NEWS
BR IEFING
Keep up-to-date with the latest news surrounding the role of the PA
A word about
social media
security
The future could see EAs as
leaders – so, what’s in store?
Our new title, Chief of Staff, is a big
nod to the increasing leadership roles
being taken on by assistants but,
simultaneously, organisations are
said to be struggling to prepare their
leaders for the unparalleled changes in
the business world. Rose Cartolari, an
international leadership consultant,
shares her thoughts on current trends
that could lead to great opportunity for
high-level EAs:
“The 2017 Mercer Global Talent
Trends Report revealed that 93 per
cent of companies interviewed rated
reshaping corporate structure as a
top priority and many are looking to
flatten their organisation, decentralise
decision-making and extend authority.
This means the days of command
and control are gone and, due to
rapidly changing tech and trends,
leaders are no longer automatically the
expert – to be successful, ensure you
surround yourself with experts in a
variety of fields, and focus on inspiring,
empowering and mobilising them.
There’s a lack of ready leaders
and, although there’s talk of increased
spending on leadership development,
companies worry about talent scarcity,
14 Chief of Staff | April/May 2018
and how to find leaders strong in
the skills and abilities they need for
growth.
Thankfully, however, the likes
of reflection, empathy, connection
and dialogue – natural EA skills – are
finding their way into business strategy
as companies move past catchy taglines
and ensure they’re practising what
they preach.
Leadership development still isn’t
seen as a massive strategic priority
(largely due to the difficulty in
measuring the impact) so 2018 should
be all about making sure such training
programmes are ultra-relevant.
Encourage the boss to:
w Combine traditional business-
acumen skills with coaching and
mentoring
w Find ways of personalising learning
experiences
w Look for sustained learning methods
that ensure outcomes and experiences
are brought back to the workplace and
integrated into everyday working life
w Look at personal and professional
growth in areas such as self-
awareness, intuition, empathy and
communication.”
Using social media in a corporate
function comes with a plethora of
benefits (market research, targeted
advertising, relationship building and
brand loyalty to name a few) but – as
indicated in our special feature on
data security in the Feb/March issue
of Chief of Staff – it’s a known target
for rogue employees and criminal
hackers, so is not without its risks.
Cyber security specialist, Ross
Thomson, shares his top tips for
managing the risks:
w Keep an extremely up-to-date
record of exactly who has access
to your company’s social media
channels (bear in mind leavers,
new starts, etc.) and ensure those
managing it are fully trained.
w Take stock of vulnerabilities by
keeping on top of privacy settings for
each social media channel and fine-
tuning them for your business.
w Make it clear who can use
social media at work and have an
‘acceptable use policy,’ so the team
knows what’s allowed – and, more
importantly, what’s not.
w Ensure employees and high-
level staff are educated about the
risks – do they know to think twice
before clicking on shortened URLs
in social media updates that give no
clue to where the link leads to? Plus,
many social media systems have less
powerful security filters than your
office e-mail system so what may go
into junk on Outlook probably won’t
do so here.
w It’s an oldie but a goodie – pay
attention to passwords. Think long
chains of special characters and
numbers, and a combination of
upper and lower-case letters. And,
where possible, opt for two-factor
authentication.