Leah Warwick: Hi everyone, I’m Leah Warwick, and you’re listening to The Admin Edge. As a precursor of what you’ll hear this season, and what we’ve been hearing from admins and organizations about how this profession is changing and how strategic impact matters more than ever, we’re excited to share what ASAP has been working on with our research and our new credential, the Strategic Executive Administrator Certification, or SEAC for short.

If that piques your interest, here’s me and ASAP training advisor Reji Johnson from the show floor at EA Ignite.

Hi, I’m Leah Warwick, senior content manager for the American Society of Administrative Professionals, and my guest today is Reji Johnson, training advisor for ASAP, here to chat with me today about our latest state of the profession research and our newest certification.

Welcome to the podcast, Reji.

Reji Johnson: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Leah Warwick: It’s been a long time coming, Reji. I’m so glad you’re on the podcast. This is a very proud moment, so thank you for being here.

Okay. So here at ASAP, our programming is built on the ASAP career stages framework, as you know.

For those listening, it’s a continuum of career progression for administrative professionals from assisting to supporting to partnering to leading, and in our latest survey, we found nearly 40% of admins report zero Partnering or Leading stage responsibilities.

So Reji, when you look at that finding, what does it tell you about where the real gap actually lives, considering the demand for more strategic partnership and leadership training, like here at EA Ignite?

Reji Johnson: I think it’s more of a role design problem. I think when you look at it, what you’re really looking at, if I had to characterize it in one word, would be underutilization-

I’m reminded of a story when I was a kid, growing up in Augusta, Georgia, and my grandmother, she bought me this little red rocking chair, and in the rocking chair, I would sit, I would eat, I would watch television, and then one day, I outgrew the rocking chair. And my grandmother looked at me and she said, “Baby, it’s not you, it’s the rocking chair.”

And oftentimes what I do is I look at the design, I look at the administrative professionals as outpacing actually the design that was made for them. And so when that happens, you have to look at how can we then better create a better design because they’re there to do the work. They’re excited to do the work.70% of the administrative professionals have 10 or more years of experience. Even here from a strategic perspective, I have admins that will come up and say, “I’m doing the work. I’m doing the strategic work. I’m just trying to make sure that my executive is understanding that.”

What are they actually doing? And when you look at the metrics specifically, yeah, there are three areas, three primary areas There’s a big gap, data visualization being the largest. And I think behind that is risk mitigation, then corporate governance behind that. The interesting thing about that is the executives, 61% of them say that’s most important to them. It’s the bottom line outcomes. And so once we can address that, that reset, then we’re gonna be on the road to success.

Leah Warwick: It’s not surprising to me at all that executives value data visualization because that is a way for them to make better informed business decisions, and if the EA or administrative professional can provide them with that  then the executive can make better decisions to drive the business forward. So I can totally see why that’s a value of theirs, and we have a session on it at this event, EA Ignite, and it’s in our certifications. Like, we can help train you on those things.

We often see these, uh, wonderful EAs and administrative professionals coming to our events, coming to our online community, and they are asking for these things.

So my hope is that an executive or an HR leader or someone at an organization who is not an admin might be listening to this episode because maybe some of what we’re saying is a surprise to you.

Reji Johnson: Yeah. I’m just happy that, in this latest survey, that the organizational leaders have been included in it.

And so now I’m hoping that more of them will pay attention, more of them will focus on it, and there can be a bridge in the gaps that are existing there.

Leah Warwick: Yes. That was really key. This year we invited executives and HR leaders to participate in our study so they can have the full picture, right?

Reji Johnson: Absolutely. Yeah, I think language is so important. Uh, I think we were talking about this as well. It’s not only talking about what it is that you do, but it’s enable: talking about how you enable things. So not just what you do, but what you enable. And once you start talking about how you enable the business, then you’re really on the track to being seen more, heard more, and being a valuable asset to the organization.

Leah Warwick: I completely agree, Reji. That is on target.

And as many listeners may already know, ASAP offers PACE. So our certification that is a widely known credential in the industry, it’s called the Professional Administrative Certification of Excellence. It provides a very strong foundation for any administrative professional.

Although, through our research over the years, including State of the Profession, we did see a need to add another certification that is specifically targeted to those partnering and leading EAs. So senior EAs, executive business partners, managers of executive administration, and so on. And so that’s why, as a natural next step, we are offering the Strategic Executive Administrator Certification, SEAC for short, uh, which by the time you’re listening to this will already be available.

So Reji, let’s talk about it. For someone who already has their PACE or doesn’t know which certification to go for first- Yeah … which advice would you give to help them choose?

Reji Johnson: I’m always going to fall back on the career stages framework And in fact, we were actually having this conversation in one of the roundtable discussions in the brain dates yesterday.

And I said, “If you walk out of here and you don’t remember anything else, remember the career stages framework.” Then identify where you are there. I always have believed that you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you are and understanding where you are. So in, within that spectrum, identify if you are doing the foundational work.

And if you’re spending most of your time doing the foundational work or you’re still new to the profession and doing the foundational work, maybe in assisting or the, uh, supporting stages, perhaps PACE is going to be best for you. And PACE covers four areas: interpersonal communication, task and project management, uh, IT, which is gonna be networking management skills, computer skills, and then business management skills.

But to go back to the second question that you had asked of me, and we were talking about those gaps, the skills gaps, and then we were talking about being able to address those or bridge those, that’s where really SEAC is going to step in. It’s gonna be able to speak to, uh, risk mitigation, data visualization, those types of things. AI still, because it’s gonna go across both PACE and, and SEAC.

One person I was talking to was actually in PACE already. As I was kinda giving her a preview of what SEAC was about, she already saw herself in that position. And so she’s going through her PACE certification, and then she’s going to go and, uh, take, uh, the SEAC certification once it becomes available. The other person I was speaking with, uh, she was brand new to it, and she wanted to know, but she had done 10 years of work.

She had done 10 years of work. None of it was strategic, and she had come to a new company, and h- and for the last year and a half, she’s been doing strategic work. So she’s really at the cusp of perhaps going over into SEAC without having, having ever done PACE. So there’s gonna be a broad spectrum, but I go back to what I started off saying, and that’s this: understand where you are in the spectrum, and if you are in s- assisting or supporting or partnering or, or leading, identify where you are and then determine where you go.

Focus on your role and not the certification. I would end by saying this: PACE basically says, “I know the profession.” SEAC says, “I work at the highest levels of the profession.”

Leah Warwick: Reggie, that’s such a great way to put it. For that next level, I will say SEAC is, SEAC is advanced. SEAC goes really in depth. It’s, it’s extremely robust.

PACE is robust as well. But SEAC really gets into the nitty-gritty, uh, of some of these more strategic partnership responsibilities and skill sets.

Where can our listeners find you online and learn more about all these things?

Reji Johnson: Sure. So, uh, you can find me at asaporg.com under Teams. You’ll see me there. You can reach out to me via email at rjohnson@divcom, that’s D-I-V-C-O-M, .com. And you can also find me on LinkedIn. I’m there under Reginald, R-E-J-I, Johnson.

I write articles as it relates to the administrative profession. Uh, I come from a tech background, so you’ll find a lot there as far as AI is concerned. But yeah, connect with me there.

I’d love to be able to, uh, connect with a lot of people.

Leah Warwick: Thank you for listening to “The Admin Edge,” produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals.

Original music and audio editing by Warwick Productions, with audio and video production by Five Tool Productions. If you like this podcast, please leave us a nice review, five stars, and subscribe. If you’d like to submit a listener question, you may do so on our website at asaporg.com/podcast.