Most organizations employ secretaries to perform and coordinate office activities and to ensure that information gets disseminated in a timely fashion to staff and clients. Managers, professionals, and other support staff rely on them to keep administrative operations under control. Their specific duties depend upon their level of responsibility and the type of firm in which they are employed.
Secretaries are responsible for a variety of administrative and clerical duties that are necessary to run and maintain organizations efficiently. They schedule appointments, give information to callers, organize and maintain files, fill out forms, and take dictation. They may also type letters, make travel arrangements, or contact clients. In addition, secretaries operate office equipment like facsimile machines, photocopiers, and telephones with voice mail capabilities.
In today's automated offices, secretaries increasingly use personal computers to run spreadsheet, word processing, data base management, desktop publishing, and graphics programs tasks previously handled by managers and professionals. Because they are often relieved from dictation and typing, they can support several members of the professional staff. Secretaries sometimes work in clusters of three or four so that they can work more flexibly and share their expertise.
Executive secretaries or administrative assistants perform fewer clerical tasks than lower level secretaries. As well as receiving visitors, arranging conference calls, and answering letters, they may handle more complex responsibilities like conducting research, preparing statistical reports, training employees, and supervising other clerical staff.
In addition to general administrative duties, some secretaries do highly specialized work that requires a knowledge of technical terminology and procedures. Further specialization in various types of law is common among legal secretaries. They prepare correspondence and legal papers such as summonses, complaints, motions, and subpoenas under the supervision of an attorney. They also may review legal journals and assist in other ways with legal research. Medical secretaries transcribe dictation, prepare correspondence, and assist physicians or medical scientists with reports, speeches, articles, and conference proceedings. They record simple medical histories, arrange for patients to be hospitalized, or order supplies. They may also need to know insurance rules, billing practices, and be familiar with hospital or laboratory procedures. Other technical secretaries assist engineers or scientists. They may prepare correspondence, maintain the technical library, and gather and edit materials for scientific papers.
Secretaries are increasingly taking on new responsibilities.
Secretaries usually work in offices with other professionals or in schools, hospitals, or doctors' offices. Their jobs often involve sitting for long periods. If they spend a lot of time typing, particularly at a video display terminal, they may encounter problems of eyestrain, stress and repetitive motion problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
Secretaries generally work a standard 40-hour week. In some cities, especially in the Northeast, the scheduled workweek is 37 hours or less.
Office work lends itself to alternative or flexible working arrangements, like telecommuting, and 1 secretary in 6 works part time. In addition, a significant number of secretaries work as temporaries. A few participate in job-sharing arrangements in which two people divide responsibility for a single job.
Secretaries held 3,324,000 jobs in 1992, making this one of the largest occupations in the U.S. economy. The following tabulation shows the distribution of employment by secretarial specialty.
Legal secretaries............................................ 280,000
Medical secretaries.......................................... 234,000
All other secretaries.......................................2,810,000
Secretaries are employed in organizations of every description. About one-half of all secretaries are employed in firms providing services, ranging from education and health to legal and business services. Others work for firms that engage in manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail trade, transportation, and communications. Banks, insurance companies, investment firms, and real estate firms are important employers, as are Federal, State, and local government agencies.
High school graduates may qualify for secretarial positions provided they have basic office skills. Today, however, knowledge of word processing, spreadsheet, and database management programs is increasingly important, and most employers require it. Secretaries must be proficient in keyboarding and good at spelling, punctuation, grammar, and oral communication. Shorthand is necessary for some positions.
Employers also look for communication and interpersonal skills, since secretaries must be tactful in their dealings with many different people. Discretion, judgment, organizational ability, and initiative are important for higher level secretarial positions.
As office automation continues to evolve, retraining and continuing education will remain an integral part of many jobs. Continuing changes in the office environment, for instance, have increased the demand for secretaries who are adaptable and versatile. Secretaries may have to attend classes to learn to operate new office equipment such as word processing equipment, information storage systems, personal computers, or new updated software packages.
