Do you think of yourself as a productive person? Do you feel that you are happy at your job?
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Take care - of your clutter!
Post from: Administrative Assistant
Do you have to move e-mails into particular areas of Microsoft Outlook for your manager? Do you feel that this is quite time consuming and would like an easier method of doing this?
There you have it - automation at its best! Now you can have all of your manager's e-mails going directly into the folders that you've set up.
Are you going on vacation? Are you going to be out of the office for a short or even long period of time? Don’t forget to set up and turn on your “Out of Office Assistant” on Microsoft Outlook.
It’s amazing of how many people actually forget to do this. You e-mail someone asking them a question or wanting to state an urgent matter. You wait and wait, but no response. A few hours or days later (depending on the urgency), you e-mail them back again and still no response.
It’s really important to let your fellow staff members and especially your clients know that you will be away for either a short or an extended period of time. A simple bounce back message will be e-mailed to them letting them know that you can’t help them at the present time and for them to contact someone that you’ve delegated to help out in these types of situations.
Here’s a sample message that you can use to create your “Out of Office Assistant”:
I will be out of the office from ____ until ____. I'll be checking email _______(once a week, every day, etc)________, but will have limited ability to respond. If you need immediate assistance or information about the (question/issue), please contact (delegate’s name, e-mail address, phone number).
You’re walking around the office and someone comes up to you, asking for a pen. You search your pockets and realize that you don’t have one.
Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Patricia Robb of Laughing all the Way to Work: The Ultimate Secretarial Survival Blog .
E-mail is no longer just for personal use, with all our accepted short forms: LOL, U, GB and a co-worker's favourite, OMG! With the increasing use of e-mail as the first choice for business correspondence it opens a whole new world of dos and don'ts for the assistant.
Here are Some Good-Sense E-mail Etiquette Tips
E-mail Salutations:
Although e-mail is less formal than writing a letter it is still polite to open with a greeting. Your company may have a policy on how they want you to address people in external business e-mail. Jane Watson of J. Watson Associates gives the following e-mail tips for Email Salutations in her e-bulletin Business Writing Updates:
“There are several options for starting an e-mail in North America as our business culture is not as formal as other areas. You can use “hi,” “hello,” “good day” or any other variant – including just the first name. I usually tell people to use whatever they would say when they are greeting someone face to face.
I recommend staying away from “good morning” or “good afternoon” as the person may not open the e-mail during that time frame. You could use “greetings” or “hello all” when sending a message to a group. If I didn’t know the person, and it was my first communication to him/her, I would use both names: John McDonald.
Not putting a salutation on the first message of the day to someone is often considered impolite. As you e-mail back and forth during the day, you can drop the salutation when it feels comfortable. “Dear” is considered too formal in North America for an e-mail and is reserved for letters. Note: “Dear” in an e-mail is considered appropriate in countries such as Germany, Switzerland, France, Japan and Indonesia.”1
Be Courteous With E-mail
Are you There?
Who hasn't been annoyed when you e-mail someone and are waiting for an answer, only to find out the person is on vacation, but didn't put their Out-of-Office Assistant on. It is important to let people know when you will not be in the office.
For those who are unfamiliar with Out-of-Office Assistant, go under Tools, Out of Office Assistant.
The following information should be included in your message:
You are probably reading the title of this post and scratching your head, thinking "Is this right?" Believe it or not, this is correct.
Do you get staff members coming to you for all sorts of questions? Are you the main contact in your department? When you're on a phone call, do people hover over you?
You write an e-mail to a staff member about a client having an issue with something. The staff member writes you back, but you don’t quite understand it. You write them again, asking for clarification.
Has this ever happened to you? People use e-mail too frequently, making messages more and more convoluted as they go back and forth like a tennis ball.
Using e-mail is a great tool, especially if you are trying to cut down on company costs via international phone calls and postage fees. One of the downfalls of it is not getting the message across between yourself and the receiver.
Sure, there are times that e-mail is appropriate, such as when you need some sort of record from a client to fulfill their product order. But when it comes to information exchange between you and your colleague, it really depends on what issue is at hand.
The best way would be to either call or chat face to face with the other person. At this point, you can hash out the issue quickly, without having to read threads of long e-mails. If you prefer, you can ask the person to send you an e-mail with a summary of what you discussed, just so you have a record of it. You never know when someone would come back to you and tell you that they didn’t ask you to do a certain task. At least you will have proof of it.
