What does an EA even do?

An Executive Assistant, you are constantly lost in a sea of tasks and projects but when it comes to being able to talk about what you actually do, you can’t explain it!

It’s as if it’s all a blur.

Throughout the day, you just get things done.

“Give it to me, I’ll handle it”

You thrive off the energy, the fast paced environment and you love the multitude of problems that arise for you to solve.

“Another win, YES!” – tick! It feels good.

As you revel in the glorious validation you get from a job well done (for about one second) you swiftly move onto the next thing. By the end of the day, if feels like you’ve done about 1000 things. You’ve solved problems left, right and centre, you’ve had your HR hat on, you’ve switched into IT mode and you’ve even got the boss’s diary perfectly organised (for now!)

But the one thing you will not do… is sing your own praises!! No way man.

And If someone asked you what you actually did today, you couldn’t actually articulate it.

It may not be that they think what you do isn’t worthy of recognition, it may just be that they have no idea what you do!

AND, is it reasonable to expect someone else to know what you do, if you don’t?

What you need to see here is, if you keep all of your efforts and wins to yourself, you’ll always feel underappreciated.

This is a major problem when it comes to review time and you’ve got no recollection of what you’ve done and how effective you’ve been.

If you’re not the ‘toot your own horn type’ then here’s what to do: 

1. Schedule weekly reflection time to catalogue your wins.

   This is especially useful for someone who can be really self- critical and forget to see how far they’ve come. This will help you to focus on the good stuff and keep track of your achievements no matter how small. 

2. At review time: Demonstrate your efforts with specific examples.

   Don’t assume that your manager remembers what you accomplished or knows the extent of what you’ve done. 

3. Lead the way in recognizing peoples efforts.We wouldn’t expect anyone else to do something we wouldn’t do would we? Take the lead here and set the standard for acknowledging effort within your team. 

In order to demonstrate the value you bring (to yourself and others) you need to be able to communicate it.