6 ms·

Consider an office manager instead. It better describes the requirements that extend into your organization, and it’s one of the best early hires a growing org

Consider an office manager instead. It better describes the requirements that extend into your organization, and it’s one of the best early hires a growing org can make. If they shine, consider letting them take on HR tasks if you don’t already have an internal HR resource.

eyelidlessness 5y ago
Please don’t hire people for business roles where part of their responsibilities are to you individually.
- walrus01 5y ago
  random thought on that, at least not unless you're a super wealthy person or very high ranking politician who literally needs the services of a "body man" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_body_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_body_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggie_Love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggie_Love
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Everyone I know who does this is very successful actually. And they have high retention.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    This response feels strange to me.
    - denkmoon 5y ago
      You've made two posts negging this idea without providing any actual rationale whatsoever.
      - eyelidlessness 5y ago
        Oh, I thought it was obvious I consider it unethical… administrative/HR roles in particular shouldn’t be [potentially] biased by split responsibilities to a specific individual.
        mmaunder 5y ago
        Go be a working exec for a few years in a medium sized business and then advise other execs on HR, how to hire, and on business ethics.
        eyelidlessness 5y ago
        Go tell someone else what to do before forming an opinion. Or better, don’t do that either.
        denkmoon 5y ago
        This response feels strange to me.
        eyelidlessness 5y ago
        I don’t have to be an exec to have an opinion on ethical hiring.
        renewiltord 5y ago
        I, too, found it weird but ultimately if two people have some sort of personal or professional relationship that they both enjoy, then the flaw isn’t in them, it’s in my ethics. So now I’ve revised my world view.
- mmaunder 5y ago
  This is absurd.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    I don’t think it was.
- sulam 5y ago
  You’re getting a lot of negativity but there’s some truth to what you’re saying. It’s nuanced, though. First: to all the people saying this happens all the time 1) define your terms carefully because there are obvious ethical boundaries here one should not cross, and 2) the power dynamic often means these situations will not be raised even if the admin feels taken advantage of. So, there’s a range of activities you could be asking someone to do for you. To ground the conversation in reality let’s put some on the board: Office admin work: Stocking the fridge, event coordination, arranging regular lunches for meetings/team etc. EA work: Managing your calendar, making sure you personally have something to eat during the work day, taking notes in meetings, managing agendas for routine meetings, scheduling business trips etc. PA work: stocking the fridge, running errands, making reservations for restaurants, trips, etc. I think the issue here is that many of these tasks are immediately applicable to all three domains. Also, there is a lot of potential overlap between these domains. This means it is very easy to slip from reasonable requests to unreasonable requests without realizing it. I’ll give a personal example. My life is complicated and my wife’s schedule is just as busy. For a while my wife had to run an every other week all hands at a particular time that meant I needed to deal with some kid duties that she handles the other 9 days of the two week cycle. Except, as everyone knows, you cannot simply assume an inviolate biweekly recurrence. When my wife’s schedule needed to change, mine did too. For policy reasons neither company allowed remote access to calendars, so neither of us had visibility into the other’s potential conflicts. Enter my EA, who manages my calendar (among other things). At company A it was considered fine for my wife and my EA to communicate directly about schedule changes so that my business day was reflective of my personal commitments. Then company A got acquired and at company B this was not considered okay. Two sets of rational, well meaning groups came up with fairly different outcomes. Company B got there with a bright line rule that says something like: your EA is only there to facilitate your corporate life, and there should be zero mixing with your personal life. Company A got to a different place because of a belief that, when the personal life is intersecting corporate life, it may be appropriate for your EA to facilitate. This requires judgment whereas the first rule does not, but in general executives are required to have excellent judgment in many situations, so what’s one more? That said, company B is much larger and I can practically guarantee that they once had a policy like company A and then it was repeatedly abused to the point that they had to change it. Sorry for the essay, but I think you have an interesting point here that deserves more than the knee jerk responses you’ve gotten so far.

eyelidlessness 5y ago

Please don’t hire people for business roles where part of their responsibilities are to you individually.

walrus01 5y ago
random thought on that, at least not unless you're a super wealthy person or very high ranking politician who literally needs the services of a "body man" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_body_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_body_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggie_Love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggie_Love
renewiltord 5y ago
Everyone I know who does this is very successful actually. And they have high retention.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  This response feels strange to me.
  - denkmoon 5y ago
    You've made two posts negging this idea without providing any actual rationale whatsoever.
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      Oh, I thought it was obvious I consider it unethical… administrative/HR roles in particular shouldn’t be [potentially] biased by split responsibilities to a specific individual.
      - mmaunder 5y ago
        Go be a working exec for a few years in a medium sized business and then advise other execs on HR, how to hire, and on business ethics.
        eyelidlessness 5y ago
        Go tell someone else what to do before forming an opinion. Or better, don’t do that either.
        denkmoon 5y ago
        This response feels strange to me.
        eyelidlessness 5y ago
        I don’t have to be an exec to have an opinion on ethical hiring.
      - renewiltord 5y ago
        I, too, found it weird but ultimately if two people have some sort of personal or professional relationship that they both enjoy, then the flaw isn’t in them, it’s in my ethics. So now I’ve revised my world view.
mmaunder 5y ago
This is absurd.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I don’t think it was.
sulam 5y ago
You’re getting a lot of negativity but there’s some truth to what you’re saying. It’s nuanced, though. First: to all the people saying this happens all the time 1) define your terms carefully because there are obvious ethical boundaries here one should not cross, and 2) the power dynamic often means these situations will not be raised even if the admin feels taken advantage of. So, there’s a range of activities you could be asking someone to do for you. To ground the conversation in reality let’s put some on the board: Office admin work: Stocking the fridge, event coordination, arranging regular lunches for meetings/team etc. EA work: Managing your calendar, making sure you personally have something to eat during the work day, taking notes in meetings, managing agendas for routine meetings, scheduling business trips etc. PA work: stocking the fridge, running errands, making reservations for restaurants, trips, etc. I think the issue here is that many of these tasks are immediately applicable to all three domains. Also, there is a lot of potential overlap between these domains. This means it is very easy to slip from reasonable requests to unreasonable requests without realizing it. I’ll give a personal example. My life is complicated and my wife’s schedule is just as busy. For a while my wife had to run an every other week all hands at a particular time that meant I needed to deal with some kid duties that she handles the other 9 days of the two week cycle. Except, as everyone knows, you cannot simply assume an inviolate biweekly recurrence. When my wife’s schedule needed to change, mine did too. For policy reasons neither company allowed remote access to calendars, so neither of us had visibility into the other’s potential conflicts. Enter my EA, who manages my calendar (among other things). At company A it was considered fine for my wife and my EA to communicate directly about schedule changes so that my business day was reflective of my personal commitments. Then company A got acquired and at company B this was not considered okay. Two sets of rational, well meaning groups came up with fairly different outcomes. Company B got there with a bright line rule that says something like: your EA is only there to facilitate your corporate life, and there should be zero mixing with your personal life. Company A got to a different place because of a belief that, when the personal life is intersecting corporate life, it may be appropriate for your EA to facilitate. This requires judgment whereas the first rule does not, but in general executives are required to have excellent judgment in many situations, so what’s one more? That said, company B is much larger and I can practically guarantee that they once had a policy like company A and then it was repeatedly abused to the point that they had to change it. Sorry for the essay, but I think you have an interesting point here that deserves more than the knee jerk responses you’ve gotten so far.