Contributions of Confidential Secretaries Towards Organizations Development
Chapter One
Purpose of the Study
In many of our national Institutes of learning today there are few candidates applying for the secretariat studies. Those who are eventually admitted for the course are mostly faced with a lot of problems before they can become secretariat. It is the purpose of this study however to find out whether the course provides job satisfactions in term of salary, promotion, frige benefits. The study plans to find out what secretarial practice include in Nigeria offices.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
Secretaryship as a profession came into being as a result of the need for clerical and secretarial staff by our colonial authorities. They however, introduced elements of secretarial administration into the school curriculum, thus Bony government secondary school and Hope secondary school were established and then included in their curricula some secretarial subjects like shorthand and typewriting. Amafula (1986). These schools existed along with what then used to be known as the college of Arts, staff training center, some privately owned commercial institutions, which offered secretarial courses to secretarial aspirants for first entry jobs. The products of these institutes were needed by the British colonial Administration to serve in various lower level capacities as typists, messengers, courts clerks, interpreters etc, According to Esene (1990), these people relied mostly on self struggle, some later found their ways to Britain either as government sponsored or private students. The story is now different. There are many commercially technical secondary schools, polytechnics owned by federal and state governments, even of the universities (River state university of science and Technology, Port Harcourt) is offering a degree program in secretarial administration
BRIEF HISTORY OF SECRETARY
Just when secretaries originated no one knows exactly. The role arose out of the natural need for a prominent person to whom confidential matters could be entrusted and who could act as an assistant for a principal. It is known that secretaries existed in Rome prior to the establishment of the empire. They were usually educated men who took dictation as “scribes,” and oftentimes acted as trusted advisors. Before the invention of parchment and reed pens, tools of the trade for scribes ranged from chisels used upon stone to styluses used on clay, wood, or wax tablets. Shorthand became part of the preparation and training of secretaries (and emperors as well, including Julius Caesar and Augustus). In early modern times, members of the nobility had secretaries, who functioned quite similarly to those of the present day. They were always men; most had command of several languages, including Latin, and were required to have what we would consider today as a broad generalized education. As commerce and trade expanded, people of wealth and power needed secretaries (confidants and trusted agents) to handle correspondence on private or confidential matters, most particularly matter of state. Following the Renaissance, men continued to dominate clerical and secretarial roles. They maintained account books, in addition to performing stenographic duties, and were known for their exemplary penmanship skills. Many labored long hours, with their “secretary” desks serving as their files and workstations. As world trade expanded in the 15th and 16th centuries, secretaries often attained an elevated status and held prominent positions. Secretarial status titles frequently included “personal” or “private. Men continued to dominate the secretarial field until the late 1800s. With the invention of the writing machine, many women entered the office workforce in various clerical roles. During the industrial expansion at the turn of the century, business offices faced a paperwork crisis. Women solved the crisis by adapting well to new technologies such as the adding and calculating machine, telephone, and typewriter. Many women held, or aspired to hold, positions as secretaries. They attended secretarial schools and worked to attain superior skills. The demand for secretaries was so great that it outpaced supply. In the 1930s, the number of men with the title secretary dwindled. Women dominated the office workforce. Some were promoted from steno pools, some were graduates of business colleges or secretarial schools, but all were seeking the professional status and pay previously enjoyed by their male counterparts. Recognizing that continuing education was imperative to career success, a group of secretaries in American’s heartland became the nucleus of an organization that would help to professionalize the occupation. In 1942, the National Secretaries Association (NSA) was formed (now known as the International Association of Administrative Professionals). NSA first administered the Certified Professional Secretaries Examination, a standard of excellence for the profession, in 1951. Today, secretaries (also known as administrative assistants, office coordinators, executive assistants, office managers, et al) are using computers, the Internet, and other advanced office technologies to perform vital “information management” functions in the modern office. Secretaries no longer “simply” type correspondences for “the boss.”
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought investigate the career prospect of confidential secretary in public establishment.
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on the career prospect of confidential secretary in public establishment. 200 staff from different public parastatals was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the career prospect of confidential secretary in public establishment.
In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of secretaries in public establishment.
Summary
Secretary is one single employee of any organization that is most important and needed. No matter the innovation or invention brought about by the computer, the presence of the secretary (a human being) is needed for the computer to function. The secretary is a subordinate and an assistant that is needed by the chief executive for making telephone calls and receiving telephone calls. He is the only person trained in the efficient and the effective management of information, office correspondence and human resource for the benefit of the organization and in attaining the organization’s objectives. The secretary will always be required in the office. Although they may not be many as it used to be, they are still needed and useful. One thing the secretary needs in order to keep his job is retraining, which can be done by attending classes or participating in online education for more knowledge on how to operate new office technology such as internet and teleconferencing computer facilities. As long as the secretary keeps abreast of challenges in modern technologies he will not be redundant or found wanting and he will always be relevant in today’s modern office. The importance and indispensability of the secretary in any organization cannot be overstressed. We now have automated offices or what some people call “paperless” offices. These offices use modern machines and methods in order to save such resources as time, effort and money.
Conclusion
The first theme concerned the technical role played by the secretary, which can encompass a wide range of legal, procedural or constitutional issues. It was found that the majority of secretaries do not hold professional qualifications in these areas. The professional administrator/manager does not seem to be as prevalent in governance as in other areas of university administration (Whitchurch, 2006), such as the management of estates or human resources functions, possibly because, until recently, governance has often played a secondary role to other duties held by the person responsible for the work of the governing body. But does this matter? Whilst there are early signs that the position could be changing with the introduction of specialist governance units, there are also concerns about the potential loss of the co-ordinating role of the senior-most administrator (Holmes, 2006) who, in most cases, acted as secretary to the governing body. A number of interviewees noted that an ability to deal sensitively with a wide range of interpersonal and political issues was probably of greater importance than a professional qualification. It seems that professional knowledge is only one element of the skills set required for the role to be undertaken successfully.
Recommendation
The following recommendations were made based on the findings of the study and the implications:
- The administrator in public establishments should endeavour to afford their executive secretaries in-service training opportunities through which they could be retrained in emergent innovations and techniques in the world of work.
- The administrators in those pubic establishments should endeavour to properly organize and coordinate the policy (in-service training) as to create enabling environment for executive secretaries to update their knowledge and skills in this dispensation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). 3. The government who owned, managed and controlled those public establishments should be ready to sponsor the executive secretaries to attend both local and national conferences, workshops seminars and refresher courses in Universities, Colleges of Education and Polytechnics
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