Do you find your admin job highly stressful?

[namechange59482]

I started a new admin role a year ago. It is one of the most stressful roles I have been in. A never ending very high work load. When I first started I was doing admin for one particular area there was two of us and it was stressful but has since gotten worse. Since then two other admins have left so they have combined 3 areas/departments but never replaced the two leavers. So technically there was once 6 admins now there are 4.

When they announced the combining of areas they made it sound like good news. Great for our careers/more experience. Interestingly managements roles all got an upgrade salary. We were told our roles had not changed enough to recieve higher pay as it's still just admin work.

Is this a common theme with admin roles? The two people who left had both made complaints about feeling under paid and valued.

I found my last admin job both terribly boring AND very stressful. There was a lot riding on me making a small mistake too, I hated it. So I feel you.

Nope I wouldn’t work for a company that told me how lucky I was to do more work for the same money I’d be leaving

start asking your manage what should be prioritised because you have to much work on and see if that helps but if not as you’ve said they don’t value admin staff so I woundnt hang around

Yes. It’s hard to finish any given task as something else crops up or you are waiting for someone to respond.

You have so many things on the go simultaneously it’s hard to keep track of where you are up to.

I think they vary massively. Some admin roles are very stressful, with high workloads, but others much less so.

For example, I have heard stories of very stressful admin roles in the NHS and in solicitors’ practices. But one friend with an admin role in local government thinks she has it easy (I know that not everyone there does, though!) And another friend who works in a bank’s head office says she has a good salary and little stress.

Mine is very busy and I’ve always got some task or another on the go but it’s really varied and I enjoy working on different projects.
We’ve had terrible staffing levels following some office closures where we had 3 of us and at some points just 2 doing the job of formerly 14. I genuinely didn’t stress, just asked my manager what to prioritise and prepared her for what would have to slide down the list. Dreadful for our colleagues who are relying on us to do things but it wasn’t my decision to close the other offices and put others under so much stress that they couldn’t handle it, I prioritised and anything that didn’t get done just didn’t get done:
The world carried on turning - it’s just a job (was my way of looking at it anyway).

‘Admin role’ is too wide a description to compare. Some admin roles are purely inputting data or sitting on a reception desk and welcoming someone once an hour, others are pretty much running offices or working along side senior managers and keeping all their day to day work running smoothly. You can’t really compare one to the other. The salaries paid to ‘admin’ roles hugely very as well.
Ultimately, if you feel underpaid, overworked or under valued then it doesn’t matter what other people’s roles look like. You need to address the issue or look elsewhere.

Yes, admin jobs have got progressively worse. Admin staff are culled and existing staff are expected to take on more and more. The managers you work for generally have never done the job so have no idea how challenging it can be and assume it's 'just admin'.

I gave it up a few years ago for all of those reasons. I literally had to work full pelt 100% of the time just to keep on top of things.

Unless you were sitting around twiddling your thumbs, going from six admin staff to four is a sure sign that you're not valued. I'm afraid the only way is to vote with your feet.

Responsibility without agency is very stressful. That describes a lot of admin roles.

True. It’s certainly very frustrating at times.

I used to have an admin job that was so little work I was bored stupid. I moved to my current job and I am so so busy all the time. It's hectic but I love it. You can only do as much as you can and can't sweat it if you haven't the time. Prioritise the important stuff and work as well as you can. Other than that, turn your pc off at home time and don't worry about it!

Yep, made worse by a manager who doesn't know how to do my job. Too many managers where I work (NHS) who've never done an admin role, or anything else, at an ordinary level and are bloody clueless about how long tasks take and why interruptions matter.

Same scenario you've described. People leave, not replaced, workloads are just redistributed. I call it the Buckaroo style of management.

Loads more senior managers appointed. Yay, it's the upside down pyramid model of organisational development. Said senior managers come up with yet more bonkers ideas and initiatives that make them look good so they can lily pad bounce to their next big role, often taking credit for other people's roles.

Workloads/projects are never reviewed, admin staff leave, senior managers burble on about how leadership is the issue, never understanding that if you want to lead it helps if you actually have a team TO Lead...

This describes PERFECTLY the life of an admin. Literally everything thrown at you, people constantly walking in to request things and interrupting my flow, the huge amounts of responsibility in return for absolutely zero fulfilment or satisfaction because it’s not something you care about. People do my head in with questions, my pet peeve is people thinking I’m an IT desk and just because I’m admin I can magically sort everything out. I’m basically the office drudge and everyone else gets to show off the shiny things they’ve done and get praise for it. I’m actually winding myself up typing this out. Maybe it’s time to switch jobs

How much you on? What are you doing exactly- general admin or pa?

I think it's common for those more senior, and with no understanding of what admin staff do, to have Good Ideas that generate extra workload that those more senior people don't want/are to important to deal with. It's all just passed down to the admin staff, who are expected to just absorb it...

Yes to this.

I spent a year in a PT admin role as it fit well around my studies/health recovery, but I came from a senior role before.

I was CONSTANTLY pointing out the lack of joined up thinking, the potential for system improvements, the knock on consequences of poor decisions... It was galling to be ignored, when in my previous firm, it was at least employee led (e.g. when I was an admin early on, I got to decide on how the admin service was set up).

I’ve done admin for a long time and don’t find it massively stressful. I have had tense moments when there is a deadline but I have alot of flexibility so it evens out. There is some more project management work to do now and I find that worse as it’s event related.

Aha I think this is the key actually. I’ve been in jobs where I am given a task, and told implicitly how to do it. Then I have ideas and think differently and find a way to improve things. Manager either loves it or hates it. I’ve left roles where the manager hates it and found a workplace instead that loves ideas and input, which has lead to increased flexibility for me, and I don’t feel so undervalued.

I think finding the right fit is the best plan, there are always some people who are better suited to following a set way of doing things, rather than having their own agency over their tasks, after all.

I work in university admin and it is not stressful at all. It can be busy and a bit annoying at times, but the work itself is not difficult and I work with very pleasant people which I think makes the world of difference; and I have a very supportive and flexible line manager. OP your employers sound terrible, they are gaslighting you- it’s not a great benefit to you to be doing more work for no more money!

Don't make it your problem. You only have so many hours in a day. Achieve what you can and allow the rest to fall. No one is going to hire more staff if you're breaking your back keeping on top of it. Keep communicating with your manager regarding what you have done, will do, and don't have time to do and ask for their input about whether you should re-prioritise anything.

I have a friend who worked in a marketing role who was constantly given more work and overlooked for promotions despite doing more senior work and being promised a serious review at the next (and next and next...) appraisal cycle. She was stressed out of her mind and working late almost every day. She was the office donkey.

She eventually had enough and left for another company and a more senior position. Her old job replaced her by 2 staff and an intern.

No one gave a shit that she was stressed and no one hired more people until they had to 🤷‍♀️

Agree with so much in this thread. I work for a nice company, for nice people, as a senior EA, reasonable salary.

I still feel unappreciated, stressed, bored. I'm so tired of 'nice for the team' requests that takes a director seconds to think up and hours / days for me to execute, and that I receive no thanks for. People getting promoted all around me, so more of their admin becomes my job as they are now too senior for it. Which in turn gives less time for my own self-development and promotion prospects.

I don't get so much of the interruptions these days as I've been vocal about them in the past, but still feel burned out.

Wrong thread