Administrative Professionals Day is April 21, 2021! We haven’t talked about it in too long, but I’d love to hear how things have changed regarding your support staff over the past year — if you work with an administrative assistant, please chime in!

I know a lot of readers have noted the disappearance of the administrative assistants from their workplace, even before the pandemic. According to The WSJ in January 2020, there had been an almost 40% decline since 2000:

More than 1.6 million secretarial and administrative-assistant jobs have vanished since 2000, according to federal data, an almost 40% decline, comparable to that in manufacturing. The losses haven’t garnered much notice. Unlike a plant closing that leaves thousands of Americans unemployed in one go, jobs in a traditionally female sector have evaporated in dribs and drabs.

I’m sure the move to remote work further condensed things for a lot of offices — I cringed at the SNL skit about secretaries struggling with a Zoom call.

That said, I saw a really interesting TikTok from Dr. Kimberly Douglass, who talks a lot about neurodivergence, ADHD, and similar issues in the workforce. She was noting that the elimination of administrative support makes things harder for people who struggle with focus and attention.

Her point was that spending time and energy to do things like remembering events, hosting events, and making travel arrangements can be draining — and she encouraged her followers to seriously look at the absence or presence of administrative support when considering new jobs or accommodations for a current position.

So if you do still have an administrative assistant, show him or her some gratitude next week!

Some great gifts to get for your administrative professional (other than cash, of course) include:

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Readers, let’s hear from you — do you work with an administrative assistant or have another form of administrative support? How has that changed if you’ve been working remotely? (Do you see truth in Dr. Douglass’s thoughts on administrative support?)