Angelica Rains, Author at Groupe Insearch

How Top Leaders Manage Their Time and Increase Impact

By Angelica RainsCorporate Culture, Leadership

According to Allan C Stam, the Dean of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, leadership is the art of getting things done. And while many leaders are adept at resource management (people, money, etc.), they struggle to find time to get things done.

Experts suggest that a time audit, time management measures, focus on sustainable productivity, along with a reduction of phantom workload can help people get things done efficiently and eliminate workplace stress.

While there’s no universal formula, here’s a list of five strategies to help leaders manage their time well and increase their impact.

How Leaders Manage Their Time Efficiently

Senior executives will agree that leadership is a mix of clarity, purpose, knowledge, and fortitude.

Here are some ways you can maximize your impact.

Plan Realistically

You can’t plan every second of every day. Things are bound to go wrong, and plans will change. This is normal. This is life.

And while we can’t control everything, we can create efficient schedules to increase our productivity, set deadlines to remain focused, and deal with procrastination-triggering stress wisely. Other strategies to consider include goal setting and downtime—starting early and frequent breaks—which can help increase productivity levels.

Prioritize Purposefully

Do you feel like you don’t have enough hours in the day to complete everything on your list? Then maybe it’s time to revisit how you prioritize.

Ask yourself these questions so you can be more purposeful when prioritizing:

Is it important or urgent?
How long will it take?
How much effort will it take?
Can you delegate it to someone else?
Is this expected of you, or do you want to do this?
Would someone in your team perform a task more effectively than you?

If you can assign tasks that do not require your active attention to someone else, you can focus your time and energy on being more productive.

Delegate

A “can do” attitude is a valuable attribute, but a “can do it alone” attitude is not. Leaders have teams for a reason—each team member has a strength or skill that makes them valuable, and leveraging these strengths helps leaders better manage their time. Should executive-level help be required, hiring an executive assistant is prudent.

Assistants can be gatekeepers, email organizers, calendar setters, stand-ins for meetings, researchers and more. Simply getting the right kind of help and delegating tasks that don’t require your expertise and time can bringa degree of efficiency to your day.

Find Your Rhythm

By “find your rhythm,” we mean pay attention to how your individual productivity works:

What motivates you?
What hours of the day are you most energized?
What environment helps you focus better?

Once you understand the optimum conditions that boost your productivity, you can maintain these conditions. This way, you can remain consistent in your work.

This also expands to discipline. Motivation comes and goes, but a disciplined schedule will keep you on track for success.

Boundaries Are Important

Even the best planners can feel overwhelmed if boundaries aren’t established and maintained. Overpromising or taking on too much can lead to delivery shortfalls and unintended consequences such as client dissatisfaction. Leaders can exemplify sustainable productivity by being realistic about how much can be achieved, saying “no” when appropriate, and reinforcing boundaries.

Better time management is key to personal growth, goal achievement, and creating a productive work environment.

Being a leader entails shouldering many responsibilities, and we at understand that it isn’t easy. We can help you find an efficient assistant so you can delegate by design and get the maximum out of your time.

February 2, 2022

Are You a Great Boss?

By Angelica RainsCorporate Culture, Leadership

Are you a great boss?

Think carefully about your response. Your answer to this question matters significantly, especially when you’re hiring an executive assistant. In our work connecting top executive suite talent, we’ve learned that A-list executive assistants know precisely the type of boss they’re looking for.

We’ve also discovered that the interview is reciprocal. While you’re interviewing for your next assistant, the EA candidates we send out are interviewing you. They’re gauging whether you’re the type of person they want to work for.

And they’ve told us what characteristics they want to see in their next boss.

7 Characteristics of a Great Boss

As much as executives may share similar communication and management styles, each person is uniquely different. Your beliefs, experiences and values can affect how you manage your employees.

During an interview, executive assistant applicants try to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a way to gauge whether their skills fit your leadership style.

Great bosses are known for:

Communicating frequently, honestly and with transparency. They don’t play “gotcha” games, and they state positive or negative facts without blaming or yelling. They provide honest feedback and give specific praise.
Distributing the workload equitably. They don’t overload the employee who never complains about having too much work, and they don’t play favorites by letting others have a lighter workload. They also don’t micromanage.
Putting together exceptional teams. They find and retain the best and brightest employees, which improves the skills of all team members. The camaraderie experienced among team members keeps them together, and they become stronger as a whole.
Avoiding blame. Their approach in righting a wrong is to identify the challenge, correct it and move on. They’ll hold employees accountable, but they don’t look for fault.
Finding greatness in those who work with them. The best bosses recognize and reward employees for work done well. They also make sure their employees have the training and development opportunities to excel and move forward in their careers.
Demonstrating integrity. They are professional and honest – the kind of person employees trust. They also build trust by doing the right thing for the right reason. If they say they’ll do something, they follow through.
Showing compassion for others. They understand that employees have lives outside the workplace. They’re sympathetic when personal needs occasionally infringe on the workday, possibly allowing for remote work options when an employee has to keep a sick child home from school.

