Organisation: Public Service Commission
Job Title: Executive Support Officer
Word Limit: 300 words maximum per criterion
Location: Sydney
Please provide an example of when you managed competing demands whilst supporting an Executive/Senior Manager. What was the situation and how did you determine what was a priority
In my tenure with Taylors Estate Agents I am responsible for a variety of projects on behalf of the CEO, including the extra task of rebranding the company. Due to the relaunch of the company brand a new website and office location was scheduled and I was placed in charge of the project in addition to my standard Executive Assistant responsibilities.
I began the task by scheduling a meeting with the CEO to determine the initial priorities of both this project and the duties I performed for the CEO. As a result of this meeting I created a project status spreadsheet to outline the current projects, their progress and projected completion, what was outstanding and what was completed. I recorded various important milestones in the CEO’s diary and continued to have regular weekly meetings to update the CEO and advise on project progress.
The projects I administered for rebranding and website design included arranging and attending meetings and selecting a designer. The meetings were to discuss the company, its vision and future and the concepts involved, including providing feedback on those concepts. I also organised a presentation day to staff to unveil the concept. Locating a website builder and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) specialist, I managed this project including the design team, the website builder and the SEO; researching our competition in the market place, and providing my likes and dislikes on what they presented. In addition, I arranged and coordinated meetings between the designers and web builder, recording actions and chasing up their completion. There were also ancillary projects as part of this such as organising stationery, letterheads, signboards, office signage, business cards and advertising. The result of this massive project is all on target and set to go live in August 2016.
Please provide an example of when you have identified an administrative process that required improvement. What was the process, what were the deficiencies, how or what was your recommendation to address these?
My responsibilities during my position as Executive Assistant to Clinical Services with the Ambulance Service well illustrate my ability to identify improvements in administrative processes and make the required recommendations to ensure improvement.
For example, it was apparent when I started this role that there were in fact no systems in place to ensure the smooth running of the position as the position had been filled by temporary staff for the prior two years. Liaising with the Director, I set about investigating what would be the most efficient systems to be deployed, including training of staff in the new systems. This was accepted and I implemented the new stable systems which are still used to this day.
I also discovered during my tenure there that complaints were not being completed within the specified time frames. Upon further research I found that the staff member was not giving a through hand over of the complaint to new staff, including not checking and addressing emails and voicemails; resulting in a backlog of unaddressed complaints going back six weeks. I then checked the voicemails and called the 43 complainants to establish the current status of the complaint. Only three wished to pursue their complaint so I ensured they were lodged in the Incident Management System (IMS) and then passed them to the appropriate sector for follow up within the correct time frame of 35 days. I then created a spreadsheet to log all complaints received, including time date, details of the complaint etc., who it should be sent to and due date for resolution. I also created a Complaints Management Handover Manual to ensure that all staff members knew how to record and log all complaints. The result was that all complaints were satisfactorily recorded and processed within the 35-day time frame.
