Leah Warwick: Hi, everyone. I’m Leah Warwick, and you’re listening to The Admin Edge. Today’s guest, Angela Cheng-Cimini, came to us through one of our training partners, Concetta Green. They met when Angela was a CHRO and Concetta Chief of Staff at Harvard Business Publishing, where they partnered on career progression pathways for executive assistants, and they brought this discussion to the stage at EA Ignite.

We were delighted that Angela had some time to speak with us there, and you can hear a bit of our conversation right now

Hi, I’m Leah Warwick, senior content manager for the American Society of Administrative Professionals, and my guest today is Angela Cheng-Cimini, chief HR officer at the Chronicle of Philanthropy and speaker on the power of EA and HR partnership at this event, EA Ignite. Welcome to the podcast, Angela.

Angela Cheng-Cimini: Thank you so much for having me, Leah. I’m so happy to have you here with us, and I cannot wait to discuss this topic with you, which is about what HR thinks about your role. And when I say your role, I am talking to you, EAs and administrative professionals listening. So Angela, as a CHRO, you’ve worked with administrative professionals such as executive assistants.

Leah Warwick: What do senior leaders in HR and beyond HR genuinely think about the admin role versus what admins might assume?

Angela Cheng-Cimini: Versus what they might assume. Well, uh, uh, let me talk about where I do think that there is overlap, which is I think really progressive HR functions recognize how strategically and critically important the EA function is.

For everybody else, it’s not even on their radar.

We don’t… You don’t do enough self-promotion.

Leah Warwick: It can be hard. It can be, uh, a challenge. But we know that folks in other roles do it, and I’m curious what you think about with the HR role, talking more about the similarities, is this sometimes a challenge for folks in HR as well?

Angela Cheng-Cimini: So I’m so happy to be at this conference, because there are actually so many similarities between the HR function and the EA function.

Mm. We’re often seen as administrative, overhead, quote, support functions, and I’m actually really trying to change that language to be enabling.

Wow. We are predominantly women, all the way up to C-suite, so that comes with its own set of baggage. Um, and we often, as you say, don’t adopt a posture that’s assertive enough.

Hmm. Yes, and I think for… I’ll speak as a woman myself, in my experience, um, there is a bit of societal conditioning or expectation, uh, to always be agreeable and to not be assertive, and I think that does harm women in the workplace in a lot of ways, and I think that creates a, a frustration of, “Why aren’t people seeing my value, and, and why can’t they see everything that I’m doing?”

Leah Warwick: What, in your view, does HR sometimes get wrong about the admin role, um, when it comes to career pathing or compensation?

Angela Cheng-Cimini: Oh, uh, it’s generally not built into our talent frameworks. Mm. Right? It, it is marginalized. It’s an afterthought at best.

You’re so right. We hear this all the time. EAs especially, but also other administrative roles, they don’t have a career path built in at their company.

Leah Warwick: Uh, they don’t have a way for them to show, “I’m getting to the next place,” even if it’s not, even if it’s not necessarily a promotion. Another question I have for you is how can admins use their HR knowledge to advocate for themselves more effectively?

Angela Cheng-Cimini: Use their HR knowledge. Well, my HR knowledge is the business knowledge.

Mm. I just simply see it through the lens of people.

And then how, how are you enabling, supporting, leading them to do that work? So again, very similar functions in that way. So I w- I wish that we could be more demanding to say, “I need to understand the business.”

Mm. “Spend 20 minutes with me. Give me the strategic plan, and then it will be on me to educate myself, ask the right questions, and then build a plan so that I can support it.”

Leah Warwick: That’s exactly right. We get that question a lot. What does it mean to be strategic? And in a very simple sense, it’s do you understand the organization’s strategic goals, their strategic priorities? And then on, on another level, let’s say you support one executive. Do you understand what their strategic priorities are for the business?

Angela Cheng-Cimini: Not just certain things you help them with, like, uh, which is great, like I understand what they want for their calendar. I understand how they like to travel. I understand how they want their expenses done. Like, that’s also very vital, but do you also understand, you know, what’s keeping them up at night?

What, what’s on the roadmap? What’s the rhythm of business? How, how are we all planning around this so then I can look ahead and not just be a problem solver, but a problem preventer-

Absolutely …

for you? And that, that is the key. And sometimes you’re right, it’s because the EA might not have access, or they haven’t asked the questions.

Leah Warwick: They’re not in the leadership meetings. Um, they haven’t looked at those files. They… So it, it really starts with a conversation, I think, with, with your executive of, or your business leaders, of, “Hey, like, can I s- can I see? ‘Cause th- this will h- this will help me to create a system,” let’s say, for the executive office, to understand how can I ladder up what I’m doing to support the business priorities.

Angela Cheng-Cimini: It’s business acumen, which is frankly a bit of a shift for this profession. I don’t think that was necessarily asked of a lot of career EAs before, but I think we’re starting to see, um, work is becoming more decentralized. We are seeing a need in the ecosystem for, um, skills-based progression and just how are we gonna support the business in this new way of working.

And I find the EA-HR partnership to be very crucial to that ”cause we gotta figure it out together, right? And it’s not… It’s, it h- it has to be circular, so if you’re going to ask for access, if you’re going to ask for information, you have to demonstrate that, that you’re going to do something good with it.

Leah Warwick: Exactly. Right? Because then the second time you ask, they’re gonna be like, “Well, I gave it to you last time, and I saw nothing different.”

They wrote: How do I build a real relationship with HR without it feeling transactional or like I only show up when I need something?

Angela Cheng-Cimini: I mean, I, whenever someone approaches me, I take it as an opportunity to build a relationship with them, whether or not the conversation is transactional or whether it’s they’re just looking for a safe place to vent, or they are going through some sort of crisis that needs my professional intervention.

So I, I would encourage you to assume that HR is ready to receive you at any moment. Mm-hmm. Um, and only the bad HR functions, right? Will look for a hidden agenda. But those who are genuinely interested in forging a strong relationship, understanding how they can help, will receive you with open arms and are happy to hear from the people that they support and serve.

So, you know, Concetta and I, we have a special magic.

good morning as you pass them in the hall, or even if you just Slack them and say, “Hey, I’m thinking of you today. Hope all is good,” that’s enough to lay a really stable and solid foundation.

Leah Warwick: I like that, and I like your note about it taking time because you can’t necessarily expect that you’re gonna jump from meeting someone to, like, immediately having a strong relationship. Like, like a friend outside of work, you know, you have to care for it and nurture the relationship and, and learn things about them.

Angela Cheng-Cimini: Maybe you remember, um, how they take their coffee or tea-

Yep …

or how they, um, a, a funny story maybe they told about their pet or a way that you can remember. Um, maybe you remember their birthday. You remember that they have their anniversary coming up. It’s really the little things that actually I think EAs are already really naturally good at.

Leah Warwick: Mm-hmm. I think applying that to HR as well and knowing that, you know, EAs also, it’s a predominantly female profession, um, with a lot of the same struggles that their colleagues in HR are having.

So I think coming at it from that place too of how can we partner together and then what can we do together that we couldn’t necessarily do siloed, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Angela, thank you for joining us on “The Admin Edge.” Where can our listeners find you online?

It was great talking to you.

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