January, 2016

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How to Use A Competency Assessment for Assistants

Office Dynamics

Use this assessment for assistants as a tool to measure your skill level. Several years ago I was preparing for my first annual review with my new executive, Joan Burge, Founder and CEO of Office Dynamics International. I wanted to be ready for anything when we sat down together to discuss my progress and my skill set as her Chief Executive Assistant.

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40 MS Word Hacks for Assistants

Practically Perfect PA

Follow the popularity of my blog post on Excel Hacks I thought I would write a follow up – 40 Word Hacks! I bloody love MS Word which is handy as I use it all the time as do most assistants. These tips will save you loads of time and might just impress your most geekiest of colleagues! To search for auto recovered documents on the File menu, click Open , and then click Recent Documents.

Filing 159
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Top 5 Strategies to Get Your Office Schedule Back on Track!

Office Organization Success

Getting back into the swings of things after a break is always challenging! Whether it’s time taken off during the summer, a break during the Holiday season, or simply a week’s vacation, the first few days back at your desk are usually spent playing catch-up. For me, one of the first things I do is review my stats to see what’s been happening while I’ve been away.

Filing 147
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A Very Simple Promise

Virtual Moxie

This is for Jane, Marie, and all the other women like them who think the way to success is to work whenever possible, and when not possible, to fill the time with motion. Just stop. There is nothing that can't wait till tomorrow--or even next week. And take it from me, rest helps you do more than pushing through ever will. ♥. . .

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Best Practices to Streamline Compensation Management: A Foundation for Growth

Speaker: Joe Sharpe and James Carlson

Payroll optimization can be one of the most time-consuming and complex factors of small business management. Yet, organizations that crack the code on streamlining employee compensation often discover innovative avenues for growth. With the right strategies in place, outsourcing and streamlining payroll processes can result in substantial time and resource savings.

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The Rise of the Independent Professional Working for Businesses

Small Business Labs

Getting lost in the various debates around the "gig economy" is the size and growth of the segment of independent workers who provide professional services to businesses.  As the chart below from the HBR's Your Company Needs Independent Workers shows, the number of U.S. independent workers serving businesses has grown from 4.5 million in 2011 to 6.4 million in 2015.    This is about 3 times as fast as overall employment growth during this period.

2015 136
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7 Things to Look For in a Professional Organizer

Clutter Coach

by Working with an organizer can be immensely helpful to get you to your organizing goals faster , just as hiring a personal trainer keeps you on track with getting in shape. It can be a little intimidating to think of hiring a stranger to come inside your home, so I wrote this list of things to consider. Trust is vital. You’ll be sharing with your organizer parts of your life that you’re embarrassed about or even ashamed of.

2012 116

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From Practically Perfect PA to Mummy

Practically Perfect PA

Hi everyone, how are you guys doing? It has been a while since I last wrote a personal blog so I thought I would send you an update on what has been happening over the last ten months. Firstly I should give a big shout out to the wonderful William who has been running things on the website during my maternity leave. As some of you may or may not know I did indeed have a little boy back in March.

2016 154
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Article Marketing: Repurpose Your ONE Article in 3 Easy Steps!

Office Organization Success

You’ve written a fabulous article … you publish it in your newsletter … and that’s it! It just sits there, never to see the light of day again. Too often this is what business owners do. They don’t realize that they can take that ONE article and really leverage it to: get more subscribers and clients; position themselves as an expert in their niche; and. build their content library.

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Another Productivity List for 2016. Woot!

Virtual Moxie

At AssistU , we curate content into a weekly brief that’s delivered to our folks each Monday morning. Yesterday, we shared some of our best “2016” lists. You’ve seen them—the 25 best business books for 2016, the 19 top iPhone apps for 2016, 465 things to get rid of in 2016—those sorts of lists. Shortly after we delivered the brief, one of the VAs forwarded it to me and asked why she’d never seen such a list come from me for VAs.

2016 140
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Three Books That Explain The Economy (and Jobs)

Small Business Labs

We were asked the other day what books we thought best explain how the economy and jobs have changed over the past couple of decades. We came up with these 3: 1.  Supercapitalism by Robert Reich. The former labor secretary provides a historical view of how over the past few decades Americans as consumers and investors have gained power, while as citizens and employees we have lost power.

2006 119
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Mastering Remote Onboarding: Proven Strategies for Seamless New Hire Integration

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

Join this brand new webinar with Tim Buteyn to learn how you can master the art of remote onboarding! By the end of this session, you'll understand how to: Craft a Tailored Onboarding Checklist 📝 Develop a comprehensive, customized checklist that ensures every new hire has a smooth transition into your company, no matter where they are in the world.

