Secretaries No More?

The role of a secretary is changing with time. The more technology evolves and spreads at our workplace, the more our work style changes and the role of the secretary in particular changes.

The role of a secretary was traditionally to do typing of correspondence or typing of reports for the manager on a manual typewriter, to sort out mail coming to the office, to answer and make phone calls and arrange appointments for the manager. Things are changing now, specially at companies that use technology more. At a software company now for instance, a manger has a computer and probably can type by himself. Most communication and correspondence takes place via email, so snail mail is limited. Appointments can also easily be scheduled via software. The only secretarial task remaining might probably be answering and making phone calls. Even this one might have been reduced due to the increased reliance on email which is by definition fast.

When I worked at Sakhr 8 years ago, they did not have any secretaries (although they had hundreds of employees). Well, actually they had a position for secretaries, but they did not call them secretaries, they called them Assistants instead. Perhaps naming is not a big deal, yet I believe that software companies, which are big consumers of technology and are staffed by highly computer literate people, are usually less reliant on secretaries.

Sure we are a long way from not needing secretaries any more. After all, there are so many companies that are run by managers who are not technically savvy. They still need someone to type their messages and will rarely use email, or even my ask their secretaries to type it for them!