Another point I would like to stress is to archive your e-mails for a certain period of time that either you or your company feels would be appropriate. You can read about this on an article I wrote entitled “8 Steps to Archiving E-mails”.
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Are you stuck at home because you're sick? Did your co-worker, significant other or a client give you a surprise by coughing and sneezing around you? Don't you wish you could be where they are (to the left) instead?
I recently had a vendor send us an Excel spreadsheet that he created in Microsoft Word 2007 format. Unfortunately, our firm still only has Microsoft Office XP and was curious as to how this would work.
Do you have trouble figuring out how to call a client or even a colleague in another country? Do you want to fax some documents to a client, but not sure if the fax number you are dialing will be correct?
I had the same trouble in the past, since I have to fax quite a few documents to clients on a regular basis. In my particular field (Publishing), it can be very stressful when your boss asks you to fax something right away, since the time difference is substantial at times and you need to figure out how to decipher a fax number.
There’s a really easy solution to this. I found a great website called Time and Date.com. This site allows you to select a city or near a city that you are dialing from and select the city or near city that you need to dial. Then you just enter the phone or fax number in the third section.
Do you find yourself wanting to get work done while you are travelling? Are you looking for software or information on how you can help your company and staff members achieve this?If you like this post, please subscribe to my feeds or get posts e-mailed directly to you.
Until next time,
Do you blog for your company? Do you feel like you want to voice your opinion about other topics? If you read my recent article on blogging at work, read on.If you like this post, please subscribe to my feeds or get posts e-mailed directly to you.
Until next time,
Do you want to help your firm exceed in the business world? Do you have a knack for writing? More importantly, do you want to get recognized and let your manager see that you are going that extra mile to do what’s above and beyond of your job expectation?
Blogging about your firm is one of the ways to do this. More and more firms are allowing their employees to blog, whether it be internal or external. This can boost company credibility and advertise itself in a global way.
Internal blogging refers to employees writing blogs that are stored on an intranet or company server. Only the employees within that company can view the information that they write. This is definitely good for sharing ideas and skills among teammates and other departments.
I am actually a part of a committee called the “Administrative Exchange” at my firm. We hold meetings every so often (since everyone’s busy and can’t really figure out when these meetings work for everyone), but we do try to meet at least once every quarter. We share ideas, skills and even ask guest speakers to provide up-to-date information and trends on what we need for our careers.
External blogging is basically the same thing that you are reading right at this moment. You have a server, such as Blogger, WordPress or TypePad and you write about whatever you wish. Just remember not to divulge particular company information, since this can definitely land you in hot water. Try to keep to a niche of a topic that you are very well versed in.
Helping your company grow will show your boss that you are trying to think outside of the box. In turn, watch your performance review sky rocket to new limits.
Here's another article on blogging about work:
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Until next time,
Did you just get that dream job that you always wanted? Are you a seasoned veteran like myself (well, this is what people tell me)?
Here are 5 ways to score brownie points with your boss and get that promotion or raise (or both) a little faster:
Do you feel that there should be more than 24 hours in day? Are you trying to cram in as much as you can into each day?
At times, I do feel overwhelmed by the amount of tasks that need to be completed, both at work and at home.
Here are 10 guidelines to helping you cope with information overload and being too busy:
Do you find yourself trying to do too much for others? Do you feel that you are spiraling downwards into an endless pit of work? You’re not alone!
There are quite a few people that end up taking on too much work and bite off more than they can chew. They get frustrated and start complaining to others about the massive workload that they have to endure.
One of the things that these people have to learn is not to over-commit. Helping others has its rewards, but don’t burden yourself with too much. If you feel that you have reached your limit to how much extra work you can handle, let others know. You’d be surprised on how well they receive your message.
The last thing that people want, especially managers, is a person that keeps taking on more and more, then doesn’t deliver on their promises. Do yourself and others a favour – only take on as much as you feel you can handle. Take a look at your tasks list that you’ve created and see if you can fit it in your schedule. If not, let the person know.
If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please feel free to click on the "comments" link below and leave some feedback.
Until next time,
Take care - of your clutter!
Do you find that the term "The Customer is Always Right!" seems to be the important part of your job? Well, unfortunately, this is true, since if a client is happy with your service, they will refer other clients to your firm. Then those clients will refer other clients, etc. Then, of course, there's the opposite effect of this, which can really hinder your company.
Here are 7 ways to make and keep customers happy:
