The Top 5 Pain Points that Administrative Professionals Face (And How to Fix Them)

As the CEO of SnackNation, my team and I work tirelessly to provide healthy snacks for thousands of offices across the U.S., helping them fuel their employees to stay healthy, happy, and productive. As such, we work with a ton of administrative professionals.

That’s because, more often than not, it’s the company’s admin, executive assistant, or office manager who is in charge of managing the office vibe, maintaining the company’s culture, and ordering office essentials like healthy snacks. In a very real way, our job is to make their lives easier.

In fact, we tend not to use the term administrative professional - we prefer terms like “vibe manager” and “office rockstar,” words that reflect the increasing significance these individuals have in the success of your business. 

It’s true - the admin’s role is skyrocketing in importance as your company’s environment and culture is now a make or break recruiting and retention tool.

So, in honor of these unsung heroes of the business world, and in conjunction with Administrative Professionals Day, my team and I put together the following list of the top challenges that today’s admins face, as well as solutions to help you overcome them, so you can retain and develop stellar talent in the admin role.

1. They can feel underappreciated

I recently received an email from one of these office rockstars that reminded me how demanding their job can be: 

"I just wanted to say thank you! More often than not, Office Mgmt can feel lonely and thankless . We're generally running around too busy taking care of others and seldom get the pay-off for our hard work, in my experience. So thank you. Thank you for making me feel special, rewarding our account for spreading the word, and allowing me to opportunity to reap some rewards of my own.”

Besides the gratitude I felt for this person taking the time to share this valuable feedback, I remember feeling bummed by this one honest, vulnerable admission: More often than not, office management can feel lonely and thankless.

The irony is that, as previously stated, the admin’s role is growing in importance. Administrative professionals shouldn’t feel alienated and undervalued, they should be celebrated, and their place as a trusted partner in the success of the business should be front and center.

Solution: Create a Culture of Recognition 

Recognizing your admin’s achievements will go a long way to keep the engaged, happy, and productive.

What many businesses fail to recognize is that much of engagement is emotional. Employees need to feel cared for and appreciated in order to be engaged.

One way to ensure that your admin gets the recognition he or she deserves is to create a broader culture of recognition.

At SnackNation, we end each week with our “Crush-It Call,” a company-wide meeting during which each team member nominates someone who crushed it during the week, either by delivering amazing results or by embodying one of our core values. 

For one-on-one recognition, nothing beats a handwritten note. Your CEO should especially go out of his or her way to compliment and recognize admins for their hard work. 

1. They’re charged with recurring or repetitive tasks

The admin’s week is often filled with routine or repetitive tasks like guest registration, invoicing, and booking travel. These banal tasks can eat up precious time, and take away your admin’s ability to take on bigger, more value-add projects. 

Solution: Automate! 

As I mentioned earlier, we created SnackNation in response to a problem that we knew many admins faced - the repetitive task of ordering snacks week after week. We created a set-and-forget solution that took the hassle and legwork out of the equation for ordering healthy snacks at the office - while at the same time delivering a “wow” experience for the company’s employees.

There are a plethora of tools that similarly help streamline or completely automate repetitive tasks, and thus free up valuable time to focus on more important things. For instance, Envoy is a great tool that makes guest registration a breeze, while sites like Hipmunk take the hassle out of booking travel.

No purpose-built tool for the job? No problem. Help set up custom systems using task management apps like Asana or Taco to ensure that these recurring tasks get done as efficiently as possible.

Empower your admins to focus on things that matter by encouraging automation and outsourcing whenever possible. 

1. They face an ever-expanding role

The admin role can sometimes be a catchall for projects that aren’t easily assignable to other departments. Over time, these tasks add up, and soon your admin might feel like he has 10 jobs instead of one.

This is especially true in lean startup cultures, where most employees are expected to wear many hats. Inevitably, the company’s admin ends up wearing more hats than anyone else, and he can feel overburdened and overwhelmed. 

Solution: Elevate the Role

One solution is to acknowledge the expanded role by creating a brand new title and job description. 

A title change can have a significant psychological and emotional impact on the individual. More accurate job titles - like vibe manager, chief of staff, or “Head of Office Happiness, HR Management and Purchases” - can go a long way toward setting the right expectations and reflecting the reality of this role. In fact, a better title will tend to attract the right candidate to the role in the first place.

Of course, a new name isn’t enough. Provide this new role with additional training and focus on developing the individual as the role expands, and help your admin prioritize their multiple functions, so that he or she doesn’t become overwhelmed. 

1. They can feel like the entire company is their boss (and the org treats them that way)

Just as scope of the admin role can balloon without warning, so can the amount of people they support.

Although it probably isn’t true, some employees have a sense that the office admin is the lowest person on the totem pole, and thus delegate their busy work to her without fear of reprisal.

But when your admin feels like she is answering to 50 bosses, distress and burnout are the inevitable result.

Solution: Set boundaries (and respect them!)

The only way to prevent this is to nip it in the bud before it creates undue stress on your company’s admin.

Set clear expectations within the org regarding your admin’s primary responsibilities, and to whom he or she reports.

One simple way to ensure that your team doesn’t take advantage of the company admin is to require that everyone cc the admin’s manager when making additional requests. That way, his or her boss can step in whenever the request is inappropriate. 

1. They have to deal with nothing but demanding personalities

Many admins interface directly with c-level executives every day. And let’s face it, us CEO-types can be demanding. Admins face the daunting task of taking directions from people who tend to be direct and know exactly what they want (and when they want it done).

It takes a thick skin to succeed in this role sometimes, but that doesn’t mean execs are off the hook. 

Solution: Exercise Your Empathy

Now and again, take a step back and recognize how challenging this role can be, and how much skill it takes to successfully navigate all those A-type personalities all the time. It can be a lot of pressure.

Again, communicating this understanding is key. Reward your admin for a job well done, and recognize him or her for their achievements.

Lastly, Don’t Let Administrative Professionals Day Be a One-and-Done Affair 

Like Valentine’s Day, Administrative Professionals Day should be a reminder to treat your company’s admins like the rockstars they are throughout the year, not just on one day. Incorporate these tips into daily practices, and your admins will be well positioned to add value and be a true partner to the organization for years to come.