Scholastic advancement of effective secretarial support to strategic business partnership

Abstract

Two decades ago, secretarial practitioners were very familiar with set skill, administrative languages and traditional office equipment and items that made the work culture to be a largely mechanical routine and rigidly predictable. The famous language of communication was: “I am directed…”. Among those traditional office equipment were typewriters (olympia, imperial, Olivetti, etc) roneo machine, ribbon, stencil, white and red correcting fluid, etc. Such was the plight of secretaries and where the stencil got torn there had to be a retyping of the stencil so as to produce adequate copies. The secretary advanced from the traditional typewriting work to computerized operations. The advancement from mere attendant/receptionist to stenographer and to secretary is worthy of being researched into. The advancement from mere skill acquisition to university degree and ICT proficiencies has positioned the secretary as not just a record/secret keeper but also an administrator of the office. This paper considers the transition and x-rays the secretarial role as a strategic business partner.