Clover-leaf structure
It is when an organisation has a small core of permanent staff with roughly equal proportions of subcontracted and temporary workers, thus involving new forms of more flexible contracts.
TYPES OF ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC)
A Manager’s Administrative Assistant at PWC for example would perform the following administrative roles:
- Draft standard and non-standard correspondence using Microsoft Word, Excel and Power Point; i.e. the person would be responsible for reports, presentations and other documents
- Fax, photocopy and scan documents
- Organise logistics and materials for internal and external meetings, including travel arrangements
- Handle confidential information
- Provide telephone coverage
- Support to a professional team of managers and senior managers
- Responsible for compiling tax returns
- Type financial statements
- Other responsibilities include: sort, circulate and file incoming and outgoing correspondence; organise and take minutes for various meetings and coordinate with other departments to ensure timely production of documents
There are more rules and regulations in large organisations such as PWC and less autonomy; i.e. the person is limited to what he/she has to do; on the other hand equipment such as IT are more up-to-date facilitating work.
Flexit
As Flexit is a very small company the administrator has the ability to control the system and consequently more autonomy. On the other hand the administrator is responsible for organising and running the office on his/her own.
The main administrative roles and responsibilities the administrator at Flexit has are:
- Answering the phone as well as checking the answer phone first thing in the morning. The administrator is responsible for answering customers’ enquiries.
- Scheduling appointments; i.e. for the trainers and for the students who will call or come in the office to book sessions
- Preparing and sending correspondence either by post or e-mail to potential customers
- Writing and preparing reports, documents and spreadsheets such as spreadsheets with induction attendance
- Organise paper work to go to the archive so everything is ready when someone from the Archive Section comes to collect it
- Doing the register for new students
- Organise diary on Outlook with students who will come to the college for an induction so the reception will have access to it
Bibliography:
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M1 – Compare and contrast the administration role in supporting organisational activities in two organisations from different sectors
PWC organises its functional areas by services provided using a matrix structure. Flexit on the other hand organises its functional areas using a flat structure and by stages as described in P3.
As these two companies are different in size one being very small and the other one being very large, administration roles in both have many differences and a few similarities.
Similarities:
- In both organisations the administrator is responsible for answering the phone and pass the call on to the right person if necessary
- Administrators are responsible for distribution of correspondence
- Production of reports and other documents
- Support to superiors (i.e. managers and senior managers)
Differences:
- At PWC administrators have less autonomy and more rules and regulations to follow and the production of certain tasks (such as typing of financial statements) will depend on decisions and work of other colleagues which could slow the process
- As managers travel more in an international company administrators have to make several travel arrangements as well as arrangement of meeting and she/he also has to take minutes
- There is a large quantity of typing involved in an administrator’s work as well at PWC. The administrator has not got key responsibilities
- The administrator does archive for the department
- IT equipment is very up-to-date which facilitates work
- He/she also works in conjunction with other departments for being part of a matrix structure so constant work for other departments are also done
- As Flexit is a small company the administrator is responsible for running the office; therefore he/she has more autonomy.
- The administrator has key responsibilities such as making sure the customer is registered for the course, scheduling sessions for the students and updating outlook so that the reception knows when new potential customers are coming for an induction. The administrator is involved with the main activity of the business which is selling flexible learning courses.
- The administrator has also to send e-mails to potential customers offering the product
- At Flexit the administrator does not need to do the archive just to separate documents which need to go to the Archive Section
- As the structure of Flexit is flat the administrator has got only one manager and works in team with the colleagues.
PWC
As PWC is formed of a matrix structure an administrator has more than one manager and possibly can not satisfy both. This is not so effective when it comes to the work involved in the process. On the other hand as the administrator works with a great amount of people he/she has to produce visible results in time, so the work is more challenging despite the nature of tasks to be performed. Cooperation is fundamental in this kind of structure to make the system work. In large organisations such as PWC a matrix structure works because goals will be achieved more quickly, it is a very fast environment and the administrator contributes to the achievement of goals by producing all work required and by offering excellent customer service when answering the phone for example.
Flexit
The administrator in this organisation has the advantage of having one manager only as it has a flat structure. The other advantage is the ability to control the system which makes the business more efficient. The administrator will make changes to improve it where necessary; creativity can be applied and the work produced is transparent. One example is the computerised schedule which can be assessed by the reception team when someone is coming for an induction; before the appointments were hand-writing. This shows one step taken by the administrator which changed the procedure. In this type of organisation this happens all the time which makes the business work better in terms of processes and customer service.