Being the type of boss people want to work for comes down to managing your own emotions before you manage anyone else. That means treating your colleagues and employees with respect as well as valuing their opinions and work.

When you create an inclusive and supportive corporate culture, you’ll discover that the best executive assistant will want to work for you!

January 27, 2022

How Administrative Professionals Effectively Work from Home

By Angelica RainsIndustry Trends

As the world moves toward remote work being normal, the demand for Administrative and Executive Assistants has skyrocketed. Administrative and Executive Assistants serve high-level officials (C-suite) such as a company’s CEO. They maintain project schedules, work in alignment with the company’s goals, and provide daily developments and frequent updates to the higher-ups.

Due to a shift towards remote assistance, administrative professionals can no longer sit outside the CEOs’ office or quickly step in for an update. The dynamics have changed quite drastically.

While working remotely can be challenging at times, here are some ways administrative professionals manage to work from home effectively.

Define Work-From-Home Hours

It’s easy for remote employees to lose track of time when working from the comfort of their homes. This is especially applicable to Executive Assistants working with busy CEOs who often work beyond office hours.

However, a professional work commitment demands prior settlement of working hours. That is why Executive Assistants define working hours and set availability and response times in advance.

Set-Up Regular One-on-Ones

CEOs usually don’t have time for daily one-on-ones. However, effective Administrative Assistants still set up quick daily huddles every morning to go over the day’s calendar and ask any questions they have. They may also schedule bi-weekly video calls to discuss the overall progress and updates.

Decide Communication Modes

Although email and messaging apps such as Slack and Zoom can fulfill basic communication needs, they may not always be effective in every scenario. For urgent needs, Administrative or Executive assistants set predefined modes of communication in order of priority and stick to them.

Computer-Savvy and Using the Right Tools

An ideal Administrative Assistant has a Bachelor’s degree and is well-versed in Microsoft Office, Google Suite, and calendar management. They may also use Trello, Basecamp, and Asana to organize, designate, and monitor tasks.

Executive Assistants deal with people who are constantly working on various projects daily. Therefore it’s also essential for an Administrative or an Executive Assistant to have project management skills to excel in their fields.

Dedicated Workspace

Working from home may provide flexibility, but it can compromise your focus and productivity. A vast majority of remote assistants have designated workspaces at home, allowing them to give undivided attention to work and focus on the tasks at hand without interruptions.

A successful career as a remote Administrative Assistant starts with finding the right recruiting agency. A seasoned recruiting agency provides excellent resources for Executive Assistant interview preparation and matches you with companies that align with your personal and professional goals.

January 20, 2022

Female Leaders Proven More Likely to Coach and Mentor

By Angelica RainsLeadership

Women make up more than half of the labor force in the United States and earn almost 60 percent of advanced degrees, yet they bring home less pay and fill fewer seats in the C-suite than men, particularly in male-dominated professions like finance and technology.

Research suggests that the male presence in the majority of senior leadership positions does not indicate that men possess better talent than women, but rather there is no significant indication of better performance in a specific gender. In fact, many studies consider women to be more likely to excel in leadership and mentorship roles.

Female leaders are proven more likely to coach and mentor successfully for many reasons:

Less transactional and more strategic relationships with employees

While men use networking to advance their careers, women tend to use their networks for both support and relationship building. Women’s presence in the upper echelon can enhance the social networking and mentoring opportunities of other women in the organization.

Women tend to be kinder in leadership roles

Kindness is rarely ever associated with leadership. However, some form of reassurance, compassion, and empathy can make a huge difference in your team’s dynamics. According to studies, women tend to be equalitarians, sharing evenly with peers while men tend to be more individualistic. Effective leadership demands kindness. In fact, leadership in itself is an act of kindness.

Women trend more emotionally intelligent

When it comes to empathy and self-regard, women tend to score higher than men. Studies show that women are more likely to identify emotions and subtle cues of emotional expressions.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman considers higher emotional intelligence a major trait of ineffective leaders. A leader or a mentor needs to connect with people at a deeper level to make an impact in their lives. These traits help them support, coach, influence and resolve conflict among individuals and teams effectively.

