Let me start with an example. Raghav attended an interview in a typical IT company. HR manager coordinated with a technical panel and scheduled the interview. The interview got completed and requested him, give me few minutes and to wait outside I will come back. After few minutes he heard that he got selected in the interview and the offer has been emailed.

The joining date is just 2days from the interview date. He was impressed with the offer and joined the company. HR said, please collect you access and id card from administration.

To me, this is not administration. What is administration? Sales people are working towards their targets, HR people are busy with getting right talent onboarded and employee services, technical team is busy developing projects, product team is busy designing the products. Who is coordinating with all these teams to put the business in right process and thinking on behalf of business owner? Who is thinking from business owner stand point?

The best administrator is the entrepreneur, who else is filling him in when the start up turns into corporate? It is a flaw in the system. Perhaps, business owner is getting the pieces of information from different sources, however, the gap has to be fulfilled by administration team. Then, what is management?

Management is set of activities which will be performed to achieve a goal. To me, organization of administration is management or managing the organization is administration. Yes, we have managers in different departments to achieve the individual department’s goal but how to achieve the common goal of an organization?

For instance, a typical IT company is busy in automating other’s processes but who is identifying their own processes to automate? Healthcare industry is busy in drug manufacturing and insurance. Who is taking care of their stakeholders and employees healthcare? Administration/management is a triangle of tasks which can achieve the common goal of an organization.

Filling the gaps

Lack of continues improvement from administration department is challenging their survival. To achieve the common goal of an organization filling the gaps is imperative. Yes, the first goal of administrators are to finding risks, gaps and fixing them. Often, the impact of a risk or a gap can even destroy the company. Consequently, the best administrators are the mitigators.

Enabling technology

Enabling technology is an art because identifying a task, process, method which is tedious with manual process, plays a vital role to automate. Perhaps, enabling end to end automation is best however, implementing technology for a minimum set of tasks and maximizing the result is better than the best.

Setting up processes

Setting up processes is the experience as every company is different, every management is different, every business is different, every customer is different, every team is different. Eventually, every process should be different to handle the difference of differences. Over a period the system omits the flaws. So, setting up processes is very much imperative.

Owning the knowledge bank

Owning the knowledge bank is a responsibility. Creating the knowledge base is essential for any organization. Quitting employees, onboarding new employees is part for any organization. Administration should own it and keep the onboarding process smooth.

Communicating to stakeholders

Communicating with stakeholders is an act, communication between employees, business owners and HR team is important because an administrator should ask the business owner from employee stand point and the same administrator should ask employee on behalf of business owner. Administration should act as bridge between employees and owners.

Implementing best practices

Implementing best practices is a method to put in place. Perhaps, a team, a department, a person, or an external entity could have solved a problem. Administration department has to coordinate to implement the method to solve a similar problem in the organization.

Keeping the standards maintained

Keeping the standards maintained is obligatory. Yes, it could be ISO, CMMI or any standard which had developed internally, should be implemented, monitored and maintained. Administration department is responsible to keep the obligation fulfilled.

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