Empowered Administrators Conference 2024
About EAC
Mbali Mkhize: EAC Founder & Convener
In its 6th year, the Empowered Administrators Conference (EAC) has coined a new theme for 2024: Captaining Office AdministratorShip. The idea is to hone in on office professionals the huge responsibility they carry in order to steer the offices they manage to safety just like the captain steers a ship. For the ship to reach its destination safely; the team should be driven by a vision, ability to manage stakeholder relations, creative acumen, gender sensitivity and championing healthy living.
This approach is what is driving the EAC 2024 theme: Captaining Office AdministratorShip. It is a theme conceptualized at a high-order thinking; aimed at framing the work of an office professional as being beyond the general mundane duties.
One of the great successes of the EAC over the past five years has been to make o
ffice professionals become more engaged in civic duty. Accordingly, the EAC delegates have at each conference brought loads of sanitary towels to give out to needy schools so that girls from these schools may be able to stay at school.
EAC 2024 is taking civic duty to another level. It plans to raise awareness on identifying abuse of women by men and also raising awareness on femicide. These are topical issues in SA at the moment. It is a topic at the heart of the EAC founders as the EAC lost one of its members as a result of femicide in 2024. An empowered office administrator should be able to spot abuse in the office, at home, among friends and help raise this awareness so that necessary interventions are made at the right time and place before it is too late.
The EAC 2024 kicked-off this social justice programme in Durban and invited all office professionals, skills practitioners, sponsors and exhibitors at the EAC to attend an EAC Check-in Breakfast. The highlight of the day was a presentation by a Human Resources Development guru, Dr Joy Ndlovu, Founder & Managing Director of Ndlovu & Co Holdings (Pty) Ltd. Her focus was around gender-based violence and why it is important for office professionals to champion this using the skills they have gained at the EAC.
Programme
Day One: Monday, 04 September 2024 | Hilton Hotel Durban
THEME: CAPTAINING OFFICE ADMINISTRATORSHIP
08h00-09h00 Registration
09h00-09h05 Housekeeping matters
09h10-09h20 The journey of empowering office administrators (video)
09h20-10h00 Setting the tone for EAC
Deconstructing an empowered office professional: a strategic analysis of the office professional as an office captain.
As we celebrate six years of empowering office administrators as a University; we give affirmation, have a vision, a sixth sense, are like a duck that appears calm, but is paddling at the bottom. In this session, the speaker deconstructs what a modern day office professional should be. As captain of a unit in office administration, the office professional needs to set out a vision for the office, needs to be intuitive, and needs to be like a duck, appear calm, while paddling underneath. For ages, captains have been seen as embodying the 3 C’s – Caring, Courageous, and Consistent. Are you a captain of your office, or are you waiting for your ship to sink your line manager and staff, who report to him?
10h00-10h10 Open discussion
10h10-10h30 Tea break
Theme A: Captaining the strategy of the office and operational plans
An empowered office administrator has gone beyond the mundane approach of being told what, when, where, why and how to do things. He/she is guided by corporate strategy, corporate calendar and commercial awareness. This nexus fits back into the reason for being in the office and ensuring that the office not only survives, but flourishes. By understanding this nexus, office professionals will understand the importance of corporate strategy and its relevance to their offices, the role of the office professional as an advisor, with institutional memory, and clued up about organisational threats and opportunities.
10h35-11h20 Track A: Captaining the strategy
This session covers the basics of office management. An office captain begins by understanding the priorities of the office before allocating resources and time to the priorities. In this session, delegates will understand the value of strategic priorities within their offices. They will learn how to develop and manage diaries according to the strategic priorities. The session aims to better equip delegates with strategy implementation, diary management and oversight. Office professionals need to understand that successful custodianship of the office lies with them as captains of the office.
11h20-11h50 Track B: Being an advisor to your department/line manager/faculty
An empowered office professional is a captain of the office. Being an embodiment of the 3C’s – Caring, Courageous and Consistent, the office captain is a good decision maker. His/her decisions are equitable, robust and constructive. The session will explore scenarios how office professionals should take the reins captaining the office, thus providing legitimate advisory services to the line manager and staff.
11h50-12h30 Track C: Environmental scanning
Line managers are always the last to know what is happening within their organisations. Office professionals are at the coal front. They possess huge amounts of information about opportunities and threats to the organisation and/to the office/unit/department. This session will take delegates through the environmental scanning phenomenon from on-line conversations, corridor talks and media talks. Without this awareness, offices are likely to be constantly hit by crises.
12h30-13h30 Lunch
13h30-14h-00 Track D: Having eyes in the distance – vision for your office
An empowered office professional is expected to be strategic at all times. The session looks at how the information accessed by office professionals could strengthen an office/unit/department. The session also looks at the vision of the office professional in terms of how the information he/she possesses can be used to build a solid foundation for the office/unit/department.
THEME B: Anchoring Project Management
Most offices have one major project and a few minor projects. Additionally, every office repeatedly gets once-off projects or pop up projects. All projects, irrespective of size, have implications in terms of resources. It is the role of the office captain to ensure there is direction and no fruitless or wasteful expenditure. The session will focus on project relevance, technical and resource implications.
14h00 – 14h45 Track A: Championing Projects (Conceptualisation, approval and implementation)
This session looks at how an office professional could conceptualise a project based on the strategic priorities of the office she serves. By conceptualising a project, the office professional gives more depth and breadth to the core responsibilities of her office. This is a hands-on session on the basics of project conceptualisation.
14h45 – 15h15 Track B: Project identification
Because office professionals are positioned in strategic offices, they have opportunities to identify viable projects, which will enable their offices to shine. This session will take office professionals through a brainstorming session on how to conceptualise sustainable projects within their offices.
15h15 – 15h45 Track C: Project budgeting
Every employee wants a project, but do they have the budget? The session will take the participants through what needs to be on the budget for any project.
Day Two: Tuesday, 05 September 2024 | Hilton Hotel Durban
THEME: CAPTAINING OFFICE ADMINISTRATORSHIP
THEME C: Championing Stakeholder Engagement
Stakeholder Relations Management has become a new focus area and is covered extensively in King III as an imperative for managers. In reality, managers can only do so much in terms of stakeholder management. However, it is the office administrator, who is at the crux of stakeholder liaison, coordination and management. The office administrator plays a cross-cutting liaison role with both internal and external stakeholders. This session covers seldom discussed roles of office executives, including managing a PR shop and being brand ambassadors for their departments and organisations. This track will provide administrators with tips to engage stakeholders in a way that will secure healthy relations with their organisations’ stakeholders to achieve the organisation’s strategic objectives.
08h30 – 09h10 Track A: Communication skills
This session will deal with the art of communication, both written and verbal. Delegates will work on accepted forms of responses on behalf of the line-manager. The intention is not to paint the role of the line manager in a negative light, but to assist the office manager to be able to respond positively to queries and build sustainable relations with all stakeholders.
09h10 – 09h50 Track B: Customer-centricity
Customer-centricity has always been the cornerstone of the Empowered Administrators Conference. Six years later, it is still a major topic for further exploration. This session will be an open discussion where various focus groups will be given case studies and asked to come up with solutions based on best practices in customer-centricity.
09h50 – 10h20 Track C: Financial Management
Financial approvals, oversight roles and budgeting are often left to office professionals, who have to ensure that activities are matched to the line activities stipulated in divisional or departmental budgets. A seasoned accountant will take office professionals step-by-step on how to understand the budget and how they need to say ‘no’ to items not budged for. The session will go through the need for office professionals to undertake budget reviews with line manager to mitigate any risks associated with financial management.
10h20 – 10h50 Tea Break
Theme D: Transformation & Equity
Transformation is a strong pillar in SA’s Constitution. This session will look at the role office professionals could play in ensuring that the transformation agenda of their institution is implemented. With South Africa having 11 official languages, one of the barriers towards achieving transformation has been inertia in adapting the language of the people. The session will take office professionals through the following topics:
• Is the language of the office understandable to all stakeholders?
• Is the office accessible to people with disabilities?
• Is the office able to manage diverse cultures, race and religion?
10h50 – 11h30 Track A: The language we use in the office
Do we use an appropriate language that is sanctioned by HR policies? How does this serve the bigger theme? Or do we use an offensive language without knowing it? How does this affect the atmosphere in the office?
Theme E: Becoming an office professional of worth: Understanding EQ and SQ
A professional office professional positions his or her expertise such that he/she becomes indispensable to the line manager, the office and the organisation, and as such, becomes an office professional of worth. This session focuses on some of the skills that could assist the office administrator to become indispensable. An indispensable administrator is dependable, multi-skilled and has institutional memory. These are strong examples of IQ or EQ? This IQ or EQ could be coupled with SQ to enhance the office professional’s worth in the office. Awareness of SQ will enable office administrators to understand that they are leaders and need to demonstrate integrity at all times; whether at home, work or in other societal roles.
11h30 – 12h00 Track A: Power to the office professional: EQ / Spiritual intelligence
The office professional has a responsibility to make his/her office a place where all stakeholders find solace. This session will explore critical emotional intelligence traits that an office professional needs.
- Claiming your power back; developing a thick skin
- Gracefully dealing with disrespect: office administrators are often undermined because they are unable to take control of their office. They need to be able deal with emotional abuse within the work environment
- Dealing with challenges and dilemmas surrounding your office; as a case study / group assignment
- Unpacking the most common challenges
- Decision making; how would you deal with the identified challenges
12h00 – 12h30 Track B: Having the ability to stay in control
Office professionals are prone to abuse by subordinates to the line manager, and their line manager’s peers. The session will focus on strengthening the office professional with skills to stay in control and managing conflicts in a professional way.
12h30 – 13h30 Lunch
13h30 – 14h30 Theme F: Championing Technology
Become more efficient and effective by learning how to integrate PowerPoint, Microsoft Word and Excel. An office professional will always to need to be a cut above the rest. The office professional needs to master all technological developments to enable him/her to save time, meet deadlines, and become more innovative. Through this integration, the office professional will become an MS Suite Captain.
Theme G: Chartering your professional and personal destiny
Remaining in the same position for many years could disillusion or do you mean demotivate? Office professionals and possibly make them less productive. The session will look at options for those who want to switch professions and career enhancement projects that are available.
14h30 – 15h00 Track A: Professional Development
What are your passions? Where do you see yourself in two years? What are you doing about it? Have you explored the opportunities that are available? Are you moving up, or sideways? Are you talking to your line manager/HR department about this topic? As you move up, are you grooming someone for the position you may be leaving soon?
15h00 – 15h30 Track B: Championing Healthy Living
A healthy lifestyle is beneficial. Investing in your life is investing in your future. Office administrators spend a lot of time in their offices, sitting down. This may impact negatively on their health and eating habits. They construct good exercise regimes that will keep them active and healthy. Healthy minds contribute to productivity.