As part of our refreshed Learning and Development offer, administrative support staff can now access a range of Administrative Skills, structured around the two strands of Fundamental and Advanced courses.

Designed to ensure staff are empowered to complete their job effectively, these flexible programmes are made up of a series of half-day sessions including topics aimed at developing practical skills relevant to the role such as customer service, note taking and supporting meetings. They also offer skills development around PA Skills, contributing in meetings and providing feedback to others.

This flexible range of learning courses is designed for staff in clerical and administrative support roles and will be offered two-three times each year. Discuss your learning priorities, and agree with your line manager, the most appropriate sessions to support you in your role and to meet your development needs.

You can view the current schedule of courses below and register to attend via iTrent Self-Service

Course Schedule: Administrative Fundamentals

• Delivering Customer Service

  Ensuring customer satisfaction and delivering high-quality customer service loyalty is critical to an organisation’s success. Understanding the concept of ‘customer’ in the Queen’s context, and different customer expectations builds engagement and trust. This helps staff deliver consistent yet personalised customer focus within their role and department in Queen’s. In turn this may prevent the escalation of issues and complaints. In this workshop you will consider the competencies and skills to deal with customers effectively. This workshop introduces a simple model to understand customer demands, needs and expectations. It reviews customer communication, standards and responsibilities. It focuses on the individual’s customer care skills within the Queen’s University context.

  Date: To be confirmed

  Time: To be confirmed

• Effective Note Taking

  Note taking is an important skill for Administrative support staff to improve as part of their overall ‘communication toolkit’. From simple jottings to short hand and digital notes, there are lots of resources and methods to choose from. Meetings require anything from a formal precise record, key points or a table of actions. Regardless of the mechanism, the notes taken are relied upon as a record of communication, commitments and understanding and can help to produce effective and consistent minutes when required. This workshop reviews the needs and circumstances of notetaking. It is linked to minute writing with a focus on the art of taking notes. It can also apply to attending a lecture, meeting, learning event or taking an important and detailed phone call; but the focus here is the taking notes in a meeting. Effective Minute Writing is a related but separate workshop.

  Date: To be confirmed

  Time: To be confirmed

• Supporting Meetings

  Meetings are an ever-present part of working life. Today’s fast-paced work environment means meetings can be expensive and time consuming, so they must run efficiently with maximum use of the resources involved. This workshop focuses on the often unseen, undervalued but critical task of supporting meetings. This includes the logistics, planning and communication for the colleagues who chair and participate in meetings. This workshop develops a core checklist for the efficient running of meetings. It equips support staff in the task of planning and organizing groups of people: internal, external and at different levels to achieve meeting objectives.

  Date: To be confirmed

  Time: To be confirmed

• Effective Minute Writing

  Minutes are a formal record of meetings. This is part of the ongoing record of discussions, agreements and actions to support meetings, committees and also the related work streams, follow-up communication and team working to achieve specific goals and outputs. People often attend and leave meetings with their own perspectives and misunderstandings can occur. Effective minutes maintain consistency and shared, agreed outcomes. This workshop presumes that participants have a proficiency in taking notes during a meeting and have working samples of their own notes. The session helps delegates to transform their notes into minutes for different types of meetings. Effective Note Taking is a related, but separated course.

  Date: To be confirmed

  Time: To be confirmed

• Personal Skills Development

  This workshop focuses on the individual and their management of their own development. It empowers the person to self-assess their competencies, qualities, well-being and aspirations. Working in a support function, at times in a reactive capacity can challenge a people’s sense of control over their work skills and development. This programme supports their control and influence over their own development and career, where possible This workshop allows delegates the time to review their own skills, competencies and qualities. It provides a framework for maximizing their potential and developing themselves.

  Date: To be confirmed

  Time: To be confirmed

  Course Schedule: Advanced Administrative Skills

  • Developing Others

    Today’s fast-paced environment demands a ‘continuous improvement’ ethos in almost everything we do. Developing ourselves and others to keep abreast of changing demands makes for a vibrant and rewarding environment. Supporting development in colleagues for whom you have responsibility, or sharing your experience with others, at the right pace and in the right way is important to meet current and future professional requirements. This workshop supports those who have responsibility to develop others. It helps delegates; review their own approach to learning and development; consider how people develop differently; supports their ability to adapt their approach and to develop others. Delegates develop their own skills as they support the development of others.

    Date: To be confirmed

    Time: To be confirmed

  • Communicate with Confidence

    Advanced communication for administrative roles such as contributing in meetings and presentations can be challenging for some people. Making your contributions as effective as they can be, making your voice, ideas and viewpoint heard can feel difficult to achieve. These communication methods rely on advanced skills to get the right balance and achieve your desired outcomes. This workshop aims to enhance participants’ commitment, confidence and competence to contributing effectively to meetings. It looks at what happens when people don’t contribute and over contribute. It supports individuals to understand the value they can bring to the situation and develops their skills to do so.

    Date: To be confirmed

    Time: To be confirmed

  • Delivering Effective Feedback

    Delivering effective feedback can be daunting and often put off or avoided. Self-awareness is an elusive commodity. Without feedback, two options prevail: self-doubt or assumption of effectiveness. Effective feedback supports others by affirming and building confidence in some cases and paths for improvement in others. This workshop highlights the risks and benefits of feedback and supports delegates to minimize the risks while maximizing the benefits. It builds their confidence to prepare, deliver and evaluate their feedback and develop best practice.

    Date: To be confirmed

    Time: To be confirmed

  • Supervision Skills

    Committed and professional employees doing the right things contributes to departmental and organisational success. Even with the most efficient and conscientious administrative staff, organisations depend on line managers and supervisors with responsibility for others to prioritise and support work flow. This workshop secures delegates’ ability to supervise others’ work, approach and development. It provides an overview of the core competencies required for effective supervision in administrative roles. Delegates will consider their remit and develop a consistent approach to clear supervision.

    Date: To be confirmed

    Time: To be confirmed

  • PA Skills 1 - Organising and Planning

    The challenging role of a PA (‘personal assistant’) carries much responsibility. The logistics, planning and organisation behind every key role within an organisation supports their success. This important support function, allows senior managers and their departments, colleagues and teams to focus and deliver on the important issues. For all aspects of PA and senior administration roles to run smoothly, those with PA responsibility can benefit from specific development and support. This workshop (1 of 2) focuses on the planning and organising role of the PA and the interaction with the people they support. Delegates will develop their own approaches, skills and techniques to organisation and planning. Reviewing their personal approach and understanding alternatives is a foundation. Developing frameworks that can adjust to the requirements of the different roles they may support will be covered.

    Date: To be confirmed

    Time: To be confirmed

  • PA Skills 2 - Effective Writing and Meeting Support

    The second workshop focuses on the written and meeting support the PA (‘personal assistant’) offers. The PA supports the written communication of others by securing the accuracy, brevity and clarity of meetings and written communication. Often, this communication can be on topics outside the PA’s own expertise, requiring skills, efficiencies and best-practice approaches. This workshop (2 of 2) develops the PA’s ability to support effective meetings and provide high quality written output in other forms. It sets the core principles of coordinating effective and efficient meetings. It builds the delegates confidence in compilation of professional reports/documents and to support clear communication within their remit.

    Date: To be confirmed

    Time: To be confirmed