What’s ‘fair’ when sharing receptionist duties?

How about each assistant taking reception duty one week at a time. That way you would only have duty one week a month and know you are free the rest of the month.

Is there a high school close? How about recruiting business/secretarial high school students to come in and answer the phones. The salary won’t be as high and no benefits. The same would apply to hiring a temp to come in and answer phones. Otherwise, the four of you will need to figure out how to get it done.

I am just “throwing” this out there: “how about many asking volunteers to answer the phones during peak times?”

Maybe the company could arrange to go to a senior citizens home or halfway house or battered women’s shelter to pick up the volunteers? Maybe offer free lunch and coffee?

I know everything costs, but over the long run the P & L reports should show a slighter decrease in salary dollars? (Of course this depends on the company, if the company if the FBI, then of course having volunteers in highly confidential settings is OUT.

Or if the volunteers can not answer the phones, perhaps they could file papers, make copies, staple papers, do general cleaning, deliver mail, clean up the break room or set up for parties/events?

I dunno.

All I know is that sometimes our administrative assistants are very very very OVERWORKED and often not taken as seriously as they should be. 🙁

Thank you.

Dr. StillStanding 🙂

This can be a tough situation… depending on how much it’s affecting your regular workload. Are the assistants’ bosses complaining why they can’t finish their regular workloads? You should sit down with your boss and explain to him that because of the added reception duties, you are unable to meet your regular duty deadlines for him. I would ask him to advise you on how to handle. Tell him you don’t mind being a team player and helping the company if they can’t hire a receptionist but something has to give either way. He must be informed that there isn’t enough hours in a day to do both “jobs”. I would suggest you put all that on the table because you don’t want it to look like you can’t handle your regular job duties as it could affect your job performance appraisal. Hopefully as the bosses realize the burden of all four assistants, they could be more flexible with deadlines…realizing the reasons to them. Good luck!

I agree with Janey (and other contributors LOL) with the rotating duties. I would do that for a short time period and have each person track how many calls they are receiving. Perhaps, after the “trial” period you can talk to your supervisor and someone in your IT department to see if it’s possible to have the automated system answer/route calls (if available) . That would be more cost effective than hiring someone.

Let your bosses know that you’re all concerned that you are not able to give 100% of your attention to your daily responsibilities to produce the quality work they deserve and you are concerned. Ask if there is any way they can hire perhaps a temp as a trial and if they agree & maybe they can hire permanently if it proves itself worthy. It sounds like there is a system in place for logging all calls – if they can’t hire someone else, can the 4 of you split up the hours and each take specified 2 hour time slots throughout the day to only take the calls? This way you’re not constantly interrupted and can dedicate the other 6 hrs of your day to your own work loads. Rotate (monthly or weekly) so the same person isn’t always stuck with the lunch hour. This should be your second suggestion when speaking to you bosses. This will show initiative on all your parts of trying to maintain a functional environment and that you’re team players and will relieve stress amongst yourselves. Good luck.

You will need to first decide what other duties can be given to the receptionist because the phone does not ring 24/7, it may feel like it when you have other things on your plate but it normally doesn’t. Can she make file folders, type letters, do data entry.

Also, you may also want to consider an automation system for the phones during peak or certain hours of the day then someone can be assigned to pull the calls.
What processes are you and the other assistant’s doing in order to have the phone answered? If you are not already, have you thought about separating out half days for the phone duty with rotating days. For example: Assistant one answers the phone from 8-12 on Monday, Assistant two answers the phone from 1-5 on Monday, Assistant three answers the phone from 8-12 on Tuesday and Assistant 4 answers the phone from 1-5 on Tuesday and then repeat. Another way would be each is assigned a day to answer phones and a backup for your breaks if you have them.

Are the duties rotated thru out the day? It’s hard to track what is really taking place when several people do it. We had the same issue at one office until one person was responsible for the desk each day. Each person was able to log the number of calls and other requests each day. After two weeks of logs it was very easy to justify a new hire.

Who is assigning you to receptionist duties — your boss or someone else? If it is not the bosses, you can talk to them and let them know that it takes away from you being able to service them (should be a united front with all assistants and bosses). By sitting at the reception desk does this create overtime for you to be able to do your jobs? Bottom line is cost, so if you can show how getting a full-time receptionist is cost-effective then you have a better chance. Remember, it’s not just salary; benefits calculated to about 30% of salary. Can you justify this? Perhaps someone else wants an assistant but can’t justify cost, maybe you can talk to them that the receptionist would report under them so that it would be a receptionist/secretary position and so they have a partial body to assist them? Be sure you are sure of what your job requires, or as Liza says it could be one of you whose duties changes.

You could consider hiring someone for the heaviest phone hours, i.e. 9AM to 3PM making it a part time position. Or, you could hire 2 people, one for a morning shift and one for the afternoon. Still keeping 2 part time people and keeping costs down. Our facility has 2 ladies. They also run various reports, handle mail, receptionist duties, misc filing, maintain training files and are available for other clerical work. Of course you could limit this to less than 5 days a week according to your needs.

The best way to let management know that you don’t have time to answer and log calls is to not have time to answer those calls. The only way management will feel the impact of not having a receptionist is if their customers are not being helped. Maybe the four of you could “make” the time to log the hours you spend answering, logging and transferring. Unfortunately, NO company wants to create new positions and pay out more salary and benefits if they can get the current staff to handle the work. I guess there is no good answer but I’d try making sure I logged every minute I spent on that phone and try to make a good case for a new hire!! Good Luck!

You could try simplifying the phone duties-such as not logging all of the calls.

Or, if you really are having trouble getting your work done, than it would be more than realistic to have someone hired. However, they will need more responsibilities besides just answering the phone. Think of a few things a receptionist could do when you make the suggestion to hire someone. Don’t be surprised if they want to change the job duties for one of the other assistants, or even you!