According to a study by the International Association of Administrative Professionals and OfficeTeam, managers rank promotions and cash bonuses as the most effective ways of recognizing employee accomplishments. But administrative pros put two other appreciation tactics at the top of their list:

Be honest with yourself: Do you have a love/hate relationship with Excel? You know the power it wields, but does Excel end up costing you time and stress? Here are a few tips on how to navigate and maximize your spreadsheets:

When you’re thrust into working environments, you deal with all sorts of people on a daily basis. If you don’t get along with some of them, the hours can drag on. If these people are your bosses, the days can seem like torture. Here’s how to manage your manager.

Defuse a stressed-out, tense workplace with simple, morale-boosting celebrations. Examples: To celebrate National Pie Day (Jan. 23), get pies for the office. For Make a Difference Day (the fourth Saturday in October), challenge each employee to do one thing for a co-worker.

A policy has changed. Your task? Share the news with the office. Write a well-received policies and procedures memo by addressing these four questions:

Hold a shorter, more effective meeting by remembering the three purposes for having a meeting in the first place: to inform, to gather input or to ask for approval ... Read faster using this technique developed by reading expert J. Michael Bennett: rhythmic perusal ... Try this remedy for a foul-mouthed boss ...

Here are three great tools for creating to-do lists, collaborating on documents online, and viewing and modifying PDFs: 1. Best for tracking tasks: Doomi. 2. Best for word processing: Zoho Writer. 3. Best for viewing PDFs: Foxit Reader.

As the person closest to your work, you’re also the best one to identify ways to improve efficiency and reduce costs associated with your job—which is exactly what most C-suite executives and business owners focus on. Just because they don’t ask for your innovative ideas doesn’t mean they’re not interested. Get your creative juices flowing with these five questions:

Question: “I have a new boss and she is so disorganized. She has piles and piles of papers and complains that she can never find anything. How do I get her to organize her desk?”

Skip straight to someone’s voice mail by using Slydial, a service that lets you leave a message for someone you know you can’t reach in person ... Take your job search to Twitter. Some companies are using Twitter to fill positions that tend to attract tons of applicants on job boards, such as administrative roles, one HR vice president tells The Wall Street Journal ... Put a meandering meeting back on track by addressing those who veer off-topic.

You know a presentation is going badly when audience members start tapping on their BlackBerrys. These days, especially, it isn't easy to capture and hold a group's attention. Keep your presentation clear and effective with these PowerPoint tips:

As the year wraps up, your employees could be feeling a double dose of stress from the lingering recession and the upcoming holidays—and both are likely to keep at least some otherwise-reliable employees home from work. As the holidays approach, HR pros can take steps to boost morale and jump-start employee engagement.

When creating a form letter or other document template, the field code feature in Word versions 97 and higher can come in handy. With dozens of field codes available, you can manage everything from inserting information that is automatically updated to creating drop-down lists that allow users to choose which information to insert.

Problem: "I'm in charge of turning on the dishwasher each night before leaving. To some, this translates to my also being in charge of cleaning up after everyone. Several memos have been distributed ... but have not been successful. Any ideas? I'm tired of being known as the office maid. My name is not Hazel!"

Avoid sending big files back and forth with your boss—try Dropbox, a virtual hard drive ... Hold a web conference free and invite up to 20 guests, with DimDim, which Inc. magazine calls the best in its class ... Print less by taking advantage of the less-popular settings in your Print dialogue box ...

Your morning is completely planned, with top priorities penned on your to-do list, when a boss derails everything with two additional, hefty tasks that he needs “ASAP.” Doesn’t he realize there’s only so much you can do? Here’s a calendar-planning tactic that will let the boss know where you spend your time and help you better manage your schedule.

Many leaders at larger companies fancy themselves too busy or important to do the messy work of managing, says Henry Mintzberg, management professor at McGill. You’re not a leader if you’re AWOL. And while, yes, there’s a difference between leading and managing, that doesn’t preclude leaders from rolling up their sleeves and pitching in.

Lavish office parties are as distant a memory as mimeograph machines for most workers. This year, as companies cinch their belts a little tighter than usual, how are you handling the holiday office party? Administrative professionals weighed in with their suggestions on our Admin Pro Forum:

Layoffs, shortened workweeks, stressed-out workplaces … it all can lead to another byproduct of the recession: increasing workloads and work slippage. How are administrative professionals ensuring that, with stakes soaring higher than ever, no work falls through the cracks?

Halloween may be over, but “ghost work”—the work left behind after colleagues are laid off—still haunts the employees who remain. According to a recent survey by the International Association of Administrative Professionals, admins are hit particularly hard by the spectre. Here are three tips to help you gain control of "ghost work":

“My senior admin recently asked us what we should discuss during our monthly admin meetings,” a reader wrote. With time at a premium, this is a good point, as there’s an ever-increasing need for groups to get more real work done during regular meetings. Suggestions for making your next admin meeting more productive:

Help attendees convert decisions into action after the meeting ends. Here’s how:

Blogs are spreading faster than kudzu in the business world, and for a reason: They help build relationships with customers, something every business and boss want to see. Here’s how to write blog posts for your company, without spending too much time, according to Stephanie Lloyd, founder and CEO of Radiant Veracity.

Whom do your co-workers look up to more, you or your boss? According to a recent Randstad survey, employees said that besides their parents, their co-workers were the most influential people in their lives.

Benefits consultant Ken Stahlmann spells out three keys to creating crowd-pleasing employee-recognition awards: