Admin Trip Folders – Part 1

Submitted by mauzenne on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 03:25.
in

This cast describes a standard practice of administrative assistants helping managers prepare for business travel.

Mike and Mark both feel that one of our most unsung casts (actually, it's a series of casts) are the ones on working with an administrative assistant. If you have an admin, it's likely that you're seriously under-utilizing him or her. Great admins, well managed, improve the performance of the executive or manager they support by 50% in all cases, and ... get this ... 100% in MANY cases. Good admins honestly make that much difference. We're not kidding.

In our original set of casts, we talked about really just the beginnings of how to have a great relationship with our admins, leading to our effectiveness. There are hundreds of actions that admins take that add up to noteworthy efficiency gains, many of which ANYONE with an admin can use right away. And this cast is about one of those: creating trip folders to make traveling administratively less burdensome.

  1. What a Trip Folder IS
  2. How To Implement Them Initially
  3. What They Contain
  4. How To Action Them
  5. Two Admin Trends Worth Noting
    1. Less Admins
    2. Less Training


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tlhausmann's picture
Submitted by tlhausmann on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 23:35.

Trip Folder - Huge Help

The first time I had an admin build a trip folder for me it was a HUGE assist. It made my trip so much easier. Great cast.

refbruce's picture
Submitted by refbruce on Wed, 09/09/2009 - 01:00.

big help, indeed

I started part of this when I went on a trip and my blackberry bricked.  This cast had suggestions that I'll implement to improve practice.  I hadn't thought about the receipt envelope.  My company has a particular envelope for receipts, so my admin is now putting that in my folder (filled out).  I also work off of GSA per diem and have to record when someone else paid for my meal.  So, she's preparing a sheet with one line for each day of travel where I can just check off if someone paid for the meal (like included in a conference registration).  The bottom of that sheet is blank, for me to jot down miscellaneous expenses. 

One more point about the record locator.  As someone who deals with cybersecurity as part of my living, at least some hotel kiosk computers are festering cesspools of cyber-insecurity.  My advice: never, ever check in for a flight on a hotel computer using your frequent flyer number and password.  Use the record locator (confirmation number) instead.  It's a throw-away that is extremely difficult for a hacker to abuse.

sbaleno's picture
Submitted by sbaleno on Tue, 12/01/2009 - 17:36.

Lucky I wasn't on a trip....

My BlackBerry recently dropped and from then on would only receive calls.  The screen displayed nothing and outgoing calls were not possible.  Fortunately I was not on a trip.

I immediately thought of this cast and realized how truly valuable the advice was.

rbw82's picture
Submitted by rbw82 on Thu, 02/25/2010 - 15:58.

Admin Training

You mentioned a top admin training school or program in one of your podcast. What was the name of that school?