The best relationships have a solid foundation of trust. In a new relationship with your Executive Assistant, you can establish trust early through the work you assign.
We’ve outlined five internal-facing assignments that help your EA learn you and your business, which not only gets work off your plate, but teaches your EA how to perform according to your standards.
The more consistently your EA performs with internal assignments, the more you will trust them with client-facing work. As a bonus, working through these five assignments will transfer a lot of information from your head to your EA.
- Draft Brand Guidelines
A brand guide or style guide is a handbook of how your organization presents itself to the world through advertising, communication, and team culture.
It defines how you want to be known to your audience from the language you use in an email, to the font on your website. A well done brand guide clearly communicates these expectations to your team so that everyone is on the same page.
If you do not yet have a brand guide drafted, invite your EA to put one together. This is a great opportunity for your EA to learn the ins and outs of your organization, and makes them more likely to uphold your standards.
If you already have a brand guide in place, invite your EA to review it or make updates you may not have yet implemented.
- Document SOPs
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) outline how team members should carry out internal outcomes or operations. SOPs help promote unified performance and quality work output.
As the leader, you may have many SOPs in your head, rather than documented on paper or video. To transfer SOPs from your knowledge to your EA, record yourself doing a repeatable task in Loom video, or another screen recording software.
Give the video to your EA, who can then use that video to draft a written SOP. Be sure to review the SOP they put together, and then invite them to perform that outcome going forward.
- Setup a Project Management System
Project management keeps outcomes and tasks from falling through the cracks, and organizes internal communication. Some of our favorite project management tools include Asana, Trello and Monday.
Have your EA set up project management to familiarize them with your current programs and assignments. It will also introduce them to key players on your team and help them learn timelines for long- and short-term goals.
A successful EA helps protect your time and focus. Project management is another way to increase accountability in that area.
Bonus idea: After your EA has set up project management, break up your 30-day, 90-day and 6-month projects into tasks that ONLY you (as the Leader) can do, versus those your EA or team can perform.
- Organize Your Google Drive
Managing a remote team means most of your work is stored in the cloud — at least it should be! But just like physical files can get disorganized, so can your Google Drive folders.
You should have a system in Google Drive to find documents easily. Your EA can help you make that happen.
Organizing your Google Drive is one of our favorite start-up tasks because it helps your EA learn how you think and how you like information organized. It also gives your EA ownership over the organization system, and ensures consistency moving forward.
- Repurpose Content
You’re most likely advertising and producing content for social media, but coming up with new, creative ideas is a drain on your time as a Leader.
Rather than reinventing the wheel with every post, ask your EA to repurpose content.
Content repurposing is an efficient way to convert existing content, like a podcast, into a blog post or series of social media posts.
This assignment familiarizes your EA with your existing content bank, and teaches them how you communicate with your audience. This is also a great opportunity for them to reference the Brand Guide they drafted!
After completing these five kick-off assignments, your EA is on track to deliver according to your expectations and hopefully, has laid a firm foundation of trust for your relationship.
If you’re interested in learning about what an Executive Assistant can do for your business, schedule a strategy call with us.
Our virtual team experts will help you determine how your business can benefit from our Priority Executive Assistants.
