#RecognitionNotRoses

Why we all need to be choosing to challenge the way our profession is viewed this International Women's Day!

When we moved to Spain in August, I discovered a box containing past issues of the magazine. We're about to celebrate 10 years of the magazine in our current format but our very first issue in 1989 featured a lead article New Office Technology and the Changing Role of the Secretary which talked about how technology would streamline the role and enable the world’s secretaries to step into roles that would give them more recognition. It is demoralising to realise that 32 years on, we’re still singing the same song.

It seems to be the time for anniversaries and reflection. There are two major documentaries out this year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 9to5 movement, founded by Karen Nussbaum and Ellen Cassedy. It is also the 40th anniversary of the film “9 to 5”. The concept for the film was inspired by the women’s movement and rose out of Jane Fonda’s close friendship with Nussbaum. It was an attempt to change perceptions through humour and entertainment. In the film, the three lead characters kidnap their boss to teach him a lesson. It struck a delicate balance that raised important questions about female office workers and how they were perceived and treated, whilst not alienating the male population.

In a recent article, Nussbaum explained how she helped write a pitch to convince the studio that there would be an audience for it. “It’s the largest sector of the workforce. There are 20 million office workers, no-one ever talks about them. Once you do, they will flock to the movie theatres,” she told them.

9to5 surveyed hundreds of women about their working conditions.

“The most common task for most clerical workers was probably getting coffee for the boss,” says Nussbaum.

“This notion that you were there as the office wife, to do anything that was asked of you – we didn’t know how to express what was wrong with that, but we sure felt like it was wrong. People were quietly seething.”

As part of their campaign, Nussbaum & Cassedy decided to target National Secretaries Day, now Administrative Professionals Day. In the US it has always been a time for executives to buy their Assistant a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates to thank them for their year of hard work.

“We thought this was ridiculous, we wanted our rights 365 days a year,” says Cassedy.

Their supporters marched carrying placards daubed with the message ‘Raises not Roses’.

As part of our Executive Secretary LIVE Global conference in March, Karen Nussbaum has agreed to be interviewed. It’s shocking to look at how little has changed. We are only just coming to terms with ‘Me Too’, and her campaign back in the 1970s to ensure relevant job descriptions, to combat lack of respect, and lack of opportunity for the 20 million American female office workers she represented sounds horribly familiar.

In our latest magazine survey, 68% of you told us you felt underutilized. It's not acceptable that 50 years on, administrative professionals still don't have recognition of what their role is and of their contribution to business.

The theme for International Women’s Day today is #ChooseToChallenge.

There has never been a better time than now to challenge the way that businesses see your role.

With the business world in a state of such enormous flux, what is one more change? If you grab the opportunity, it will allow you to step into being the assistant that you always wanted to be. You shall, you will and you MUST take this chance to lead up and become proactive.

Your executives need your skillsets now, like never before and nobody else in the business knows how to do detail, process and procedure like you do. There is a real power to being the new voice in the room, especially around these skillsets. Remember that administrative professionals are the chaos tamers and air traffic controllers of the business world. It's no time to be quiet. Your Executive is too busy saving the world, driving their business and protecting their staff to be caught up in the detail. Show them what you are made of and take control of the things that they need you to, so that they are absolutely clear what your value is to both the business and to them. Don't wait for permission.

The good news is that COVID-19 has meant that we're seeing some businesses finally waking up to what Administrative Professionals are capable of. Yes, many of the businesses that we are talking to are restructuring, and as we have been predicting for a while, the lower-level admins are being let go. However, the more strategic roles are finally getting training as it dawns on the business world what the true value of a high-level and educated EA supporting their leadership team is.

Combine this with the forthcoming skills matrix from the World Administrators Alliance, which will, for the very first time, provide a global framework for career progression and it feels like we could finally be on the cusp of finally completing the work that Cassedy and Nussbaum began 50 years ago.

We have spent 10 years campaigning for:

• Clear career progression - watch this space for the new Skills Matrix from World Administrators Summit. It's a gamechanger.
• Clear job descriptions reflective of what the role is. You can't assess performance against a job description that doesn't accurately reflect what you do (Skills Matrix will help with this too).
• Recognition of the contribution that the role brings to an executive and to a business.
• Pay based on up to date data, that is reflective of what the role actually is.
• Administrative Professional specific training.
• Anti-Bullying (63% of you have been bullied to a point where you have left a job).

But it's down to you. We can't do this for you. Change will not come if we keep waiting for it to happen and hoping someone else will do it.

If we get this right we will change the working lives of half a billion women, globally. I think that is worth stepping out of our comfort zone for.

50 years on, our message must be #RecognitionNotRoses.

Lucy Brazier is one of the world’s leading authorities on the administrative profession. As CEO of Marcham Publishing, specialist publishers of Executive Secretary Magazine, Lucy’s passion is for the Assistant role to be truly recognised as a career and not just a job. With access to the most forward-thinking, passionate and knowledgeable trainers and administrative business leaders in the world, as well as personally meeting and speaking to literally thousands of Assistants over the last ten years, Lucy’s knowledge of the market and what Assistants all over the world are facing on a day to day basis are second to none.

Want more information on how you can support our #recognitionnotroses campaign or how you can be one of the first to receive the new Skills Matrix from World Administrators Alliance? Email Lucy at [email protected]