Master Class for Executive Secretaries and PA’s 2025

Marjon Meyer

At the end of this module delegates should be able to: • Know the definition of communication • Explain how to identify the needs, wants and expectations of others • Be aware of the barriers to communication • Know what to do to improve their ability to communicate and to “read” people • Explain the importance of listening • How listening help solve interpersonal problems • Deal with emotions in an adult manner • Understanding when and how to use your influencing skills to effectively support your role • Realising that everyone has the ability to have influence and impact • Understanding the fundamental difference between personal influence and authority • Using your knowledge to apply the correct and most appropriate communication skills in every situation

Marjon Meyer

At the end of this module, delegates should be able to: • Identify the importance of good interpersonal relationships in business • Apply the concept of social styles to achieve a deeper understanding of where they and these people have a style match or a style mismatch • Assess their communication style in order to understand their interaction style • Review ways of becoming more versatile and “shifting style” with people to achieve harmonious working relationships • Link social styles to a better understanding of team members reactions to pressures • Analyse your team: its level of integration, role allocation and synergy • Check your own and your team’s degree of adult positioning • Outline an overall strategy for solving problems with teams and managers • Define the concept of courtesy • Differentiate between truly courteous and discourteous people • Define a “culture of courtesy” in an organisation and rate your own organisation against these criteria • Discuss the role of systems in courtesy and review your systems • Describe the difference between child behaviour, parent behaviour and adult behaviour in the business world (transactional analysis) • Link adult positioning to interpersonal relationships • Review their own professionalism • Formulate personal and career objectives varying from short term to long term

Marjon Meyer

At the end of this module, delegates should be able to: • Review the role of social media in the public relations arena • List the major tools of public relations in social media • Review their own role in public relations and promoting the organisation • Understand the importance of the “clean” social media in public relations • Know how to avoid embarrassing incidents through well-defined customer processes • Create social media policies that will avoid misunderstandings about protocol • Learning from others’ mistakes • How to handle international protocol • The role of protocol officers • Build a strong relationship with media by understanding their role in your organisational messaging. • Learn how to manage a crisis with social media • Learn about pro-active messaging and communications

Marjon Meyer

At the end of this module delegates should be able to: • Understand your manager is your most important customer • Deal with emotions in an adult manner • List steps to improve interpersonal relationships in teams • Explain how to identify the needs, wants and expectations of team members • Be aware of the barriers to communication • Know what to do to improve their ability to communicate and to “read” people • Understand courteous communication in their teams • Explain the principles of etiquette and courtesy in business • Review their own role in the team

Marjon Meyer

It is important to understand the vision of the organisation and the role of your Executive’s Office as a front to internal and external stakeholders • Obtaining specific instructions • Filing manually and electronically • Digital dictation • Taking initiative • Taking responsibility • Organising Controlling and ensuring that events occur in conformity with plans • Welcoming important guests • Identifying important non-verbal gestures • Representing your superiors

Marjon Meyer

At the end of this module delegates should be able to: • Describe organising as a core responsibility of office administrators • Super-efficient planning and organising techniques to keep on top of everything • Describe how to prioritise when they are over-burdened with work • Perform a “time robber” analysis • Determine their procrastination quotient • List ways of dealing with interruptions • Describe how saving a few minutes can save a lot time and effort • Identify and review the basic systems affecting their roles in their organisation, assessing them for effectiveness and efficiency • Highlight some of the consequences for their department if information is not managed properly • Understand the importance of dealing with confidential documents and issues • Review their paper processing systems to encourage paper-free offices • Describe the importance of optimising technology e.g. internet and e-mail • Describe the importance of maintaining a diary and to follow up on their plans • Understand how a tidy office is a sign of an organised office administrator

Marjon Meyer

Meetings and minutes made easy • Identify the objectives of meetings • List and describe different types of meetings • List the duties of a Meeting Secretary, the Chairman and other meeting officials • Outline basic meeting procedure • Explain the objectives of giving notice of a meeting, write such a notice and outline guidelines for distributing notices of meetings • Explain the objectives of an agenda, write a skeleton agenda and give guidelines for compiling and distributing effective agendas • Understand the protocol with motions, amendments, voting etc. • Describe various types of minutes and give guidelines for effective minute taking • Look at good and poor examples of minutes • Understand the correct format and procedure of minute taking • Learn how to effectively take notes using short methods • Understand how to formulate abbreviations and speedwriting • Understand that minute taking starts even before the meeting starts • Improve listening skills that will ensure better note taking • Understand the method of taking minutes effectively without writing down each word (except when required) • Learn how to summarise and note only important details down • Perform numerous practical exercises in note taking • Explain the meaning of core standard meetings terminology

Marjon Meyer

Maintaining Service Excellence After attending this module delegates will be able to: • Understand the importance of follow-up on customer queries and complaints • Recognise best practices and useful tools in providing superior customer service • Maintain courtesy throughout customer contact • Keeping responsibility and ownership of the telephone call • Recognise the warning signs of potentially confrontational situations • Demonstrate how to deal with difficult customers • Understand the importance of being solution orientated • Understand the importance of telephone communication in the modern society • Demonstrate how to take an incoming call at the front line or on an extension • Explain best practices in telephone communication and etiquette • Describe how to deal with both incoming and outbound calls and how to take messages • List guidelines for good telephone use and telephone etiquette • Keeping responsibility and ownership of the telephone call • Recognise the warning signs of potentially confrontational situations • Demonstrate how to deal with difficult customers • Understand the importance of being solution orientated • Understand the importance of telephone communication in the modern society • Explain best practices in telephone communication • Describe how to deal with both incoming and outbound calls and how to take messages • List guidelines for good telephone use and telephone etiquette

Marjon Meyer

Essential Business Communication Skills • Professional verbal communication • Understanding how your speaking manner makes a difference • Body language in the business world • Non-verbal communication: Making sure your body language is conveying the message you want when dealing with important people • Written correspondence and netiquette • E-mail etiquette – what’s hot and what’s not • Utilising professional business writing techniques when writing emails, letters and faxes • Learn how to decide and organize media pooling or open access

Marjon Meyer

Building Relationships and Managing Conflict • Discover the tools world-class leaders use to solve problems with critical thinking. • Understand the communication principles of the Johari window • Influence others to take decisive action for excellent results: • Managing Difficult People • Understanding Guest Expectations • Persuasion Techniques • Recovering from Mistakes • Introduce the foundation of world-class excellence • Demonstrate how to persuade/influence others • Differentiate between knowing about your guests and truly understanding them • Learn how to deal effectively with difficult people • Apply strategic problem solving and critical thinking • Understand effective service recovery