The Fundamentals and Indispensability of the Secretarial Profession in The 21st Century (Published)
Secretaries, otherwise known as office professionals, office information managers, administrative assistants, office coordinators, executive assistants, office managers, among other nomenclatures, are becoming more and more relevant in today’s offices due to their specialty in general office administration and keeping up to date with technological advancements. This paper considers the fundamentals and indispensability of the office professional in the 21st century. The paper considered professional secretaries and modern digital skills, training and retraining of secretaries for the 21st century, indispensability of the professional secretary in the 21st century, challenges facing the profession and how to be an effective and efficient office professional in the 21st century. The paper concluded that the supportive roles of the office professional are very fundamental and cannot be dispensed with in organisations which make them indispensable in the 21st century. It was recommended, among others, that organisations should provide enabling environment for office professionals in order to get the best from them
Keywords: 21st Century., Fundamental, Indispensable, Office, Professional, Secretary
Impact of Virtual Office on Business Environment (Published)
This study focused on the impact of virtual office on business environment. A virtual office gives businesses a physical address and office-related services without the overhead of a long lease and administrative staff. For a better understanding of the impacts, the researcher established first the link between technology and office work. It was found that with the advent of technological advancement, office works required the use of updated technologies for the ultimate goals of being globally competitive. The reasons for adopting virtual offices include reduction of costs of production and services, improvement of performance, increased work productivity being up-to-date, and becoming at the competitive edge over other markets. Given the findings, it was concluded that adoption of virtual office work have a positive impact on performance and it creates employment opportunities rather than it eliminates. The challenges can be addressed by providing early notice about the change, the conduct of planning and training so that the personnel can successfully adapt to the change and displacement of workers will be prevented.
Keywords: Office, Technology, Work Environment, virtual, virtual office