Introduction

What is Operations? Why is it important to a business?

Operations includes, but is not limited to, pretty much anything that keeps the business running. Depending on what type of business you support, Operations may include sales, marketing and finance, or it may be an umbrella under which the service to the customer is of utmost importance. Operations assures that the business is operating at its best and fullest capacity.

This is important because a business MUST organize its functions to best serve its “customers”...this is in quotes because a smart business knows that its customers include its employees. Toward that end, Operations provide structure. When any business starts to focus on making money, yet doesn’t pay attention to where that money goes and how it creates opportunity for improvement, there is a strong likelihood that, even though a business may continue to make money, in the not-so-distant future, the business may suffer from poor morale and unhappy customers. 

What does this have to do with being a Professional Assistant?

Your role, even though it is defined in relation to whomever you report, is also about finding opportunities to support the growth of the business. By using this course to help the leader of an organization with his/her daily tasks, you bring new and bright ideas. As a person who is organized and attentive to detail, you may be given the responsibility to help create an Operations structure. 

Why should I pay attention to this? 

As a Professional Assistant, by being willing to learn new things, we have been given many responsibilities for which we’d had NO previous experience. Paying attention to how a business operates is a jewel to any business. Toward that end, you should be able to perform--or assist with--the following Operational tasks:

  1. Departmental structure

  2. Hiring 

  3. Setting up systems

  4. Training

  5. Being a resource

What else should I know?

The operation of the business is an important aspect of your work. Up until recently, the Professional/Executive Assistant was a primarily supportive role...one where the entrepreneur, executive or boss was making the bigger decisions that impacted the business and passing off tasks to a Professional Assistant to carry them out. Strategic or grand-scale decisions were not the Professional Assistant’s domain. 

Much has changed as business operations have moved online--becoming smaller but having a broader customer reach. As a result, many supporting roles have changed to encompass more facets of the business. When a business is run on an online platform, it becomes easier to pass more off to the one who is closest by. That person, a right-hand assistant who would formerly just manage the entrepreneur, is now managing the business. 

This section will include lessons on: 

  • Organizational Structure & Set Up

  • Project Management

  • Strategy

The final lesson(s) of this, and every, section will be:

  1. Problems you may encounter, along with suggested Solutions based on our experience

  2. Resources that we have found useful, that you might also use to your advantage. 

  3. Highlights of the Section


Interested in coaching? Visit: https://thepowerhousepa.podia.com/the-powerhouse-assistant-coaching for more information.