Most people imagine leadership to be a male-dominant field. For example, qualities such as confidence, independence, and assertiveness are frequently associated with men. We hardly ever think of empathy, kindness, relationship building, or collaboration to be leadership traits. This is a bias handed down to us since our childhoods. It is time we change these narratives and think of leadership as an amalgam of traits that cater to both a variety of qualities and attributes.

Mentoring is critical for team growth and talent retention. Are you doing enough to support your team? Hire a recruiter today to find the next leader for your team!

January 13, 2022

Your Executive Assistant Interview: Questions the CEO Must Avoid Asking Support Staff

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant

Legal restrictions prevent CEOs from asking support staff possibly biased questions in interviews. That’s a good thing!

When interviewing support staff, avoid asking questions like these:

How many children do you have?
What church do you go to?
When are you planning to retire?

Some questions are better left unasked out of respect for the candidate. Avoid asking any of these questions:

Do you have to wear that scarf on your head?
Why are your clothes so dated?
Is that your natural hair color?

Instead, try asking open-ended questions based on work-related scenarios.

Questions the CEO CAN ask support staff in an interview

It can seem like there are a lot of questions you can’t ask in an interview. Rather than focus on what you can’t do, try these more positive questions that reveal behavior:

Where do you see yourself in 3-5 years?
This job sometimes requires working after 5 pm or on weekends. Often, tasks like making reservations or scheduling meetings can be done from anywhere. Could you commit to working like this?
What prior experience do you have that would be useful in a job like this one?
Tell about a time when a challenge prevented you from completing a critical task.

Applicants can use the STAR method for answering questions: explain the situation, task, action, result. For example:

SITUATION: Two days before a major holiday, our company held a quarterly board meeting at a retreat. Weather forecasters predicted severely inclement weather – the kind that could cause significant travel delays.
TASK: My job required that I secure travel arrangements home for board members and the C-Suite. Most of them were flying.
ACTION: I worked with the other executive assistants to create several backup arrangements, including car rentals and chartered grand transportation. We also secured hotel reservations, just in case. Then we made “survival bags” consisting of bottled water, snacks, and a few other necessities for each person.
RESULT: As it turned out, air travel was canceled for only a few hours, so everyone made it home safely. The survival bags were a big hit!

Open-ended behavioral questions allow candidates to respond in more detail, especially when using a template like STAR.

About the vaccine

Applicants are curious about vaccine requirements for work. Some candidates may find that the provision gives them peace of mind, while others may decide they cannot comply for various reasons.

No current laws prevent you from asking about someone’s vaccination status. Still, it’s better to let your HR department explain your company’s requirements. The applicant can then decide if they can agree to the condition or are better off finding work elsewhere.

Need help figuring out the questioning process? Your recruiter can help by vetting the candidates you interview. If you are the candidate, the recruiter can help you prepare for questions.

January 5, 2022

Executive Assistants Are Vital for Growing Start-Ups

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant

Entrepreneurs growing a start-up find that one critical staff position is crucial to early success: the executive assistant.

Some CEOs balk at the idea of hiring an assistant right out of the gate. They want to avoid appearing too pampered, too self-centered, too corporate. Start-ups, after all, are supposed to be independent, aggressive, and robust. Why would the CEO want to delegate any responsibility to an executive assistant?

The real question is, why wouldn’t the CEO delegate to an executive assistant?

Every CEO Must Have an Executive Assistant

The most important reason to hire an executive assistant for your start-up is to give you the time to focus on the business matters that only you can handle. Your start-up is your vision, and you already devote most of your waking hours to its success.

The executive assistant is your chief of staff, the person who will take care of all the tasks you don’t have time for. If you have the financial capacity to bring one employee onboard, hire the staff position that will grow with your company and help develop your vision.

The Many Chiefs of Staff Duties

An executive assistant (EA) is invaluable to your success because of three critical skills:

Prioritization: An EA will prioritize workload, meetings, and who will be allowed to interrupt your work. Probably no one, including your mother-in-law, will get past your EA gatekeeper.
Organization: Count on your EA to know where to find everything, from your accounting documents to local zucchini lasagna that melts in your mouth. Your EA can even tell you where the latest version of your pitch deck is filed.
Communication: Well-known for their communication skills, EAs will initiate conversations via email, phone, and virtual meeting software. They’ll also make sure you have the words you need for expressing ideas. The EA hires copywriters and speechmakers.

You’ll find that your EA can meet demanding deadlines, handle impossible tasks with grace, and apply emotional intelligence in situations that would unnerve 5-star generals.

Eventually, your executive assistant will become your chief of staff, overseeing other assistants’ work in the workspace you created.