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The little things

Laughing all the Way to Work

When learning something new it is usually the little things that can seem overwhelming. I just learnt a new program to search patient names for information and medical records. I recall the person telling us how to use the program and it seemed complicated. Log in, enter your password, press F1 if you want to do this, F2 if you want to do that. When you get to this screen, look on the right hand side and press F11.

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Create the Career and Life You Want

Office Dynamics

Your destiny is in your hands. I was in the middle of finalizing several items that are going to be placed in a new product: Star Achievement Series® Facilitator Kits. I came across a letter I wrote that gets distributed to participants who go on the Star Achievement journey. Here is a segment of what I said: “Your destiny is in your hands. Every day, you have the opportunity to create the career and life you want.

2016 141
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Staying in the loop

Practically Perfect PA

The say goes that information is King. For assistants information is everything! Keeping up to date with all the goings on within your organisation is incredibly important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it means that you can update your Executive on the high level stuff which means they don’t have to attend every meeting or read every bulletin.

Gossip 147
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[Free Telesummit] How to be Your Own Boss Anywhere in the World

Office Organization Success

This story may be familiar to many of you; in fact it may even be your story… Eric and Liz are mid-life dreamers who have had successful careers and now want deeper personal enhancement and fulfillment. They had reached a stage in their lives where they didn’t want to continue having to work the weekends for the rest of their lives, or for three weeks of vacation a year.

2016 109
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Unlock Your Productivity: Simple Steps for Every Professional

Unlock your full potential with our comprehensive guide on productivity. This detailed resource explores the three fundamental pillars of effective task management: Todo List Mastery, Time Management, and Habit Optimization. Learn to capture and prioritize your tasks effectively, schedule them using proven strategies like the Pomodoro Technique, and maintain your productivity through consistent habit tracking.

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Well, Hello, New Year--You Look Marvelous!

Virtual Moxie

Ok, I have to ask—where in the name of Pete did the past three months GO? My mother used to say that time flies so much faster as you get older, but I don't think I really felt it in a deep way till this fall. It really seems like my sabbatical just began.except it's January, and it's over. I had such a good time. I did some traveling (and fell in love with tiny-town Tennessee as well as a beautiful place in Georgia called Serenbe where I hope to hold a retreat in the Spring), slept a lot, sang

2016 122
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Do 45 Million Americans Work in the On-Demand Economy?

Small Business Labs

Last week in our article Confusion Reigns Over the Number of People Working in the Online Gig Economy  we reported that a recent study developed jointly by Burson-Marsteller, The Aspen Institute’s Future of Work Initiative and TIME found that 45 million Americans have worked in the on-demand economy. We suggested the reason why their numbers are so much larger than other sources – our work, for example found about 3.2 million Americans are working in the on-demand economy – was likely due

AT&T 116
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Florida here I come!

Laughing all the Way to Work

This summer I will be presenting at the AdminPro Forum 2016 in Florida and am really looking forward to it. Keynote speakers include Joan Burge, Lucy Brazier, Julie Perrine and Laura Stack. I have enjoyed the teachings of most of these ladies over the years and am thrilled to be participating with them and look forward to learning from them too. Recently on Facebook on the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP) page they had a question on what would be the ideal gift fr

2016 109
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Are You Making These Social Media Mistakes

Office Dynamics

HR Managers Say Posting Negative Comments Is Most Common Deal Breaker. MENLO PARK, Calif. , Jan. 5, 2016 / PRNewswire / — The advice “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” holds especially true in today’s digital age, suggests new research from staffing firm OfficeTeam. When asked about the most common social media mistakes that take job seekers out of the running for a position, 45 percent of human resources (HR) managers cited wr

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Elevating the Virtual Interviewing Experience

Sharing your authentic self in a virtual interview can be an unwanted challenge. How do you break through the digital barrier when conducting a virtual interview and share your exceptional self? Think in unconventional ways to elevate the virtual interviewing experience.

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How to deal with conflicting priorities

Practically Perfect PA

Although the role of an assistant can be incredibly varied, there are certain aspects that all of us will face at some point in our career. We all have similar experiences in the workplace… Yes, I do know where the photocopier is… No, I can’t fix the paper ja m… And then there are the competencies that we all need to get the job done.

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Let’s Work on Your 2016 Plan Together

Office Organization Success

I know many of you are just getting back into the flow of work again this week and are probably thinking about the upcoming year … what you’re going to be doing, what you’ll be offering etc.? If you’re a bit like the deer in the headlights and are not quite sure what you’ll be doing this year, let me offer you a solution to get everything all mapped out… Business Planning Success: Create Your 90-Day P.R.O.F.I.T.

