Executive assistants help high-level executives in private companies and public offices. They assist in making travel arrangements, planning executive schedules, and prioritizing executive emails.
They work as the liaison between the executive and any other person working with them. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be a 20.2% growth for executive assistants between 2021 and 2031.
As of this writing, an Executive Assistant’s average annual pay in Los Angeles is approximately $48,849 per year. On an hourly basis, the employee earns about $23.49. That sums up to almost $4,070 every month.
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Relevance of Executive Assistants in a Company
Expert executive assistants serve as much more than mere assistants! They are an extension of their bosses and are aware of everything about them. From their expectations and working style to other small yet essential details, they know it all. To create this association, trust is an essential ingredient.
Often, organizations search for executive assistant staffing in Los Angeles to streamline the work. According to C-Suite Assistants, the attempt must also be to develop lasting professional relationships through work. It’s one of the core areas that EAs must focus on. The company assists employers in developing exceptional teams for maximizing business productivity.
C-Suite Assistants caters to businesses in various industries. The focus is mostly on personal assistants, administrative assistants, and executive assistants for CMOs, CEOs, COOs, CFOs, and many more.
The Essential Skills to Count On
Offering strategic support is what defines a huge part of the executive assistant jobs. They need to work proactively instead of reactively. Becoming more visible at a board level is how the executive assistants can feature in a senior territory.
This career path promises a productive future. According to usatoday.com, the young professionals in L.A., or those who jump north from this city, are talented people, with grit and determination to shine. They are keen to make a transition in their career and are willing to adapt to new skills.
Stepping things up the gear will need a few other skills and personal development. The following pointers can help:
1. The Capacity to Manage Up
The concept of managing up indicates securing the focus and time of the executive. In this competitive job environment in L.A., several things compete to grab a business head’s attention.
Hence, if an Executive Assistant can manage, they can coordinate projects, schedules, and meetings and also function as the time gatekeeper. It ensures that executives focus only on the highest-leverage tasks. The task of managing enables the executive to become the ideal supporter.
The ace executive assistant carries out the necessary research. They will also share multiple choices with their executives. Additionally, they will be aware of the executive’s preference and will make crucial choices ahead of time.
2. Getting Organized
Being organized is crucial. Executive assistants need to ensure that their boss has a work-life balance. Each and every meeting needs to be in the diary. Several assistants will have several diaries and use a color code. It can get a tad bit confusing. This practice helps to keep things neat and in place. It makes multi-tasking easy.
Having a to-do list is imperative. The new-age executives aren’t much of a supporter of paperwork. Electronic Post-it notes are essential for most. No one ever loses it. Also, there is no need to spend time trying to decipher the word that you wrote in a hurry.
Even the candidates willing to work as a personal/executive assistant in the L.A.-based Another Art World Family should possess this skill.
3. Email Management
Excellent email engagement skills might appear to be a tiny part of a bigger job, but it’s essential. It helps to maintain the inbox of the executive so you do not waste time and navigate through a challenging task. The executive assistants should have this skill as it will help in saving time and addressing each task correctly.
But hitting everyday inbox zero can prove to be challenging, more so if emails are coming in every second. Browsing through the emails daily, taking note of the crucial ones, and deleting unnecessary emails will prove helpful to a huge extent.
4. Staying tuned to everything, even when the boss doesn’t
It might sound like a challenging task but isn’t an impossible one. Staying clued into all the functions and developments enables the executive assistant to stay in control of their job. The boss could be on vacation, but the work needs to go on. Checking emails, replying to urgent ones, and attending to crucial tasks when the boss can’t remotely prove useful.
When executive assistants are aware of all the official tasks and developments, they function better. No time gets wasted in finding out what is happening or will take place in the company. That doesn’t imply they take decisions in place of their bosses. Instead, having foreknowledge of everything means they can add to their boss’s decision that brings value to the organization.
Conclusion
The Los Angeles Times highlights that after the pandemic, job prospects for executive assistants have increased. Their role has shifted from being purely desk jobs to virtual ones. It is no longer a secretarial job.
EAs in the city don’t want to get identified as just assistants. A few of the new titles can stir some surprise, like administrative partner, strategic business partner, business project manager, administrative coordinator, and management associate.
Since the titles reflect maximizing accountabilities, organizations should create the same scope of work as they search for an EA.