Seven Skills That Will Help You Excel as an Office Administrator
Any person not living under a rock has dealt with an office administrator. These are the people who take your appointment bookings, send you the bill, take payments, answer your questions about the service, and they do all these tasks while doing a million other administrative assignments in the background.
If you’re thinking about moving into administration, here are seven skills that will help you excel in this industry. But first let’s learn a bit more about office administrators.
What do Office Administrators do?
Office administrators have a lot of responsibilities. They greet people as they enter a business, manage appointments and oversee administrative projects and filing systems to ensure the business runs smoothly.
Depending on the size of the business they work for and the industry they’re working in, their tasks could include booking appointments, responding to the enquires, answering calls, booking meetings, taking meeting notes, filing paperwork and managing the supply of office stationery.
How much do Office Administrators make?
This industry’s rates can vary drastically due to the variety of roles and types of businesses they can work for but, to boil it down to averages, entry level positions start at $53,625 and go up to $70,000 with the median salary sitting around $60,000.
Where do Office Administrators work?
The great thing about being an office administrator is that you can work in almost any industry. Office administrators are required in the healthcare system such as hospitals, general practice surgeries, and dental surgeries.
They are needed in the education systems, like universities, schools and colleges. Office workers and administrators are needed in the arts, managing paperwork and filing for exhibitions and shows, in the music industry tracking the work of a label. The possibilities are endless.
Office administrators are needed in the public and private sector and there’s role out there that can align with your interests, Spreadsheets and emails aren’t so dull when they’re contributing to something you care about.
What kind of skills do you need to be an Office Administrator?
Office administrators have a complex role to complete. This position has many moving parts and there’s a lot to be learned on the job but here’s some skills that will help you excel in your role as an officer administrator.
Organisational skills
This role requires exceptional organisational skills. You’ll need to be able to prioritise tasks and keep everything ordered. Administrative officers are charged with managing filing, paperwork and often also organising and keeping track of meetings and appointments.
Verbal and written communication skills
Office administrators have to spend a lot of their day communicating. They need to speak with people coming into the business, answer phone enquiries and email communication and liaise with different colleagues in all other departments and outside contractors. So, having excellent verbal and written communication skills, including being able to explain and relate to people, will help you excel in this role.
Problem solving skills
You’ll need excellent problem solving skills and the ability to think on your feet. Because office administrators have to take on such a wide variety of tasks in their role, they often find themselves charged with fixing problems that arise. There are so many variables when working with people, and this can make their job more difficult as they need to act quickly and to the satisfaction of both the customer and the company.
Customer service skills
Working with people can be one of the great joys of this role. It can be very rewarding to help people at work and as an administrative officer you will get to do this. As people arrive its your job to answer their questions, to make them feel comfortable and welcome. You are a part of building the public face and atmosphere in the company. And that’s why you need to have excellent people skills and customer service skills to perform well in this role.
Detail oriented
The office administrators are the unsung heroes of the office, managing a lot of little things all at once. They must pay great attention to detail. Being able to approach tasks with a strong sense for the smaller elements, will help with the tasks that require a careful and fastidious hand to ensure they are executed correctly.
Time Management
Office administrators need to answer phones, greet people as they arrive at the business and assist them, file paperwork and manage schedules. With so many competing priorities, it’s essential to have excellent time management.
Computer skills
In your role as an officer administrator, you will need to work often with technology and even learn more systems as they are adopted by the company. Computer skills like excel, word and outlook as well organisational systems will be important to your role.
What do Office Administrators study?
In order to work as an office administrator, you will require business administration skills. These can learned on the job as well as through a course that gives you everything you need to know to get started on this career path.
The course you should look at enrolling in is the Certificate III in Business with a specialisation in administration. The course can be completed entirely online and can take anywhere from six months to twelve months to complete depending on the delivery. This course will teach you how to:
- Apply critical thinking skills in a team environment
- Support personal wellbeing in the workplace
- Participate in sustainable work practices
- Use inclusive work practices
- Assist with maintaining workplace safety
- Engage in workplace communication
- Use digital technologies to communicate in a work environment
- Write simple documents
- Organise personal work priorities
- Process financial transactions
- Maintain business resources
- Organise schedules
- Handle receipt and dispatch of information
You can learn more about this course here.
What’s Next?
There are so many options for growth in a role such as this. You could move towards compliance and become a quality auditor, or gain management skills and become an office manager. If you’re a fan of the project work, you could become a project leader. There are many paths you can take when looking to step up in this field.
Final thoughts
Working as an administrative officer can be a challenging but rewarding career path, with a lot of opportunity to grow. If you’re interested in knowing more about this diverse and interesting field, you can check out the course here, or get in touch with us and we’ll help you find the right course for you!