Why not including your executive assistant in talent mapping is a missed opportunity

Talent mapping and succession planning is one of THE most important activities an organisation can undertake to ensure the health of an organisation.  

If you don’t have the right people doing the critical work, you don’t have an organisation that will thrive. Things unravel pretty quickly when there are gaps in talent and vacant roles.

That’s why I always found it astonishing that only very rarely are executive assistants included in the process.

Throughout my entire career I agitated for this and only once was I able to shift it to have my role, as an EA to a CEO, included in the process.

It’s an enormous missed opportunity to not include the assistant cohort that support leaders in succession planning and this is why:

When an assistant leaves an organisation, just as with any other valuable employee, corporate knowledge and history leaves with them. 

This in itself is disruptive as folks need to scratch for the information they need to be efficient or resolve historical issues.

Much of the support an exceptional assistant provides is beyond the scope of the PD, and much of it is unsaid and soft-skill related. Reading the play or the energy of a room, knowing when to challenge, who and how to influence for better outcomes. This knowledge is personal and often difficult to impart in a handover. 

Securing the right talent for a role takes time, usually beyond the standard 4 week notice period.

In that time, generally, another EA is covering the vacant role.

They can only scratch the surface of the support required to keep a leader out of the weeds and focused on what matters most because they are now beyond capacity.

The leader finds themselves in a reactivity cycle and taking care of work that isn’t high value ROI for them just so they can stay afloat.

A vacancy with an EA role isn’t just disruptive for the leader, but also for the broader organisation.

When a leader isn’t efficient, productive and has space to focus on their strategic priorities, their team also begins to fall behind. Bottlenecks appear. Peak pressure periods become harder to manage. 

When the new talent finally is secured, there’s a settling period and many hands are involved in the re-training process.

It takes about 9 months for an assistant to settle fully into a role. At 12 months they’re able to hit their stride and begin to make a difference.

This level of disruption can be avoided in many circumstances by viewing EAs as talent and not resources, ensuring there is a career runway internally and that talent is nurtured. 

Many EAs have the capability, transferrable skills and potential to move into roles outside administration.   Thinking laterally about the strengths, unique perspective and knowledge an assistant has opens up entirely new talent pool for organisations to tap into.

When you consider this, the benefits of including EAs and other key administration roles are very clear.

Share this insight with your Talent team to spark a conversation that could shift the culture of your organisation to be inclusive of all professions.

If your organisation needs support in this space it is something I can support through my consulting services.

If you’re an EA who wants to stand out as talent and not a resource and feel empowered to have important conversations like this, The Elite EA Academy can support you.