Every business needs to set goals for staff that they must reach if they are to achieve long-term success.
When your business hires an executive assistant, you must set a clear pathway to ensure the person you hire knows what is expected of them. Making each objective clear and easy to understand is the best way to navigate the goal-setting process.
And setting attainable goals is vital, otherwise, your executive assistant will become overwhelmed by the many tasks they must undertake and delegate, leading to poor employee morale.
Let’s look at how best to implement the right goals for executive assistants to help your business run efficiently.
Introduce SMART Goals
Executive assistant’s goal setting ensures your business develops the right company culture to succeed in the current business climate.
Setting goals is challenging; reading dusty business management books is not the way. There are many things to consider to make your goals personal to your business.
Identifying and implementing the right smart goals for executive assistants is vital if your staff are to remain happy and motivated.
The executive assistant role must come with measurable, reasonable, achievable goals, so always ensure you provide the right equipment and software to help them attain their goals.
SMART stands for the following: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
A specific goal that has to be measurable and easy to track. The goal always has to be achievable and realistic. The goal you set always has to be relevant to the task or project you are working on, and always has a timescale set to it which must be met.
Align Goals With Business Plans
The goals you set for your executive assistant must always align with your own business goals to ensure you achieve sustained success.
Each staff member within your company must have their own professional goals to hit, which match up with the overall goal of your organisation.
Regular job evaluation meetings with all staff help you identify and maintain advanced knowledge of any problems they may encounter.
Staff morale is vital, so it is essential that your executive assistant is approachable but professional and accesses each performance review in the right way.
When staff can see that your executive assistant is hitting their targets on time, it earns respect and makes them strive to achieve the same standards.
Important Executive Assistant Objectives
Here are five essential objectives you must know as an executive assistant.
New Skills And Training Objectives
All businesses must keep a close eye on the professional development of all staff by implementing high-quality training opportunities.
Executive and personal assistants must always remain motivated and keep pace with new skills, which help them stay ahead of the competition.
Providing the proper standard of online courses will ensure executive assistants remain focused and possess the skills needed for the role.
Always research qualifications that will help enhance your executive assistant’s career development and performance to enable them to reach their professional and personal goals.
Hitting their own goals, as well as their professional goals, will benefit them and the company in the long term.
Measure Time Management
Accurately measuring time management is vital, and it takes exceptional organisational skills to ensure you get the most out of each working day.
Time management is a vital smart goal, and the planning process must be conducted correctly to ensure your executive assistant allows adequate time for each scheduled appointment.
The faster each task is completed to the required standard, ensures saved time is utilised on other jobs.
You must remember to prioritise your daily schedule according to task importance and limit distractions which helps you remain focused. Also, always perform a time management audit which helps to identify where your time is being spent and ways to improve.
Assess Ability To Delegate
To achieve optimum professional growth as an executive assistant, you must always be able to delegate appropriate tasks to another administrative professional. Delegating duties can be tricky as we all believe we can do the task better.
However, identifying which time-consuming tasks to delegate to administrative assistants will benefit them greatly in their personal career goals. Before delegating tasks, assign the right job to an administrative assistant with the appropriate skills.
Proper staff training is essential when delegating tasks because your team will have the correct skill set to perform the duties asked.
Look For Measurable Improvements
A vital part of any business is to evolve and continuously improve performance. Therefore measuring and conducting performance reviews is essential.
Each department of your business must have reachable performance-related goals assessed regularly to identify where improvements can be made.
For example, you may have set a performance target for your assistant to achieve, but if you feel they have the skill and knowledge to develop their targets higher, ensure you do this fairly and in a manageable way.
Often people take the lead from other employees, so you must constructively assess individual performances that help move their career forward.
As a business, you can’t afford your staff members’ performance levels to dip below your standards. Otherwise, your business will suffer.
Ability To Find Innovative New Processes
An excellent executive assistant will ensure all tasks are completed promptly and help their staff stay focused by devising innovative new team-building ideas to benefit all staff.
Hitting that performance-smart goal is one thing, but if your executive’s goals become boring and repetitive, they will lose focus.
Finding new ideas when planning executive assistants’ goal setting is vital; failure to do so will result in their performance goals not being met, harming your business.
All good executive assistants should aim to meet both professional and personal objectives. Therefore, it is vital for your company’s growth plan that you continue to come up with fresh ideas.
Providing flexibility in setting goals for all your staff is vital, as positively giving constructive criticism is essential.
Let Us Help You Manage Your Executive Assistants
When you set goals for your executive assistants and other staff members, you have to set them in a timely manner aligned with their skill set.
By setting and achieving goals, your executive assistant can demand the same from other staff with the various tasks they perform within their given role.
Hiring remote workers, especially executive assistants, can prove tricky.
Our team of experts are on hand to guide you through how we can identify, hire, train and manage the perfect executive assistants for your needs.
Call today for a free consultation, and let us explain how hassle-free the process is.