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P3 – Describe the effectiveness of three administrative services in a selected organisation
Having worked previously as an administrative assistant for a hotel I performed three different administration services which were filing within the office, calculating worked hours of each employee on a weekly basis and writing cheques to pay suppliers.
Filing within the office
There were a number of filers which were used to keep documents such as supplier invoices, journals, remittance advices, reception check lists and job application forms. The hotel manager gave me the documents to be filed and the filers so that I could perform the job.
Filing documents were necessary in case the hotel manager or someone else in the company needed them for consultation. They were also done to have the whole process more organised. For example job application forms were kept in a file in case it was necessary to recruit someone; supplier invoices were filed alphabetically and they were taken from there when payment was due. After a while the files would go to the archive room which was also in the hotel. The process of filing worked for the end users (hotel manager and other staff) however certain aspects could be improved to have the system more efficient and to save time. For example when storing the filers on the shelves this could be done by alphabetical order instead of just place them randomly on the shelves; this would save time for the users who were looking for a file.
Calculating worked hours of each employee on a weekly basis
I was given the register of hours for each employee separated by week and on the same sheet I would put the total of hours worked in that week. This process was done by using a calculator.
The process was done for the hotel manager to be able to pay employees. In the end of the month the total hours were added up and then the hotel manager would process the BACS for each employee. This process met the end users requirements as they would receive their salaries/wages on time; for the hotel manager or the assistant calculating the hours the hand writing was sometimes an issue as it was not possible to understand the writing, but the system still worked at the end of each month with very few errors from time to time.
Writing cheques to pay suppliers
Usually once a month payment was made to suppliers. Once I was given the remittance advices of all companies I would write the exactly amount to pay each supplier, after that I would put the cheque with the remittance advice in an envelope, stick the stamp on it and the last task was to post all the payments.
All that was required was achieved through this process. The work was done in team as the hotel manager printed the remittance advices they were given to me so that I could start writing cheques and putting them in envelopes with stamps. The whole process was made to make sure suppliers were paid and their requirements met. The process worked well as an administrative role as the work in team produced more efficient results, speeding the execution of the task.
Processes used in administration need to be reviewed from time to time in order to keeping them working well. The main reasons for reviewing methods of administration work processes are:
- Update: sometimes processes become out-of-date so it is necessary to review them. This could be due to change in legislation for example if something else needs to be done to comply with the law; a different P14 format is required by HMRC so the company would need to do a different company form to record details.
- New technology: if the company invests in new technologies then processes need to be changed. An example would be faxing from the computer instead of using the fax machine.
- Importance: an analysis of processes is necessary to make sure the work is really important and has to be done for some reason; otherwise it is pointless doing something that is not necessary, it is just a waste of time.
- Speed: reviewing processes is important in order to make them more efficient and organised.
- Mental security: some administrators print or keep photocopies of everything. It is important to review this process in order to keep what it is really important.
- Cost: changing methods are necessary to reduce costs sometimes. Even if it seems small in the administration process the whole cost the company has monthly will decrease as a result; for example instead of using own standard formats for certain forms required by HMRC using the ones supplied by them.
- Data Protection: it is to make sure that data is really protected and what it could be done to ensure that the process is working on this front.
There are many methods used to review services; they could vary from company to company. In very small companies the administrator usually will have autonomy to change processes by reviewing them periodically and this review would happen just by spotting processes that make work more difficult or by letters sent from authorities that certain changes are about to happen. However it is still necessary to take some time to reflect on the processes and the best solutions for their improvement.
In larger companies methods of reviewing services would start probably with the manager’s initiative and spreadsheets may be one of the methods used to review them as well as forms with questions to be answered by the administrators in order to analyse the effectiveness of the process used. An example would be a spreadsheet with a printing control, including how many printing has been done; the type of document that was printed and how many copies of the document was printed.
At the hotel the three administrative processes were done the way described above for many years and there was no regular review on them. Being a very small company a few changes were made by me after spotting certain things that could be changed:
1 - There was not much to change in the filing system; just the labels on the filers were done electronically instead of hand writing.
2 - A spreadsheet was produced to add the number of hours worked by each employee.
