Are assistants no longer needed?

Are “assistants” no longer needed?

It all depends on the assistant role.

A Wall Street Journal article “Executives Lose a Coveted Status Symbol—Their Assistants” suggests that the age of assistant might be over.

If the role is merely a status symbol or “perk,” and that’s how the person in the role if viewed, well, then the business need was never there in the beginning. Other than maybe recruiting. And calling a person a status symbol or perk says a lot about the culture of the company.

And if the role is viewed as just a cost, there was also a problem in the first place.

If the role is substantive and meaningful, there is still a need.

From my experience, a good assistant provides enough value to justify both the assistant position and magnify my value to the company … a 1 + 1 = 3 type of thing. Ideally, the assistant has strengths in areas where I am not strong. The assistant takes care of things that need to be done, that don’t require me in particular, and allow me to be of higher value.

Also, assistants are also typically regarded as only for executives or other top leaders.

Not so!

An economic argument can be made for other roles to have assistants as well.

For instance, assume the company has a top-level programmer that is paid $200K/year (not unusual and not even counting benefits, and could be way higher). Would I want that person to do tasks easily done by say, a $50K/year person? No way. First, the $200K person should be doing $200K-level tasks. Doing $50K tasks means getting less return on that pay investment. Second, the more $50K tasks the $200K person does, the less focus/flow on $200K tasks. This further reduces the return of the $200K person investment.

Assistants aren’t “old school” or relics of the past … thinking of them in terms of status and just “overhead” is of the past.

• If the titles are getting in the way, change them.
• If you have an assistant and haven’t established their economic value to the company (and you), do it NOW.
• If you are an assistant and don’t know your economic value to the company, work on it now. Make sure it is reflected in your job description, any performance management measures, etc.

If you can show a positive ROI then eliminating the assistant role actually worsens the company financial position. The opposite of perception.

Don’t disregard the economic realities in order to cater to wrong perceptions … and reduce your own value in the process.