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Update: Administrative Professionals Day is April 23, 2025. Some great gifts to get for your administrative professional (other than cash, of course) include:
Administrative Professionals Day is soon! We haven't talked about it in too long, but I'd love to hear how things have changed regarding your support staff over the past year — if you work with an administrative assistant, please chime in!
I know a lot of readers have noted the disappearance of the administrative assistants from their workplace, even before the pandemic. According to The WSJ in January 2020, there had been an almost 40% decline since 2000:
More than 1.6 million secretarial and administrative-assistant jobs have vanished since 2000, according to federal data, an almost 40% decline, comparable to that in manufacturing. The losses haven’t garnered much notice. Unlike a plant closing that leaves thousands of Americans unemployed in one go, jobs in a traditionally female sector have evaporated in dribs and drabs.
I'm sure the move to remote work further condensed things for a lot of offices — I cringed at the SNL skit about secretaries struggling with a Zoom call.
That said, I saw a really interesting TikTok from Dr. Kimberly Douglass, who talks a lot about neurodivergence, ADHD, and similar issues in the workforce. She was noting that the elimination of administrative support makes things harder for people who struggle with focus and attention.
Her point was that spending time and energy to do things like remembering events, hosting events, and making travel arrangements can be draining — and she encouraged her followers to seriously look at the absence or presence of administrative support when considering new jobs or accommodations for a current position.
So if you do still have an administrative assistant, show him or her some gratitude next week!
Some great gifts to get for your administrative professional (other than cash, of course) include:
Readers, let's hear from you — do you work with an administrative assistant or have another form of administrative support? How has that changed if you've been working remotely? (Do you see truth in Dr. Douglass's thoughts on administrative support?)
Anonymous
I’m in publishing (not law). So office assistants have traditionally dealt with mail, making copies, arranging travel and (at some places) managing phones. With rise of email, ease of booking travel online (and many conferences making the hotel portion part of registration ease) and phone systems designed around customer satisfaction (not needing to be routed everywhere), it seems like the drop makes sense and is actually for the better. I’d much rather have my company take that money and invest it elsewhere. If remembering events is too taxing for your neuro style, I’d respectfully say that you need to spend more time developing a stronger calendar and list prompt system because foisting the “remind” on an admin isn’t going to address the bigger picture of succeeding with your work life.
I can see where admin need is quite different in businesses that are still largely paper-based (like law). My husband is an attorney, and I don’t think most folks have anywhere near the idea of just how crazy the paper work is and the need for wet signs and physical filings. I see admins in that setting being much more like a valued member of the execution team. But I think broadly those types of businesses are getting fewer. I’m glad my doctor’s office, for example, doesn’t require the same paper-based charting and filing it used to. And give me the opportunity to go online and pick a convenient time on a calendar vs. trying to get through on a noisy call line where someone will just keep throwing me a bunch of days that would never work.
Anon
This seems rather dismissive to me, but maybe it just comes down to a difference in the definition of administrative assistant, but the AAs and other admin folks where I work do a lot more than just handle paperwork. I am positive there are many administrative professionals where you work, but you don’t notice them if they’re doing their job well.
Anon
+1
NY CPA
+1 – we still have some administrative assistants who help partners but their roles seem to be more and more limited. They don’t even answer phones really anymore. I typically see them helping with expense and time reports, scheduling travel (although I would personally prefer to do that myself), scheduling really big meetings, and not a lot else. I believe the heaviest layoffs due to COVID in our group were among administrative assistants.
Cat
Good admins are getting harder and harder to find because to be a great one, you need to be smart and attentive to detail — qualities that today’s new grads can leverage into better-paying positions than a traditional secretary role. Even taking into account “teach a man to fish” it’s faster for me to do most of my own admin work than it is to even explain what I need to be done.
Agency Admin
As a state agency admin, I do think there is still a need for the role, especially for wet signatures on paper docs (see above comment!). However, my office has moved to digital first over the last year, save for a few document types. Now I find myself being responsible for the same kinds of tasks, but digital instead of physical, which just feels silly and annoying much of the time!