The skills needed for a secretarial job can be acquired in various ways. Formal training, especially for computer skills, may lead to higher paying jobs. Secretarial training ranges from high school vocational education programs that teach office practices, shorthand, and keyboarding skills to 1- to 2-year programs in secretarial science offered by business schools, vocational-technical institutes, and community colleges. Many temporary service agencies provide training in computer and keyboarding skills. These skills are most often acquired, however, through instruction offered at the workplace by other employees or by equipment and software vendors. In addition, specialized training programs are available for students planning to become medical or legal secretaries or office automation specialists.
Testing and certification for entry-level office skills is available through the Office Proficiency Assessment and Certification (OPAC) program offered by Professional Secretaries International (PSI). As secretaries gain experience, they can earn the designation Certified Professional Secretary (CPS) by passing a series of examinations given by the Institute for Certifying Secretaries, a department of PSI. This designation is recognized by a growing number of employers as the mark of excellence for senior-level office professionals. Similarly, those without experience who want to be certified as a legal support professional may be certified as an Accredited Legal Secretary (ALS) by the Certifying Board of the National Association of Legal Secretaries. They also administer an examination to certify a legal secretary with 3 years' experience as a Professional Legal Secretary (PLS).
Advancement for secretaries generally comes about by promotion to a secretarial position with more responsibilities. Qualified secretaries who broaden their knowledge of the company's operations may be promoted to other positions such as senior or executive secretary, clerical supervisor, or office manager.
Secretaries with word processing experience can advance to jobs as word processing trainers, supervisors, or managers within their own firms or in a secretarial or word processing service bureau. They also can get jobs with manufacturers of word processing or computer equipment in positions such as instructor or sales representative.
Employment of secretaries is expected to grow more slowly than the average for all occupations through the year 2005. Nevertheless, employment opportunities should be quite plentiful, especially for well-qualified and experienced secretaries, who, according to many employers, are in short supply. The very large size of the occupation, coupled with moderate turnover, generates several hundred thousand secretarial positions each year as experienced workers transfer to other occupations or leave the labor force.
Demand for secretaries will rise as the economy grows and as more workers are employed in offices. The trend toward secretaries assuming more responsibilities traditionally reserved for managers and professionals should also stimulate demand.
Increased productivity resulting from new office technologies, however, will offset this demand somewhat. In firms that have invested in electronic typewriters, word processors, or personal computers, secretaries can turn out significantly more work than when they used electric or manual typewriters. New office technologies such as electronic mail, facsimile machines, and voice message systems are used in a growing number of organizations. These and other sophisticated computer software capabilities are expected to be used more widely in the years ahead.
Widespread use of automated equipment is already changing the workflow in many offices. Administrative duties are being reassigned and the functions of entire departments are being restructured. Large firms are experimenting with different methods of staffing their administrative support operations. In some cases, such traditional secretarial duties as typing or keyboarding, filing, copying, and accounting are being assigned to workers in other units or departments. In some law offices and physicians' offices, for example, paralegals and medical assistants are taking over some tasks formerly done by secretaries. Professionals and managers increasingly do their own word processing rather than submit the work to secretaries and other support staff. In addition, there is a trend in many offices for groups of professionals and managers to share secretaries, allowing secretaries to assume new responsibilities. The traditional arrangement of one secretary per manager is becoming less prevalent; instead, secretaries increasingly support systems or units.
Developments in office technology are certain to continue, and they will bring about further changes in the secretary's work environment. However, many secretarial job duties are of a personal, interactive nature and hence, not easily automated. Duties such as planning conferences, receiving clients, and transmitting staff instructions require tact and communication skills. Because automated equipment cannot substitute for these personal skills, secretaries will continue to play a key role in the office activities of most organizations.
The average annual for all secretaries was $26,700 in 1992. Salaries vary a great deal, however, reflecting differences in skill, experience, and level of responsibility, ranging from $20,000 to $36,000.
The starting salary for inexperienced secretaries in the Federal Government was $16,400 a year in 1993. All secretaries employed by the Federal Government in 1993 averaged about $24,000.
A number of other workers type, record information, and process paperwork. Among these are bookkeepers, receptionists, stenographers, personnel clerks, typists and word processors, legal assistants, medical assistants, and medical record technicians. A growing number of secretaries share in managerial and human resource responsibilities. Occupations using these skills include clerical supervisor, systems manager, office manager, and human resource officer.
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Reprinted with Permission of U. S. Department of Labor