P4 – Adapt suitable procedures and policies in providing administrative support for an activity
On the 10 February 2009 I along with other students went to see the administrator of Flexit (Jo Nussey) who talked about the administration processes done in the company.
These administration tasks need to be done according to legal and organisational requirements. Following is an explanation of how they are met at Flexit:
Storage and archiving material
Jo in her office had a tray to keep confidential information as well as documents to be filed. Someone from the Archive Department would come to collect these documents, the confidential ones were shredded.
The policy is that documents in general (paper work) and financial information are kept for six years; and student work are boxed and referenced by number; ant then sent to an archive company in Bristol.
The College as well as Flexit keep a record of all the referencing and if anybody needs some student work back the company in Bristol will send it back within 48 hours. The awarding body EDXCEL specifies how long the college has to keep students’ work for, but normally it is for between one to three years.
Security and confidentiality
The administrator at Flexit has access to personal information related to individuals who register for flexible learning courses. This personal information must be treated in a discreet and confidential manner and should not be disclosed to anyone outside the company. All personal information recorded should be accurately and stored securely in a way that ensures confidentiality. The Registry Manager is responsible for ensuring that Data Protection and security of information are met; there are many rules regarding IT, including use of passwords and e-mails, where an employee can not let any other colleague use his/her password for example.
Confidentiality is also part of the policy of the college/Flexit, especially for those under 19 years old, who are protected by the Government scheme Every Child Matters. This programme is to ensure that every child can achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes once they join a service provider which are being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution and achieving economic well-being. The Children Act 2004 provides legal information which the service providers must comply with; one example is work related earning, including work experience and learning about work practices and the skills required in the workplace; another example is that the college/Flexit has to promote healthy living, including sensible eating and physical activity, this is usually done through tutorials or information on boards.
Employment responsibilities and rights
Both the employer and the employee have rights and responsibilities towards employment.
The employee:
- must meet the terms in the contract of employment regarding hours she/he must work and time to arrive and to leave work, and period of notice to be given if the employee is leaving the work
- has the duty of equal opportunities which involves treating everybody equally regardless of their background, circumstances or lifestyles; working out your own role in combating discrimination and oppression
- must follow the Code of Conduct, Mission Statement or Vision of the company; the vision of Flexit is to provide high quality service of education, training and promotion of learning
- must obey all rules regarding passwords, electronic keypads and IT.
The employer:
- must do criminal record checks which is called CRB (Criminal Records Bureau); this check is done if work involves contact with children and other vulnerable members of society
- must meet the terms in the contract of employment such as terms and conditions relating to hours of work, entitlement to holidays, location of work (if the employee will work at different branches), pension schemes and length of notice the employee should give or receive in case of termination of the contract
- must comply with legislation such as minimum wage and working hours directive (maximum of 48 hours of work a week)
- must comply with Equal Rights which means rights at work; legal protection is offered to those who may suffer discrimination at work on account of their race, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability and gender.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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M2 – Review the effectiveness of three administration services in a selected organisation
From:
To: Administrator Manager
Date: 24/02/09
REPORT ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THREE ADMINISTRATION SERVICES
- TERMS OF REFERENCE
Three administration services were described on task P3. This report will review if they were effective for the organisation I worked for and will suggest changes to improve services or reasons to keep them as well as describe the importance of feedback.
- PROCEDURE
This report was written based on personal work experience and talks with the teacher Lorraine Robinson.
- FINDINGS
Filing within the office
While working for this company a change I made in terms of filing was the labels on the files. They were hand written before and after I started to work there I wrote the labels electronically so that the files looked neater and more organised. This helped end users (hotel manager and other staff) to find a file with the documents they were looking for.
Other suggestions to facilitate the life of those who may need to look for documents in the files are: store the files on shelves by alphabetical order number. The reason for that is to speed work as it is a waste of time to look for files one by one if the organisation of it is very confusing. The hotel manager used to give me documents to be filed by looking at them quickly, so another suggestion would be to have a tray to keep documents to be filed during the course of work, so when I arrived at work the hotel manager would give me the tray ready with the documents. This change of procedure would facilitate work, again be more efficient and organised, as less time would be wasted on it and fewer errors would occur as there were always documents on the pile which were not supposed to be filed.