Hiring the Executive Assistant for Your C-Suite

Once you hire your c-suite, the executive assistant becomes your center of operations, often handling multiple roles simultaneously.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, including start-up entrepreneurs. How you use these hours is up to you.

Hiring an executive assistant can give you the additional hours you need. With an EA onboard, you can build your business, practice work-life balance, or even catch on your sleep at night.

To make even better use of your time, turn to an executive assistant recruiter who can help you find the right person to make that happen.

December 29, 2021

Support Staff that CEOs Need to Succeed

By Angelica RainsLeadership

Hiring support staff is a critical investment that new CEOs can and must make quickly at the corporate helm in their first few weeks. Anyone taking the reins of a billion-dollar company recognizes that they cannot do everything or be everywhere themselves. Instead, they must have a support staff that is strategic, tactical, and can influence others.

Many first-time CEOs focus on implementing new initiatives that will meet the goals set by the board. Corporate leaders want to hit the ground running, likely deferring the hiring of their staff until much later.

They continue to work with the staffing system already in place. Maybe the current organizational system is working. More than likely, however, it can’t adapt to and keep up with the changes the new CEO wants to make.

Therefore, the CEO must hire support staff to succeed.

The Right Support Staff for Every CEO

CEO support falls into three strategic areas: communication, information control, and traffic flow. Patrick Aylward (Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey identifies the roles and duties this way:

Air traffic controller – Handlings systems and logistics for the senior leadership team and the CEO.
Integrator – Coordinating systems and information between departments and divisions so that no one works in isolation.
Communicator – Managing public, media relations, and corporate philosophy between company leaders and other employees.
Honest broker and truth-teller – Identifying challenges and opportunities without bias
Confidant – Listening without advocating for a personal or political agenda.

Hiring multiple team members devoted to these five areas enhances the CEO’s ability to make rapid changes. In many cases, that’s what CEOs establish. They hire a Chief of Staff and several Executive Assistants.

Support Staff Characteristics

The difference between good support staff and great support staff lies in their skills and their attitudes about the role they play.

The most outstanding support staff:

Understands the corporate culture
Wants to see the company succeed
Collaborates with stakeholders at all levels
Demonstrates exceptional executive functioning skills
Initiates tasks independently
Works with little supervision
Communicates well verbally and in writing
Uses software management products with proficiency
Maintains high levels of confidentiality

It seems like the CEO’s support staff must have the strategic acumen of Sun Tzu, the confidence of Joan of Arc, the wisdom of King David, and the compassion of Mary Poppins.

In reality, however, finding the right CEO support staff is a task made simple. It merely takes working with recruiters who know what successful corporate leaders need and where to find the talent to support them.

December 22, 2021

Why You Need a Chief of Staff

By Angelica RainsLeadership

Corporate and non-profit CEOs share one common element: they need a Chief of Staff. The chief of staff in any organization is the CEO’s right hand, managing a plethora of activities, information, and staff.

The chief of staff, often along with multiple Executive Assistants, creates the synergy necessary for the organization to operate effectively. No other person can communicate across various levels and throughout various departments as effectively as the chief of staff.

The person holding this position promotes the corporate culture, shares the company philosophy, and manages executive functions.

The Chief of Staff Coordinates C-Suite Functions

While your chief of staff will work directly with you, they also have other responsibilities since this role is responsible for seamless c-suite workflow.

Your chief of staff will:

Prep materials for meetings and schedule their date, time and location.
Develop and distribute internal and external communication, including emails, newsletters, presentations, speeches, reports, white papers, and more.
Organize special corporate events
Take on project management responsibilities for annual strategic planning
Monitor and update KPIs
Supervise the work of those who support the CEO and c-suite management

When you’re not available, your chief of staff will be. That can keep your leadership team functioning all the time, not just when you’re in the office.

Scale-up your Business Wisely

Sometimes businesses decide that scaling up means adding more. That means more initiatives, bigger goals, and an expanded staff of C-Suite leaders, like a COO.

That kind of thinking can jeopardize your corporate success and damage your career. Hiring a leader like a COO is a costly strategy that your company might not yet be ready for, especially in the early stages of corporate growth.

How do CEOs scale when adding expensive positions isn’t an option?

Savvy CEOs hire a chief of staff, and here’s why:

Time is everything, but there’s not enough of it in the day. The chief of staff does the things you don’t have time for
No one knows your business better. This person serves in the role of confidant, allowing you to pitch an idea or muse about possibilities effectively.
Streamlined services save money. No one recognizes cost-saving initiatives like your chief of staff, who will likely have sound recommendations for implementing ways to save money.
You gain another channel for communication. Keeping teams informed and up to date can be difficult. A competent chief of staff and a team of executive assistants can get the word out so you can get on with business.

