Vocational Areas
Office administration is an area in need of regulation of organizations for efficiency. However, there are challenges and opportunities faced within the vocation and these influence the proficiency and efficiency of office administration in a number of ways. There will be a discussion of some of the aspects, which influence office administration as challenges or opportunities in various capacities.
The Demographics
Some of the demographics affecting office administration are such as family, income, age, education, ethnicity and religion. With the evolving world, individuals seek to attain higher levels of education. These demographics produce the challenges of creation of profiling and formation of stereotypes within the office. Some groups may feel superior above their counterparts and that can cause conflict within the office. For example, it is conflicting when a young office administrator with a higher level of education manages an old man. The old may feel superior because of his age, but regarding qualifications the younger person becomes the best candidate for the position.
Immigration
Immigration is the movement of people into a new country for permanent residence there. This gives an opportunity to the office to get a new work force that it can employ to serve in its duties. This, however, brings a challenge of culture difference issues, which sometimes result to conflicts in the work area. The people immigrating bring in new skills and values to the office. This, in turn, makes the office has diverse skills and talents in the workplace. However, other than that opportunity, there is also the challenge of seeing immigrants as cheap labor. That causes conflict with local employees because they have to compete for jobs with foreigners. It leaves the office administrator with the job of ensuring constant balancing of job opportunities between local and immigrant employees.
Emigration
Emigration, on the other hand, refers to the movement of people from their countries of origin into other countries for permanent residence. This is a major challenge to the office administrative area. When people leave their jobs the office administration remains with the responsibility of having to fill the gaps they leave. For example, if an organization loses its office assistant with knowledge about the company, it remains with the duty of filling up the gap. In addition, the new office assistant must be trained to understand the operational modalities within the office.
Economic Shifts
It has been clear that changes in the economy of a particular area might result to changes in several sectors that depend of the same economy for financing or development. Office administration requires adequate allocation of resources to an organization. For example if prices of office materials hike, the administrator faces the challenge of making new financial allocations to cater for the price increases. Office administration requires understanding the differences in economic statuses affecting operations for it to make appropriate allocations for its activities and operations of the organization. When economic shifts hit highs, office expenses increase and that calls for a balance of the resources an office administrator buys. Office administration requires understanding of the requirements in order of their preference as well as their acquisition for relevance to the productivity requirements.
Environmentalism
Individuals are becoming more aware of the environment as times pass by. Consequently, organizations are turning to better ways of making business without necessarily impacting negatively on Mother Nature. Organizations face the challenge of improving their processes to be environment friendly. For instance, accompany can be forced to turn into electronic communication and to cut down on the usage of papers. Office administration also requires training of the entire team on environmental friendliness so that any interventions for the appreciation of the efforts as a company effort. Through the empowerment of the office administrators, any environmental campaigns results positively resonate among the employees and the community it serves.
Levels of Education among Employees
Even though the economy of a country might have experienced a dramatic growth within the recent years, the work force’s educational level ought to be a great concern to every organization. In order to obtain productive employment, especially within the formal sector, it is prudent for individuals to seek more and more skill sets and linkages to strong labor markets. For example, labor-intensive departments may not require high degree of education while formal sectors need high capacities of education. This leaves the office administrator with the responsibility of ensuring the placement of right people in relevant jobs. Office administration requires that the selection of employees happens on integrity and that involves the consideration of their educational achievements. Having a highly educated team equates to efficiency in operations, but that may as well be challenged by requirements of high salaries and that is an added expense to office administration.
Technological Advancements
The globe is experiencing dramatic technological advancements now. In fact, it is extremely difficult to keep up with the current technological advancements unless an organization is extremely strong and considerably innovative. Improvement in technology is extremely useful as it results to more production units at a considerably less amount of time. Effective office administration requires identification of relevant technological improvements for creation of efficiency in the office. The challenge of making such adjustments falls in the expense of installation and maintenance of the changing standards in technological efficiencies.
Cultural changes
Cultural changes serve as a challenge in the organization as they affect the organizational culture. Trends change just the same way operations advance and people have different expectations from their office administrators. For example, employees of the past expected letters, memos, meetings and paper circulars for information contrary to the new virtual culture of present employees. Currently the culture of paper circulations changed and employees would expect that an organization embrace advanced methods of communication such as through emails, virtual meetings and websites. Such cultural changes give office administration ease of conducting its activities in timely manners and saving on resources.
Political Stability
For any activity to flourish within any given nation there ought to be political stability. This includes the laws set to govern different activities and the ability to follow them by the citizens. Political stability might not just regard the boundaries of a nation but might go beyond the borders and all over the globe. The laws that allow free inter trade across borders have made it significantly stiff with regard to competition. This has made organizations desire to penetrate the foreign markets while maintaining perfect productivity. Office administration requires the understanding of political regulations governing their industry of operation. Such understanding allows for the operation within given laws and that prevents its falling into unnecessary legal injunctions.
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