Portuguese Assistants

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This is a guest post from Diana Ferreira from Secretariando.

There is a lot to be made here in Portugal regarding this career. The first problem is that being an Assistant is still not seen as a career at all. Executives have a career and assistants have a “small job” which consists of serving executives. The role of assistants inside corporations or public companies only recently started to change but changes are always difficult and slow.

When I started working as an assistant, there was no need for a degree and the number of courses, university and professional, related to being an assistant were scarce. Assistants were not considered a part of the team. They were not included in meetings and would not present suggestions or participate in any matter. They would do the tasks that where given to them.

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As you have noticed, I haven't written anything on this blog for quite some time.  I am, however, accepting guest posts.

On the flip side, I have started a Personal Finance blog called My Personal Finance Helper.  If you are interested in helping yourself become better financially equipped for yourself and your family, please check it out.

Corporate Social Responsibility and the Corporate Meeting

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This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro from Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an emerging segment of corporate meetings that is likely here to stay. There is a good deal of debate among corporate managers over whether companies should engage in CSR.  Although altruistic as well as a good PR move, there is a cost associated with performing a CSR volunteer activity both in terms of money and risk management. Besides being one more line item in the meeting budget, there are risks of possible injuries that might be sustained during some of the volunteer activities.  However, the sense of pride and accomplishment experienced by the volunteers, as well as the good press generated, means that CSR is quite worth exploring for your next meeting.

Planning a Green Meeting

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This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro from Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

Across the country, companies large and small are putting “best practices” policies into place. One such resolution concerns measures that a company can take to mitigate the environmental footprint that their actions have on the planet as a whole and on their small corner of the world in particular. Also known as “green policies”, the targeted outcome is to prevent, reduce, or mitigate harmful effects on natural resources.  But what does “green” actually mean?  As the event manager charged with following said policy, how do you make sure that you are doing everything possible to be “clean and green”?

In the simplest terms, being “green” means creating an event that has as minimal impact on the environment as possible.  While that may seem a formidable task, there are steps you can take to plan accordingly:

The New Face of Corporate Meetings

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This is a guest post from Maureen Santoro from Atlas Meetings + Incentives.

There was a time when corporate meetings were the definition of elaborate. Opulent hotels were booked, big-name entertainment flown in, and extravagance seemed the norm. For better or worse, those days are long gone. With the economic crisis, companies are looking for new things to do when they plan a corporate-wide meeting. And it’s often the already overburdened administrative professional that gets tasked with making the arrangements.