This week, Baseline celebrates National Administrative Professionals Week, recognizing the professionals who keep our offices running smoothly every day. All this week, Baseline celebrates these professionals. While Baseline doesn’t have secretaries, this week recognizes the work of our admin team, which includes a variety of talents: office managers, HR, marketing, business development, accounting, and leadership.
Administrative Fun Fact: According to Time, bureau secretaries could speak multiple languages, take dictation on two separate stories at once by using both hands, and organize shipments for war photographers.
Office Managers/Project Services Coordinator
At Baseline, our office managers and project services coordinator ensure that we have all the tools we need to perform our jobs. She manages and handles our system and server hardwares and software components related to core IT management, support, consultation, resourcing and development of our operating systems, applications, networking and operations, security, network monitoring, email, storage, backup, disaster recovery, database management, data warehousing, Cloud computing, automation, artificial intelligence, and our telephones, and remote work environments, etc. She’s also responsible for selecting our locations, facilitating moves, shopping for insurance, purchasing fleet vehicles and safety equipment, ordering office equipment, furniture, and supplies and, most importantly, out snacks. She also takes care of paying our bills, paying us, and collecting from clients. She performs takeoffs for projects and contributes to proposals too. She also party plans and helps implements our community events and activities. Our office managers and project services coordinator wear many hats and are always willing to pitch in and help. They work tirelessly to make sure things run smoothly. When things run smoothly, we oftentimes forget that these unsung heroes are responsible for keeping our work environments sane, even in the face of craziness. Thank you for making sure that we can all work from our offices, as well as from our homes and for all the tasks you do to make our work lives better!
Human Resources History and Now
Humans have always valued employee performance and development since ancient times. Our Human Resource professionals have been the people that have made this happen throughout history. The more developed our civilization became; the more we worked to create better systems for employee success. In prehistoric times, this consisted of passing down essential knowledge that they had learned to ensure the next generation’s future success. As society became more developed, we developed better resources for employee selection. Employment screening exams have even been found in China dating to 1115 BC. The ancient Greeks and Romans developed the apprenticeship system. Older professionals in an industry would take in and train younger people who wanted to get into that profession. It was a good way for people to get one-on-one training to ensure that the job was done well. This type of system lasted well through the middle ages. Once our global economy started to shift from agriculture to manufacturing, issues with large manufacturing workplaces began to create problems. Factories could be unsafe resulting in injuries, monotonous work environments, and low wages for excessively long working days. Some employers began to realize that employee satisfaction correlated to productivity which was the ultimate goal for most factory owners. World War I was the real shift in the labor market and the need for dedicated human resource professionals. Employees would no longer work if mistreated. More and more companies created personnel departments which handled the grievances, safety, and training. The war also created an increase in demand for HR professionals because the government created initiatives to encourage the best use of people. By 1916, it was compulsory to have a welfare worker in explosive factories and encouraged in munitions factories. World War II further developed this profession as the focus on retirement, selection, and training increased. Soon, HR professionals became the go between for management and the workforce. They were included in union discussions as well as industrial negotiations. As we moved into the 2000s, HR professionals are needed more than ever to help companies to fill a variety of roles to ensure the company runs smoothly and the employees are taken care of including recruitment, hiring, training, benefits, and other functions that assist employees and make our company an employer of choice. Especially in these unprecedented times like our current pandemic, our HR manager has worked tirelessly to keep management and employees up to date on new and changing benefits, open communications as well a new employee newsletter and unique ways to come together (yet separate), and updates on employment trends and options. Baseline is proud to honor and recognize our HR manager this week along with our other administrative professionals!