Calculating worked hours of each employee on a weekly basis
The process used to calculate the hours worked by each employee was effective as the end users (employees) did receive their salaries/wages in the end of the month. There were sheets for each employee for each week to register the hours they arrived and left. So, the process was done by filling in the register of hours by hand writing. However a few changes could help to avoid mistakes in the end of the month such as an employee receiving for less hours than he/she actually worked.
A change I made while working there was to have a spreadsheet on Excel to record the worked hours of each week for each employee. The reason for that was to have the worked hours calculated by the computer and to have a clearer work as by the end of each month the register of hour’s sheets just looked messy and this could increase the probability of errors being made; it did happen that sometimes they were lost among other papers, and sometimes it was very difficult to understand the hand writing of some employees. The process also did not contribute to the environment as a great quantity of paper was wasted in the process.
A suggestion on the “clock in/clock out” system I would make is that employees did not just have a register of hours’ sheet to write the hours manually as this could be easily altered. Instead my suggestion was to buy a swipe card machine which would cost around £350.00 plus £1.25 for each card. This would make the system more accurate, less messy and it would be beneficial to the end user (employee) as it would avoid hand writing and the process is very quick; once the employee arrived he/she would swipe the card in seconds and at the end of the month they would definitely receive the correct salary/wage as it would have less probability of human errors in the process. For the hotel manager it would be very beneficial to calculate the hours as the machine could be connected to a computer to download all data, avoiding typing and it would consequently increase company’s profits as pay would be done correctly, decreasing chances of over paying employees.
Writing cheques to pay suppliers
The process to pay suppliers was quite effective and it did work well. The end users (suppliers) were paid and the work in the team was also good as the process to make payments was quicker than the hotel manager doing the whole process herself. I did not have any changes to suggest for this process as the procedure was right which was to print remittance advices with the correct details of the invoices, writing cheques, stamp envelopes and post them all at once.
Many companies nowadays pay suppliers via BACS (Bank Automated Clearing System) where the company pays suppliers trough direct bank transfers. This would be a good system, however it is not done by the hotel because of the size of the company; but I do think it is a good system no matter the size of the company as the process is quick, it would not be necessary to spend three hours a month to do the manual process as there are some negative points regarding the manual process which are security (keeping the cheque book which could be easily stolen), papers to be filed (the electronic system is paperless), cost of stamps (which could be considerably high) and chances of having cheque books and other papers lost.
Importance of feedback
Feedback is very important before reviewing processes and after making changes as what it is thought to be effective perhaps it is unnecessary as well as time consuming.
Before reviewing processes it is necessary to know if the end user is happy and the person who is doing it is producing effective results; it is also necessary to analyse if the company is making less profit due to a certain process. For example the hotel manager did have a back feedback from me which was a negative one because every time I had to calculate the hours worked by each employee I had to decipher the hand writing of certain employees. Employees also made complaints about the system as they were paid incorrectly. Although a small investment would be needed for the company to have a new system in the end this would cost less as the company would have access to the exactly time the employee arrived at work and left; and also it would be good on the recruitment side as some employees may seek other employment because of being paid incorrectly from time to time; the electronic card system would put things right and it would help in avoiding recruitment costs.
It is good to have feedback after changes on processes as it is necessary to make sure the process is working effectively and it is producing better results. And also to keep making changes continuously to improve the service.
- CONCLUSIONS
I did have more changes to suggest improving services than reasons to maintain the same processes. And while working for the company I did make a couple of changes to facilitate work for myself and to be less liable to errors which would cause problems to other people and to the company as well.
The main reason to change administrative processes is to ensure that results are achieved more quickly, that they are really effective and the people using the service are satisfied with them. Time is precious in a company and waste time doing ineffective administrative processes can lead to less profit made by the company and demotivated employees.
M3 – Analyse policies, procedures and techniques used in an administrative role
From:
To: Administration Manager
Date: 02/03/09
REPORT ON THE ANALYSE OF POLICIES, PROCEDURES AND TECHNIQUES USED IN AN ADMINISTRATIVE ROLE
- TERMS OF REFERENCE
This report will analyse how the policies, procedures and techniques contribute to the smooth running of the administrative role by using evidence from tasks P5 and P6.
- PROCEDURE
This report was written based on P5 and P6 tasks; explanation was also given by the teacher Lorraine Robinson.
