Salary and remuneration for office assistants:

Depending on various factors like years of experience, geographical location the salary of office assistants differs according to rules and regulations of each state.

• The median average annual income of office assistants is between $27,780 and $64,330 and an hourly wage of $20.03 per annum.

• The starting salary of office assistants who less than one year of experience is between $20,304 and $27,504 per annum

• Office assistants who have   more than one year of experience earned an average salary of $23,344 and $33,343 per annum.

• Office assistants with more than five years of experience up to nine years earned between $25,593 and $35,197 per annum.

• The income of office assistants who are with ten to nineteen years of experience earn between $24,551 and $36,342 per annum.

• Office assistants with more than twenty years of experience will get an average income of $26,446 and $37,055 per annum.

The type of employer they work also plays an important role in determining salaries as it mostly depends on the company size and the industry type.

Salaries according to different employer

• Office assistants working for colleges, universities, and professional schools earn the highest salary of $43,090 per annum.

• Office assistants working for postal services earn an average income of $63,880 per annum.

• Office assistants working for computer and peripheral equipment industry earn an average income of $57,870 per annum.

• Office assistants working for securities and commodities exchanges earn an average income of $56,730 per annum.

• Office assistants working for tobacco manufacturing earn an average income of $56,220 per annum.

Salaries according to different states in United States:

• Office assistants working in New Jersey can earn an average income of $53,950 per annum.

• Office assistants working in New York can earn an average income of$51,890 per annum.

• Office assistants working in Maryland can earn an average income of $50,330 per annum.

• Office assistants working in California can earn an average income of$55,870 per annum.

Skills needed for office assistants:

Office assistants work in background to ensure that office functions better and runs smoothly.

They help all the employees in the office with their required supplies and helps officers in noting the important matter which they need to give presentations, they prepare reports and perform many other duties.

To perform all these they need to be skilled in different ways.

The essential skills that are important for office assistants are as follows:

• Interpersonal skills: interpersonal skills are very important for office assistant as they need to interact with different kind of people in their daily life.

• Interpersonal skills are also known as people skills which involve active listening and speaking.

• These office assistants will have to report to more than one official daily and each of them have separate goals.

• They should be able to work with all their supervisors to ensure desired tasks are accomplished.

• Time management skills: they must be able to perform all their daily tasks on time as they will have long list of tasks to be carried out in their daily activities.

• They must prioritize their time at work.

• And work according to the importance of the work.

• Understanding of office equipment: They need to have thorough knowledge of all the office equipment like fax machines and copy machines which are very important for office use in their daily activities.

• They are also expected to know about operating phone system with multiple lines and also must understand operating of machines and fixing them.

• Computer skills: As most of the offices in today’s world work only with computers having computer knowledge has become very important.

• In addition to sending emails and doing internet research work they should also be able to scan documents into the scanner and create spreadsheets and even should be able to teach computer basics to other employees in the office.

• Writing skills: Office assistants need to have excellent writing skills as they help supervisors in writing documents.

• They need to proofread for literal errors and grammar issues while dictating by the supervisor and must also know how to compose business letters.

Certifications for office assistants:

Certifications and licenses differ from one state to another seeking to become financial analysts.

• The international association of Administrative professionals offers two main certifications for those looking to become office assistants namely CPS the Certified Professional secretary and the CAP which is Certified Administrative professional.

• These certifications are designed to make assistants look more qualified and increase their knowledge.

• The other certification which office assistants can get are National Association of Legal Secretaries (NALS) , International Virtual Assistants Association (IVAA) and the IAAP which is an acronym for International Association of Administrative professionals

• Candidates need to recertify their certifications for CAP and CPS for every five years.

• For getting recertified they need to earn ninety points in education, leadership, experience and the electives for the recertification according to IAAP.

• Different courses can be taken like real estate courses, stress management etc…

Educational requirements of office assistants:

Office assistant is an entry level position which provides clerical and basic administrative support in an business or office.

Being in an office assistant position is a good way to learn and gain office experience and can grow up in the career and professional world.

• The basic qualification required for office assistant is a high school degree. This is an entry level position so having basic office skills will fetch them good jobs.

