Making a case for an assistant

[ShadowPuppets]

So I’m the only person in charge of my particular area at work. Think finance manager in a property company (similar, not the exact situation)

We’re about to hit the end of FY2023 and I want to make a case for getting an assistant at the start of FY2025, so a year from now.

My current reasons are:

• I get a lot of admin level queries that they don’t need someone on my pay grade for
• Business has expanded since I joined and there’s more work
• An assistant would give me more ability to focus on planning and strategy not data entry

Other reasons but not sure they are business beneficial:

• I’m 4 days, having an assistant would allow us to provide 5 day support
• My personal development, I think I need to start line managing to progress - I will probably leave in a couple of years if I don’t get this
• I’d like to go down to 3 days in coming years and having assistant support would help here

I’m going to ask for a meeting with our business director in the next few weeks with a view to asking to develop a 1 year plan towards getting an assistant. Can anyone help with arguments for for that meeting? Would be very grateful!

Hi I'm struggling a bit with the idea of creating a one year plan to recruit an assistant. Surely you'd just draft up a business case with the key costs/benefits you have outlined and present to your director for consideration. It does seem like a gap to only have one person in a finance role - is this a small enterprise? Good luck with your discussion

You want career progression but to drop to 3 days?

That doesn't really sound like you want career progression

I agree with this, seems an odd move. Plus you wanting management experience isn't really a reason for them to employ someone else.
You need to do this purely on a business basis and how it benefits the business.

Concentrate on business reasons

Your personal reasons are not relevant

What improvements / savings can you bring to the business with some assistance ?

Thanks for the comments. Probably haven’t explained properly but I’m wanting to gain management experience but looking to go down to 3 days in the office (currently no WFH so I’m in all of my 4 days) which is why it would benefit at some stage to having someone manning the office in person every day.

Yes, a small organisation. I’m doing (ie, because it’s not finance) payments but also wider budget stuff. So it would be good to pass off the more admin focused stuff so I can commit to more strategy which is why they’re paying someone a manager salary!

I’m talking about it as a part of my plan for the next year - ie working towards becoming a 2 person team rather than one person doing strategy and admin at the same time - and our new FY starts next week, hence the time spans.

I agree that it needs to be business reasons but retaining me is (I’ve been told in a recent appraisal) a priority so I want to work out how develop the department in a way that gives me some opportunity to grow as a professional (through management and not doing the entry level stuff so doing more strategy) but also helps us grow as an organisation.

At the moment I’m so embedded in the job - doing everything from data entry to briefing C-suite - that I can’t quite see the wood for the trees, which is why I was interested in what (broad) arguments there are for expanding a team that I might not have thought of.

Depressing that even on a site populated mainly by women people see reducing hours as incompatible with career progression. Why, exactly?

Seems to me that could be part of your business plan OP. You dropping to three days a week will provide the savings towards employing an assistant, and part time you plus full time assistant is a better way to service the needs of the business.

You could pitch for your own promotion to senior strategy person while you're at it

What about an apprentice? Can get funding.