Who Decides If You Are Fit To Work?
Your weekly round up of what's going on in the Admin world
Hello and welcome again to The Admin Wrap!
There have been a whole load of new subscribers this week so if it’s your first newsletter - WELCOME!!
This week I’ve read a really interesting story about someone who needed hundreds of sick days and was completely let down by their employer. I’ve also been reading about office space - from companies who have completely mis-judged their space needs post-Covid, to how much it will likely cost to rectify that error.
There’s also been some interesting/scary news coming out of LinkedIn about yet more AI. Hold onto your hats - it’s going to be bumpy!
Thank you again for opening my newsletter - I feel so blessed to have built such a wonderful community of lovely subscribers. If you’ve not already, check out our Notes section - I occasionally add my general thoughts when they pop into my head.
I wish you all a very happy Friday and a lovely weekend.
Yvette
NewsWrap
Whose job is it to decide whether you are “fit to work”? With a British institution losing an unfair dismissal tribunal where an employee had taken 400 days off sick in four years, this article looks at the responsibility of managers to take into account medical evidence. This includes medical evidence when it comes to mental health which is significantly less familiar to deal with than (for example) a broken leg or the flu.
If Neil Armstrong can suffer with Imposter Syndrome, then there’s a chance that everyone else can. Articles like this have died down a little on LinkedIn, but that doesn’t make it any less of an issue - in fact it’s probably just as bad as it always was. Honestly, the only way I’ve really made any progress in this area was when I was training a new starter and I consciously realised how much I knew about the business.
How much does it cost to fit out an office? If I could answer that with a shred of accuracy, I’d be doing a different job. However, someone else has done the maths and drawn up charts upon charts of the different costs of different levels of specs across the world. If you’re looking to do an office refurb anywhere in the world any time in the next year or so, I’d bookmark this website for when you need it.
This one made me laugh - there’s been a study done which has found out that most companies got their office space strategies wrong after the pandemic. It’s not surprising when the whole world went from “look, we can all work from home and be perfectly OK” to “you must be back in the office because we now don’t trust you anymore”. With 45% of UK businesses looking to expand their office footprint in the next 12-18 months, I imagine the rest of the world isn’t a million miles behind.
Forbes has now realised that it’s hard to hire an Executive Assistant!! This article is actually a really helpful source of things that you can ask in your next interview: ‘what would have helped you the most in the last month if someone had been proactive?’ or ‘when was the last time your travel approval process was audited?’. There are also some examples of questions that you might be asked - so you can be super prepared for them!
Forget asking AI to find you some jobs matching your description, you can now do that right in LinkedIn! It’s launching conversational queries to search for job matches and even a tool to give you mock interviews…which frankly terrifies me because it assumes the interview is all about the interviewee. Unless it can tailor the AI so that it’s like you’re being interviewed by the actual hiring manager. Which actually sounds even worse…
Looking for a Mentor?
I’ve teamed up with three fabulous mentors to offer mentorship across a range of specialities. You can book in for an hour, or a block of three hours, to get expert advice and guidance from one of four women who all have vastly different backgrounds and experiences. Take a look here
The Modern Career Portfolio
Remember those document wallets from high school, filled with certificates and achievements? In today’s world, your Career Portfolio is the grown-up, digital evolution of that idea-a dynamic, regularly updated collection that goes far beyond a standard CV. In 2025, a career portfolio is not just useful; it’s essential for anyone serious about professional growth and standing out in a competitive job market.
By referring your friends and colleagues to The Admin Wrap, you can earn yourself free access to The Extra Wrap - our in depth thought leadership pieces which are sent out every Monday. Can you make it to the top of the leader board?
💻 TechWrap
Each month we’re going to be deep diving into a software platform or piece of tech that you might use, and we’ll give you a Top Tip each week for it.
For April we are looking at Google Calendar
Utilise Google Calendar’s “suggested times” or “find a time” feature to quickly find a suitable time for all attendees of the meeting. It will save you having to trawl through all the calendars - just add all the attendees and Google will find an available slot (of course, you might still need your EA wizardry for deciding which meetings could be moved to make way for the one you are scheduling).
Add in all the relevant information wherever possible. This applies to all calendar applications, not just Google, but Google has several different fields for different information. ALWAYS add some kind of comment in the Description, and you can add files or links to aid attendees. It’s also useful to know where you can find this information should you need it in the future.
Change the standard length of your meetings. In the settings you can reduce your standard meetings to 25 and 50 minutes, rather than 30 and 60 so that - in theory - you will have fewer back to backs. If this won’t work, I’d recommend blocking out 15 minute slots before/after meetings to give some buffer time.
EventWrap
A really interesting webinar here - do you ever wonder why your natural approach to problems is your natural approach? Why do we do things the way we do them? This online session is on 10th July at 12pm PT. There’s some pre work if you want to do it, and it’s $10 to join if you’re not a member - you can get all the details here
On 15th May, IMA Luxembourg are hosting an in person Lunch and Learn event that you can join virtually to help them test some hybrid software. There’s a fee to join if you’re going in person (you get lunch) but it’s not immediately clear if there’s a fee to join online (but I would assume it’s less than the cost of lunch). You can get all the details here
iaap are hosting their 2025 Summit on 18-21st July in Chicago. You can attend this 4-day event in person, or you can join a lot of the sessions online (not all of them - you can check the schedule). It’s quite pricey but you can get the early bird rates until the end of May so there’s a little bit of time.
If you are running an event aimed at administrative professionals, please send me an email and let me know all about it - hello@theadminwrap.com