• They can get trained in these office skills from high school vocational education programs and typing to one year and two years programs in office administration which are also required for this job and this is offered by business and technical schools as well as community colleges.

• There are many temporary placement agencies which provide formal training in office and computer skills.

• Those looking to become medical and legal assistant will have to go through specialized training program which teach them the language of the industry.

• For office assistants there are many virtual training programs in transcription, website designing, project management, book keeping, and computer technology which are available at community college, coaching programs and also available through online .

• Office assistants need to develop advanced skills while on-the-job by other employees or by the equipment in the office and by software vendors.

• While few office assistants may attend classes or attend online education and learn how to operate new office technologies like scanning of reports, information storage systems, and new updated software packages.

• Office assistants are also expected to be proficient in good at spelling and typing, grammar, punctuation, and have good oral communication.

• As most of the employers will look for the candidates who are good at customer service, and have good interpersonal skills as they need to deal different kinds of people in their daily office life.

• While on the job they are expected to have good judgment, discretion, management or organizational ability, being initiative, along with able to work independently which are considered very important for being a higher level office assistant.

Duties and responsibilities of office assistants

Office assistants provide background support by helping employees in the organization to run smoothly office assistants are also called as office clerks, clerical support and those assistants who provide support in medical settings are called as medical office assistants.

They need to perform various responsibilities and duties in their daily life they need to be skillful to perform all these activities.

They are also expected to proficient knowledge in office equipment.

• They main responsibility is to provide background support so they need to answer to the phone calls, take messages and they need to send calls to voice mails which were received.
• They need to type documents for the office use and run a short trip that is taken in the performance of a necessary task and deliver the mails within the office to all the other officials.
• They are responsible to picking up lunch for the meetings and also supervisors.
• They are responsible for taking the notes at the meetings and assist officers in putting together all the noted materials for presentations.
• They need to check the office break rooms before starting of the meetings with all the supplies like coffee and water etc…
• They are also expected to have knowledge in documenting imaging and scanning software and hardware as well as get experienced with the electronic copies of documents.
• They play an important role in recording and data management in the offices.
• They will also have to work with Microsoft Office spreadsheets, office filing systems and computers so they are expected to have working knowledge in these.
• They are responsible for entering of data for preparing reports.
• They need to extract data when it is necessary and need to maintain databases for regulations.
• They need to file all the documents and shred all the confidential papers carefully.
• They are responsible for verifying the statistical reports for the quality and completeness.
• They need to handle and adjust customer complaints.
• They are responsible for working with marketers and make any travel arrangements for the officers.
• They need to politely answer questions on departmental services and functions and also help them in preparing invoices or any budgetary requests.
• They need to maintain and upgrade, develop data collection system of the company to satisfy the required standards.

Who is office assistant what is their job?

Office assistant is a person who mainly supports managers and other staff members in an organization’s workplace. They execute many daily activities and different tasks which requires good organizational and communication skills. They provide assistance for the management to carry out important duties of the company. Office assistant are majorly found in schools, nonprofit businesses, medical offices, law offices and government offices. Their work mainly concentrates on administration they even perform supervisory tasks. They even perform some of important office work like typing, transcription, dictation etc…

The main functions of office assistant could be to provide clerical assistance to managers and other members in the organization along with organizing and ordering files, ordering for office supplies, scanning the important documents handling mails to respective officials, arranging travel for officials moving on office work, they manage appointments and write reports. They even communicate important messages like printed memos, press releases, and letters to the staff members, clients, and also businesses. Office assistants are almost found in every industry like hospitals, schools, government agencies, and corporations, legal and medical offices. They are expected to have proficiency in special areas like typing, cashiering, and information services. They are the main people to run office smoothly without any hurdles. Some office assistants may perform business related duties while others do entry level clerical works it mainly depends on the nature of the business the office assistant’s work. Most of the office assistants spend their time either sitting in front of the computer or standing for filings or taking photocopies. They should be able to lift more than twenty five lbs. for delivering and mail packages, and may also have to move office supplies, carry heavy files or boxes of paper.