Senior secretaries are typically employed in offices and perform key administrative duties to ensure daily business processes run efficiently. A senior secretary may work under one or more managers and is expected to keep accurate records of all key correspondence within a business. Senior secretaries are employed in a wide variety of businesses in the public and private sectors.

Support Role

The primary role of a senior secretary is to free up time for his supervisors by performing key administrative duties. Senior secretaries play a key role in ensuring communications are delivered to the required parties in an accurate and timely fashion A senior secretary will typically dictate notes from senior management, type up the notes in letter or report format and distribute the information to the intended recipients, as indicated on the Champaign County website. A senior secretary should therefore have a firm grasp of grammatical rules and punctuation and be skilled in using basic office software applications to render statistical data or utilize letter templates. A senior secretary will also be expected to keep an accurate appointment schedule for her supervisor and confirm arrangements for business meetings with all expected attendees. She may also be tasked with making travel arrangements and booking accommodation arrangements for off-site conferences.

Communications Role

A senior secretary will sometimes be asked to coordinate and supervise key work assignments given to clerical staff to ensure they are completed efficiently and on schedule. Senior secretaries are also expected to train new staff and retrain existing staff when any changes to normal business practice are adapted. A senior secretary may also field telephone calls from internal and external sources, relay messages between departments and screen calls taken by managers to ensure all relevant information is noted down. She may also be tasked with fielding visitor inquiries on the reception desk, as described on the Total Jobs website.

Additional Duties

A senior secretary may also take minutes at meetings and is typically tasked with accurately filing correspondence from internal and external sources. A senior secretary is also responsible for monitoring key office supplies and making new orders to replenish them. He can also assist in preparing and processing budget estimates and sales invoices and often assist with payroll administration Senior secretaries often carry out research and generate reports on business performance levels, sales figures and purchasing costs, as described on the Monterey County website.