Why the self-service approach to admin is fundamentally flawed | SmartPA

In the fast-paced world of business, most companies are striving towards the same things – to increase sales, profitability, and market share by cutting out all unnecessary costs and working as productively and efficiently as possible to achieve their goals.

Sometimes, the journey towards that goal involves a certain degree of trial and error along the way. What may in theory appear to be a shortcut to success can end up having a damaging and costly effect on the business. This is certainly true for many who have experimented with a self-service approach to admin.

Here we take a look at this theory and discuss why businesses stand a better chance of thriving when administrative duties are handled by an administrative specialist.

The constant quest to cut costs

When faced with tough competition, it is only natural that businesses look inwards to try to pinpoint where potential monetary savings could be made. Some business, such as auditing firm, Deloitte, have looked to their administrative assistants and concluded that their tasks could easily be absorbed by the team.

As recently reported in The Times, ‘More than a quarter of Deloitte’s UK secretarial staff are likely to be made redundant in a shake-up that will lead to executives handling more of their own administrative tasks’.

The thinking behind this move is that an employee at executive level should be fully competent to handle admin responsibilities such as diary management, data entry, and document production, for example.

But here’s where the theory falls down…

The flaws in the theory

Based on our years of experience at SmartPA working with thousands of businesses across the globe, this switch to self-service admin overlooks various vital elements:

• TIME: Admin duties such as email management, typing and transcription, diary management, may sound like quick and easy tasks, but they soon add up and can eat into an executive’s valuable time, leaving them with considerably less time to dedicate to their core responsibilities.
  
  
• TRAINING: A professional administrative assistant undergoes intensive training to ensure they are proficient in managing all admin services to the highest standard and in the most productive and efficient way possible. An executive may have gaps in their knowledge of the necessary systems, software and processes that could prove costly.
  
  
• FOCUS: An administrative assistant focuses solely on providing administrative support. An executive may find themselves pulled in different directions with their other responsibilities taking precedent, resulting in admin duties being rushed, completed to a poor standard, or neglected. This can also lead to increased stress and an impact on personal performance from key staff.
  
  
• COST: The cost of executives managing their own office admin services is potentially huge. Even if executives dedicate just 10% of their time to completing administrative tasks, the figures translate to an eye-watering monetary impact on the business in terms of lost productivity, losing customers to the competition, missing targets and opportunities, and not delivering against expectations. Just take a look at the figures:

Self-service admin is not the answer, so what is?

The figures speak for themselves – the self-service approach to admin is fundamentally flawed. However, reassessing your current administrative support set-up could be the key to transforming your business if you take a different approach.

Outsourcing your office admin services to a specialist service provider can instantly free up your executives’ time, enabling them to focus on the bigger picture and achieve their core goals without distraction.

Read our article on the Ultimate Guide to Streamline Admin Processes.

The SmartPA solution that makes real business sense

SmartPA is a global leader in delivering outsourced admin support. Whether your business needs to delegate specific tasks to SmartPA, or you require a full team of administrative experts, we can tailor a package to meet your needs. Plus, you only ever pay for productive working time, meaning you can streamline your costs considerably. In terms of business sense, this approach wins out every time.