Quote:
Originally Posted by MovingIn07  what you have just described sounds perfectly normal to me, although I am assuming you are 20-something and have been working for about 2-4 years. If you are in your 40's and been working for 20 years, then I support what the folks above say. But otherwise it sounds like, as you say, your boss trusts you (this is good), your name appears in the contacts and people contact you (this is good) - the rest is what you make of it. Once people who contact you see what you can do, then they will come to you directly and you can rise on your own merits within the organisation. |
I agree with this poster's take.
The types of things you are sending out sounds like your level research related work and not secretarial in nature. I was for a year or so Exec Assistant to the President & CEO and I was promoted to this role from a director level position of a large P&C insurer in Canada.
For example:
I wrote letters on major issues to Board members, Ministers, VPs, memos to all staff, etc and led many studies that went to the Board. I wrote personal thanks you notes to people who worked all weekend and evenings for a few weeks and produced over millions in savings with not one job cut.
I also wrote the monthly President's Report to the Board of Directors when a new CEO was asked by the Board to come up with a high level overview report that put words to the complex financials and claims numbers and to legal issues including matters in front of the Supreme Court of Canada that might go adverse to our interests and be huge future costs for which we'd need more premium.
I personally planned and developed this report which included my summary of the key financials and claims situation to go along with the numbers and provided laymen's versions of major issues before the courts. The Board loved it as did the managers who would get a shorter, sanitized version of it after the Board meeting.
This report often was discussed for over an hour. The CEO soon learned that if the President's Report went well everything else in the meeting went fantastic and there were some feisty and antagonistic board members that weren't easy to deal with. This report was to ensure that there were "no surprises" and that the Board was fully aware of the matters that were in their domain.
Once I thought something should be in and the CEO wanted it out to which the CEO replied "Remember it is MY report. You just write it!"
And you know what?
My name never appeared once or was it ever mentioned to the Board that I wrote the report. Not once, not ever. But, I did get promoted to Vice President!
If you are concerned, the last thing you should do is to go to HR unless you are applying for a new posting. I would call that a CLM - a career limiting move. HR aren't the source of solving this dilemma for you at all, and can be seen to be a break of the trust relationship you seem to have with this boss. Maybe you need more recognition and sadly some bosses are turkeys that way.
If you feel that there could be changes to give you more recognition, you should speak to the boss directly and tactfully. I am not sure from your post what you expect to be in your name. Clearly, as I indicated in my long explanation of what I did as an Executive Assistant was to be in the name of the CEO, not delegated. That is condition normal in executive offices. It goes out under the senior guy's name.
Good luck. PM if you want to chat as your post may be deliberately brief in content to avoid being identified.