For example – being responsible for archiving completed project files, and requesting them from off-site storage if we need them back, makes sense for an admin to handle. It’s time-consuming, requires ordering materials and doing extra paperwork, and often needs a few back-and-forths with another admin before the task is complete. These days though… when someone asks me to do this, it amounts to simply saving PDFs in the appropriate folder and locating them if we need to access again. It drives me bananas that colleagues want me to e-mail them a document they could find themselves in less time than it took to e-mail me!
While I don’t anticipate my individual position going away any time soon because of the other paper file management, travel, and event planning tasks I handle, I can absolutely see why this change has been occurring. With digitization of files and e-signing options, we’ve essentially automated some aspects of admin work.
Also, I love Dr Douglass! As an admin with ADHD, I’m both laughing and nodding along with her tiktok. I’m job searching and fingers crossed that I can land something outside of admin in the near future.
Agency Admin
Also, I can only speak for myself, but for goodness sake I hate being ‘celebrated’ on Admin Day. I find it demeaning and a poor replacement for things I actually want, like good management, appropriate praise and critique of my work, and appropriate pay! If you aren’t giving my colleagues a card and flowers for doing their job, please don’t treat me differently.
Donna Blair
As an admin, I agree about hating Admin Day. Just respect all year long and I’m good with that.
Anonymous
It’s funny how much hate admins get. I was an admin before I finished my education. Being an admin was absolutely a more difficult job than my fancy prestigious job I have now yet I was paid less than 1/4 what I’m paid now. You’re expected to be a mind reader, magician, and office mom all while managing backhanded comments about your competency and value. Yuck no thanks.
anon
I’ve never been an admin, but I have so much appreciation for what ours do, for exactly these reasons.
Cornellian
Agreed.
Anonymous Grouch
I am a high level executive assistant. I enjoy the work, am very good at it, and am outrageously well compensated. Who do you think handles the office side of caring for the man-babies you’re married to (and complaining bitterly about here)? Or do you think their ability to take care of things is somehow magically improved at work?
anonnnn
I want to be friends with you <3
Senior Attorney
Yeah, I was a secretary all though college — summers and part time during school — in the early 80s. This hits the nail on the head, and back in the day when almost all lawyers/accountants/busienss executives were men, they all needed somebody to do the practical things like typing and phone calls and travel arrangements. The movie Nine to Five was not far off. It didn’t seem so much like it then (“just a secretary” was a thing), but those were good jobs and it’s a shame they have all disappeared.
Senior Attorney
Or almost all have disappeared. Now only the top people have that kind of high-functioning assistants, I think.
KS IT Chick
My director has an admin who also functions as support of our department. She initially coordinated the move home in March, 2020, then the permanent move to WFH in August. Now, she is also coordinating the consolidation of 600 cubes into about 250, as more people move home permanently. On top of the regular duties for an administrative assistant in a large organization. We couldn’t have done all of this without her.
anonshmanon
Our org has few admins in the traditional sense, but a large team of support staff, many of which are somewhat specialized. In the before times, we used to do staff appreciation day for all of the roles that support the main line of business who get most of the attention.
J
Starting off in a new job and this is my first go-around being a boss in a new govt. role with 2 admin assistants. I was thinking of giving each $50 gift card to a craft store with a card of appreciation from me. Bringing in Starbucks and some breakfast treats.
In my past jobs, I took my admin out to lunch, gave flowers, and gave her the rest of the day off.
I don’t really feel like I need to lunch and take up their time. these 2 admins have been great,,,does this sound good?
NorCal Counsel
Before COVID, I would take my secretary out for lunch and/or bring her flowers. Last year I was working on my own with no assistant. I just started a new job at a firm but everyone is working remotely so what I used to do is not going to work. Any suggestions – probably something I would email her since I don’t want to send something to her house.