Corporate and non-profit CEOs can’t afford to lose out on the one staffing position most likely to help them succeed and advance the company goals.

The time is now. We can help you find the chief of staff best suited for your needs.

December 15, 2021

Executive Assistant Salaries Have Skyrocketed Since Pandemic

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant

Executive Assistant salaries are often money well spent in any company. This position supports the role of the executive, serving as the company’s senior management liaison for communication and planning.

Since COVID-19 erupted worldwide, executives have become even more reliant on the one hero or heroine that holds it all together during global panic: their executive assistant.

As a result, EA salaries have been on the increase.

Skills for the job

EAs are experts with technology, whether they coordinate electronic meetings and calendars or keep up with messages in software apps like One Note and Telegram.

Other duties include:

Initiating and responding to communication
Taking notes
Conducting research
Planning events
Preparing reports, data, and meeting materials
Coordinating travel on the ground, in the air, and by sea
Training assistants and support staff
Maintaining office supply inventories

Since the pandemic, many EAs have redefined their roles by spearheading new initiatives. For example, executive assistant Ratna Sreerangam asked his travel industry CEO for permission to assist customers needing airline refunds. With no other travel permitted during the pandemic, a strategy like this can keep a business afloat until flying is once again permitted.

Executive assistant preparation and training

Most training takes place on the job, but an EA will have to meet foundational requirements, such as having a high-school diploma. In some fields, having a bachelor’s degree might complement the executive office needs. A law office might require that a senior EA have a law degree. Similarly, a construction firm might favor EA candidates with a degree in construction sciences.

The EA might also earn software proficiencies and have certificates verifying their competency. They may also take advantage of other professional development opportunities that will help them excel in their jobs.

Executive Assistant salaries

With excellent job and communication skills, a versatile EA can earn a good salary.

Industry and location can play a significant role in salary. For example, the average annual EA salary is $53,199. At Walmart, EAs average $75,865, but the same job pays $101,073 at Paramount Pictures.

You may have heard that, despite the salary increases, there are fewer EA positions available. Positions are down by 4% and are expected to decrease more. Still, top-notch EAs are more in demand than ever because many senior executives share executive assistants – especially those who take the initiative and redefine their roles.

Now is the time to reach out to hire the executive assistant that will help you be more successful.

December 8, 2021

Executive Assistant Questions That You Must Ask

By Angelica RainsExecutive Assistant

Preparing for the executive assistant interview means developing a set of key questions that will give you enough insight to make a hiring decision. These questions will allow you to assess the candidate’s fit for the job.

Before you meet with the interviewee, take these two critical steps for a successful interview.

Preparing for the executive assistant interview

First, when developing an interview question, avoid any query that can be answered with a simple “yes”or “no”. Instead, ask open-ended questions that will require explanation. You’ll be able to see the candidate’s thought process, and you’ll have a better understanding of how your future assistant will handle challenges.

Next, section your interview questions according to the skills for which you are looking. These can be categorized in three groups: the job itself, behavior, and communication.

Job skills

Providing support for an executive requires diverse skills.

Ask:

How do you prioritize your day?
What computer experience do you have?
Which software programs do you use most?
If the executive for whom you work has simultaneous engagements, how would you handle the conflict?
Explain how you would make travel arrangements for an executive who needed to fly to a speaking engagement.
How do you handle confidential information?
If you had to set up a half-day meeting for executives, how would you plan it and be sure that everything would be ready?
What’s your most significant professional accomplishment?

Behavioral skills

The person you hire for this role should have the necessary skills and characteristics to get tasks done completely and confidently.

Ask:

How would you handle an emergency if you are already busy working on a project with a deadline?
What are your thoughts about occasionally working from home evenings, weekends and holidays?
Explain how you maintain flexibility in your daily schedule.
How do you keep your work-life balance amidst hectic schedules?
What do you do when things don’t go the way you planned?
Who has been the most challenging person to work with – and how did you handle the difficulty?

Communication skills

Also known as soft skills, these characteristics will establish a candidate’s ability to communicate with others.

Ask:

How do you prioritize your day?
Tell about a time you had to deal with a demanding visitor or caller, in person or on the phone.
Describe your process for writing an email for the executive to send.
What three words describe the perfect executive assistant?
Tell about a time you had to think on your feet. What was the outcome?
How do you handle constructive feedback?

Finally, ask the candidate you interview what questions they may have for you. Both of you should walk out of the interview knowing clearly whether the job is the right fit.

If you have other questions, don’t hesitate to contact a recruiter who knows the industry.

December 1, 2021