Admin in today’s global market: how the market has evolved over the years
The role of administration has changed and evolved greatly over the past few years. It used to be a simple role without much technical expertise required, but that’s no longer the case.
In growing businesses, administration often now covers several different areas. It differs from one role to another too. Therefore, people working in this field need to have their wits about them to know what service they can provide to their employer to help the business tick along.
The digitization of the administrative role
An Administrative Assistant is required to have a reasonable command of computing, be comfortable using the internet, and have a good familiarity with PCs. While they aren’t expected to be tech-savvy enough to solve IT problems – that’s what the IT department is for – they should be able to deal with basic issues as they arise.
Whether handling global business or national concerns, Microsoft Office skills are a must. They should be adept at handling spreadsheets as they are typing up a document about the latest processes used by certain departments to update executives at management level.
While not always essential, some familiarity with organizational systems at Enterprise level, such as SAP and other high-level software solutions to manage global business interests, is helpful.
How does administration change when going global?
Anyone handling administrative issues on behalf of a business takes it to the next level when they begin going across borders. Handling business admin in multiple countries or different continents raises the difficulty level. While the company may eventually have an office in each major country or region and dedicated employees, they could start by making other arrangements.
For instance, using a Contractor Management Organization (CMO) lets them outsource the responsibility to find employees or contractors, produce reasonable employment contracts, and to take new people on board. When the company has established a new business entity in the respective country, it may let them skip this step when going either international or global.
Similarly, when using a PEO, even more of the responsibilities for the global business is handed off to a professional third-party. It is up to the business about which countries where they’ll manage expansion all internally versus outsourcing parts or all of the responsibility to professional entities like a PEO set up to assist companies that are intent on going global.
CMO and payroll
One area that could be outsourced to achieve global expansion sooner is CMO.
They’re set up to handle all the labor recruitment, contracts, and ongoing administration for this to take it off the hands of the central business organization. However, they don’t always handle international payroll services too.
With the need to pay employees around the world, it gets complicated quickly. Dealing with different taxation authorities in the respective countries, correctly taxing the wages, and providing accurate pay slip information is just part of what’s involved.
International payroll services, such as those offered by New Horizons Global Partners, are well versed in handling employees and contractors across different counties and jurisdictions. They’ll handle everything, including expenses claims, leave management, and termination payments. This is different from a payroll company based in the U.S. that takes care of paying American employees to their U.S. checking accounts. That’s relatively simple by comparison. However, with global expansion comes global payroll requirements as part of the overall administrative headache.
Outsourcing payroll for global expansion removes the headache without the need to suffer head pains. Say no more!
Financial management in administration
While administrators and the administrative work involved with global business does overlap into financial matters, it doesn’t necessarily require an accountant to perform in the role.
The right type of person is required
What is needed, however, are people who are detail-oriented, good with figures, and can be responsible for important projects at each phase. This means keeping a good eye over project projections versus the costs as they flow in to verify that they see the right kinds of things. And if the figures look wrong, raising this to the appropriate person to look into it.
It’s either a good fit or it’s not
Keeping on top of global expansion projects is either an administrator’s nightmare or something they relish. The people who want to deal with new problems and larger projects will likely see the benefit of helping one or more companies to go from national to regional to global in record time. Other people who don’t flourish in an administrative role with a global viewpoint will likely seek different work elsewhere, and that’s fine too.
Taking any business from something relatively contained to one that operates globally from a series of countries or regional offices is a major undertaking. Everyone involved, from employees of the organization to people working for the CMO or handling international payroll for that matter, must appreciate what they’re getting involved with. It’s likely to be a long-term assignment, incredibly involved, but ultimately hugely satisfying. Playing a part in taking a company global delivers no small measure of pride. And that’s just one of the less obvious payoffs from its achievement.
