The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Office Support Staff

Posted on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 by The Career GuideNo comments

In normal office life, the habits of highly effective office support staff are easy to spot. They’re embedded in the individual’s character and approach to work. Even when you’re working from home, these habits remain the same. Learning from these highly-successful individuals can help you to excel in your career too. So, whether you do temp work or are on the hunt for a more senior role, cultivate these desirable habits!

  1. Don’t get easily distracted

    Another way of saying this is ‘develop your focus’. It’s easy to get distracted from work. From making a cuppa to your mobile phone, you need to learn to not become distracted. Put your phone in your drawer and refuse to check it until lunch. Ignore the temptation to multi-task, and focus on one thing at a time.

  2. Clarify, clarify, clarify

    Office support workers are no stranger to communication skills.  However, sometimes it’s easy to forget that a large part of communication is being a skilled listener. This means taking the time to clarify instructions before you get stuck into a task. An easy way to do this is to repeat back the task you’ve been given, in your own words. This way, no time will be wasted through inaccuracies or having to do something again.

  3. Be a time management pro

    As the office support staff at our London recruitment agency know, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. The way to manage this, and to thrive within any bustling business, is to manage your time effectively. A great tip is to take a little time each morning to roughly plan how you’ll spend your time that day. Allow a little contingency time for each task. This means that when things don’t quite go to plan, as sometimes happens, you aren’t left frantically trying to catch up.

  4. Be organised

    Office support workers and those doing temp work have to be organised. It’s the only way to stay on top of a long list of tasks. These organisational skills should be evident from a tick-style to-do list that keeps things in order to a tidy desk that would make Marie Kondo jealous.

  5. Take breaks

    With office support work, your role is rarely ‘done’. There is always more you could be doing. The temptation is to power through from the moment you switch on your laptop until you’re exhausted at the end of the day. However, you’ll be a far more effective worker if you take the occasional break. If you’re able to eat a nice healthy lunch, grab yourself a quick drink, and even just take five minutes to get a breath of fresh air, you’ll come back to your work energised and able to achieve more.

  6. Be a prioritisation ninja

    As we say, there’s always more to do. Therefore, to be effective, you need to prioritise. Start each day with your most urgent tasks, before moving your way down the priority order. Don’t be tempted to do the easy or quickest tasks first if they’re not the most important.

  7. Be careful about saying ‘yes’

In our experience, office support staff are usually people pleasers. As a result, you can end up taking on things that aren’t your responsibility and spread you too thin. The most effective people we’ve come across are capable of identifying when it’s okay to say ‘no’. In so doing, they’re actually saying ‘yes’ to the tasks they most need to focus their time and energy on.

These are just a few of the habits we’ve noticed in our most successful candidates. There are certainly more, but cultivating these habits will put you on the right path and in the right frame of mind!

 

Love Success is a leading London PA & office support recruitment agency.
Our expert recruiters can help you find permanent and temporary jobs in London.

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