- FINDINGS
Policies
Flexit has policies regarding archive, storage, security and confidentiality. Archive is done by the Archive Department and the administrator at Flexit leaves all documents in trays for someone from the Archive Department to collect them. The confidential ones are shredded and the ones to be filed are kept in the Archive room. Although there are policies regarding confidentiality it is not right just to have a tray on a cabinet to store the confidential documents waiting to be shredded. This particularly does not contribute to the smooth running of the administrative role as it is a vulnerable process that could lead to disclosure of confidential information which could be used in a bad way if the wrong person had access to it.
The policy for student work archive is very good in terms of contributing to the speediness of the administration process. The archive is done referencing work by number and then it is sent to an archive company in Bristol. If the administrator or trainers need some work back then the archive company will send it back within 48 hours. This process makes the administration work less cluttered as there is no need to keep more papers in the office for a long time or somewhere in the company and very rarely someone needs the work back.
Flexit has the same Registry Manager as Southampton City College who is responsible for Data Protection and security of information. This includes details of students and employees (mainly if the administrator does Human Resources). It is effective to have one person responsible for confidentiality and security of information however the system would work better if there was more control of the process as it was related earlier confidential documents are just kept in trays in the Flexit office.
When it comes to the company’s policies the administrator needs to follow the vision and mission of the company to be able to make the administrative role run smoothly.
The company’s vision is: “to provide a high quality education, training and promotion of learning”.
And its mission is:
- “Increase the life opportunities of individuals and the productivity of organisations
- Strengthen the development and employability of individuals and employees
- Support the progression of individuals through further education into employment and higher education
- Contribute to the growth and economic development of the region through our curriculum offer”
Every task performed by the administrator has to be based on the mission and visions describe above i.e. it has to be focused on each individual, their professional development, outstanding training provided by the college and special support if needed.
Procedures
The ways administrative processes are done at Flexit contribute effectively to the smooth running of the role. The administrator prioritises work by doing tasks in importance or deadline order; this is the best way to have the system running smoothly.
For example the maintenance of the outlook is done once a week by importance order as it is necessary to have the induction times up-to-date on the outlook so that reception knows when a new student is coming for an induction session and reception will have all his/her details such as name and time of the induction session. The administrator also updates the outlook if anyone else is booked for the induction session during the course of the week.
An example of administration work that contributes to the efficiency of the administrative role and is done by deadline order is the checking of the answering machine which has to be done every morning. This ensures that any customer with queries about the course will be contacted as soon as possible and students cancelling sessions on the day will be reported to their trainers.
Techniques
One technique used by Flexit when it comes to administration and customer service is the e-mail acknowledgment sent to the sender every time someone sends Flexit an e-mail. Senders are notified that the company received an e-mail and that they will be contacted as soon as possible. This technique is very effective because it works for the administrator who does not need to acknowledge the receipt of the e-mail, this is done automatically.
Outlook is another electronic technique used to update induction session times. This system allows other employees at the company to have access to it mainly the reception; when a new student arrives for an induction session the reception checks name and time on Outlook and then sends the person to the appropriate room. This technique is very efficient in terms of administration; before the process was done manually which made difficult the change of information as well as communication leading sometimes to tight deadlines mainly when a new student booked a session during the week; there was too much rush to send the updated schedule (hard copy) to the reception. Now as everything is done electronically the process is quick, efficient and it is less time consuming.
Forms such as Amend forms and Completion forms are also part of the administrative techniques used by Flexit to ensure the administrative role runs smoothly. By using standard forms the company stores information which are really important and need to be stored and the forms help Flexit to make sure that all information needed is gathered. For example the Amend form is used when a student passes to the next level; basically the student has to enrol again so the form is used to record this process. The Completion form is filled every time a student finishes a unit, recording how many hours the student has done, name of unit, etc.
- CONCLUSIONS
Policies, procedure and techniques were created to make the lives of administrators easier. By having standard procedures and techniques to be followed the company ensures that the administrator is performing tasks appropriately i.e. the administrator is ticking all boxes every time a task is performed without having to do it literally using a check list.
Policies at Flexit contribute to the administrative system by setting up rules regarding confidentiality and security of information; also by setting mission and visions for every employee to comply with. On the whole policies help administrators to achieve the goals and objectives of the organisation as well as to be careful with certain tasks that could easily break the rules not intentionally but because of the vulnerability of the process.