2016 109
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Use Willpower to Reclaim Your Mojo!

Virtual Moxie

Last week’s post on productivity brought a question from Silvana, who said: “I’m a new VA and I just experienced losing my only client. I now have nothing to be productive for, and I know that’s mostly me feeling sorry for myself, but still, my mojo is gone. I am having a hard time even going into my office now, and I don’t know what to do about that.

Policies 116
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It's a Mobile World

Small Business Labs

No matter how much we cover mobile computing, it seems in many ways we continue to underestimate its impact. This is why it shows up yet again on our 2016 small business trends list. As the Business Insider Intelligence chart below shows, there are about 4.5 times more mobile Internet subscribers globally than there are people who access the Internet via a fixed subscription (for example, a cable modem like the one I'm using right now).   At the same time, more people are dropping home

2013 116
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Mandatory COVID Vaccination Policy Template

New vaccine mandates and testing policies will affect employers with more than 100 workers. Get Paycor’s free, customizable vaccination policy template to communicate critical details and new requirements to your employees. Get Paycor’s Template today!

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Let It Go or Risk Freezing Your Business to Death

Tips From T. Marie

I started this blog post as a follow up to a prior post on second chances. Funny how some posts end up having a life of their own somehow. As I sat down to share a recent personal experience in my business, it dawned on me that it was pretty certain that I wasn’t the only small business owner who deals with it. Deals with what? Hanging on to things that are no longer working for us or our businesses.

2005 101
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3 Tech Tools to Improve Your Organization’s Efficiency

Office Dynamics

Improve Your Organization’s Efficiency. An efficient business is one that uses the best technology to help it keep its edge. Maintaining the best tech solutions is critical, and failure to do so can lead to a plummet in efficiency. Salesforce cites data from a paper published by Forrester stating that 42 percent of customer service representatives are unable to efficiently deal with customer issues due to outdated user interfaces and other forms of archaic systems.

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How to deal with conflicting priorities

Practically Perfect PA

Although the role of an assistant can be incredibly varied, there are certain aspects that all of us will face at some point in our career. We all have similar experiences in the workplace… Yes, I do know where the photocopier is… No, I can’t fix the paper ja m… And then there are the competencies that we all need to get the job done.

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Decluttering in Depth

Clutter Coach

by Okay, so maybe it is time to declutter than closet. This basic technique works for desktops, drawers, cupboards and any other spots where you keep a lot of stuff together. It’s not for attics or out of the way storage spots where you’re allowed to keep things that are rarely used and off-season clothes. This is for high traffic spots.

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SME Relationships: Proven Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Success

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

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Does Your Office Design Affect Your Productivity?

Productivity Bits

If you’re reexamining your current office space, you’ve probably got some ideas about how you want things to flow. You might have what you believe to be the perfect design plan all laid out, but in reality, you could be sacrificing functionality for looks. A lot of things you take for granted have a larger impact than you may expect, and that impact may be contrary to your intentions.

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Vanity Fair Covers the Contingent Worker Supplement to the Current Population Survey

Small Business Labs

Vanity Fair's The Obama Administration Is Finally Getting Serious About the On-Demand Economy covers the plan by the Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to run the contingent worker supplement as part of the May 2017 current population survey.  In the forecasting world, we call this a signal. Up until recently, I doubt any mainstream publication had ever written a story about the contingent worker supplement.

2005 100
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Virtual Moxie - Untitled Article

Virtual Moxie

Last week, I had the best time being interviewed by M. Shannon Hernandez for her Courageous Living show and thought that some of what we discussed may be applicable to your life and work. I did realize afterwards that we didn't talk about how corageous it is to start your own business, or what courage it takes to keep going for years, but I'm going to ask Shannon if I can come back to do that!

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What will make this year different?

Office Dynamics

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and have settled back into work. We are already 11 days into January 2016 and I am asking myself, “What is truly going to make this year different than 2015?” I know it is a new year. And I know I am ready for a year of good health and well-being. That is the most important on my list. But when I sit here and think that I have been doing this job as CEO of Office Dynamics and being a trainer, speaker and coach for more than 25 years, I wonder “W

2016 109
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Is Training the Right Solution?

Speaker: Tim Buteyn

Let's set the scene: you’ve identified a critical performance gap in your organization and need to close that gap. A colleague suggests training, but you suspect there’s something going on that training can’t address. How can you determine if training is the right solution before you commit your budget and resources to a new training program? In this webinar, you will learn how to determine if training is the right solution using the Behavior Engineering Model.