks that assistants are simple assistants and we can not do other jobs

• Management doing more administrative work themselves

• Management recognition

• Managers assuming administrative duties

• Managing information/coordinating information

• Managing problems of International business

• Medical insurance costs

• More professional staff hired; not enough administrative support staff hired

• More responsibility without increased authority

• Negotiations with hotels and suppliers

• No career ladders and glass ceilings that prevent admins from changing career paths

• No defined career path

• No direction in the whole department

• No need for admins - people self sufficient

• Not being as involved with my managing director as before.

• Pay

• Pay commensurate with "accountability"

• Pay does not increase with increased volume of work/responsibility

• Physical fitness due to sitting all day long

• Position going from exempt to non-exempt

• Professional image as viewed by your organization

• Providing necessary training sessions

• Qualified job candidates

• Recognition for job importance

• Recognition monetarily for what we do

• Recognizing the importance of our jobs

• Reduction and/or loss of health benefits

• Respect by employer for administrative staff's contributions to the organization

• RESPECT for administrative support

• Respect for the position

• Respect from management for all the work we do behind the scenes

• Respect from peers, burn out

• Respected, vital field of work

• Retirement

• Retirement planning due to privatized social security

• Salaries

• Salary

• Salary administration

• Salary commensurate with duties

• Salary equity

• Secretaries working at home

• Shortage of trained administrative professionals

• Short-term project work - temping

• Soft skills-- communication, diversity issues, etc.

• Specializing in administrative assistant work doing only specialty jobs related to the field

• Tax laws for off-shoring

• Team development training

• Teamwork/personality Issues

• The secretarial field diminishing or disappearing

• The way that poor quality is being accepted by the way new, young professionals are doing their own work

• New generation of managers are more self-reliant, which drastically reduces an admin's responsibilities

• Understanding the usefulness of follow-up and follow-through

• Visibility and recognition of administrative professionals' value to their organizations

• With the influx of computers more and more people are doing their own work leaving less and less for admins

• Women in this field are under paid

• Working as a team (especially virtually)

• Workplace flexibility

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