Is this a good enough excuse?

[MaryJaneee]

I work as an office manager and have been asked by management that two admin workers now take on minuting as part of their role. One of them is fine about it, the other says she can’t touch type…which would make it difficult for her. She manages her role efficiently enough.
What do I say to her about this?

Can she manage with a mix is typing and note taking? Does it need to be a verbatim note?

If the one can covers all of the meetings could some of her work go to the other one.

You don’t need to touch type to take minutes. I can’t and I have done in a previous job. It’s terrible excuse.

@hopeishere note takers type straight onto the pc’s and meetings are mostly virtual. They’ll likely be between 1-2 meetings to minute per month.

If the one can covers all of the meetings could some of her work go to the other one.
No, they are both expected to share the work. The other lady didn’t want to do the minutes but has taken it on board.

I don't even know what touch typing means! I've been taking minutes for over 20 years. Sometimes I write notes in pen, sometimes I type. I'm not a quick typer so just get down the key points and actions. If anyone's joining the meeting online via Teams or Zoom you can record the meeting which makes minute taking easier.
No, I don't think it's a valid excuse.

I think most virtual meetings will now automatically take a transcript. Otherwise can you fund a minute taking course to upskill?

If it’s a virtual meeting, then a GenAI too like Microsoft copilot can create a call transcript, recap points during the meeting, summarise key points and generate meeting notes.

I don't touch type or have shorthand. I hate minute taking mostly as I don't have expertise in the subjects discussed and sweat over possibly missing something. Next to presentations I hate it but it's part of my job.

A couple of meetings a month is liveable with IMO especially if the chair makes the actions clear though and reviews the content before distribution.

Is it Teams? Then just get them to take a transcript of the meeting that they can review later on to make sure nothing was missed. How detailed to the minutes need to be? Just key points and actions or more? If the former, the perhaps it's just a case of setting off it these expectations clearly.

Or if your org is big enough to have copilot, then it can take minutes (including record actions) for you.

You're an office manager, your company does regular remote meetings, and you don't know about Teams typescripts ? Blimey.

Can't you invest in Teams copilot to draft your minutes from the transcript? Then your team can just check them. Surely a much more efficient solution?

Those suggesting using transcripts of Teams meetings - have you read them?! Some of them don't make the slightest bit of sense. You'd need someone to go through and check it's actually English (or language of choice) before sending on. Or maybe my colleagues just don't speak clearly/slowly enough?!

I don't think not being able to touch type is an excuse as I don't know why you'd need to? If the meeting is recorded they could audio type?

You could use teams transcript to check you covered everything but most people take minutes just by hand - minutes are not a verbatim record but a summary

It may be a skill she needs to learn - perhaps suggest first time she does her best, checks with the transcript and then you review and compare to what you note

The Teams transcripts aren’t always 100% accurate but the Copilot does a really good job of the summarisation. You do need to review it though -
struggles with gender, and sometimes assigns an action that wasn’t agreed (but probably should have been).

Another thought I had, minute taking is a very specific skill. I’d be daunted at being asked to minute a committee for example. Is there an experienced PA who is able to deliver some basic training?

If it's a virtual meeting via teams etc presumably it can be transcribed and/or recorded?
Touch typing isn't a requirement to take notes, I work with people who have managed just fine. Weak excuse imo

There’s a minute taking course coming up at the end of next week. The colleague in question keeps coming up with reasons why she can’t do minutes which is why management have put this in place. For the first two meetings there’s always another more experienced colleague with them.

Everyone hates taking minutes. In my team we always fight over it - over not doing it! None of us touch type. We take it in turns and it's fine.

Send her on the course and tell her which meeting she's doing. Ultimately this isn't a "do you want to" it's a "and all other duties as required". Prepare for her being awful at it. Suggest she covers all meetings as practice until she gets better.

It’s a fairly basic skill for someone who works in admin.

It’s good that training is coming up. If she continues to be difficult, it should become a performance issue.

Firstly surely you don't need a verbatim record - a log of actions and main points of discussion should be sufficient .

Secondly recordthe meeting and use an AI. Administrator then just makes co-pilot corrections.

Virtual meetings just use an AI

No one enjoys doing minutes, but needs must.

If she's not a quick typist it's probably easier for her to take notes by hand and then type them up.

Also, some meetings you can write the bulk of the minutes in advance because they always follow the same format and the documentation is sent out beforehand. Then you just need to update the bits where actual conversation happened and decisions were taken.

Typed-at-the-time minutes are shit. Ones generated from transcripts are even worse, because it takes longer to edit out all the waffle and garden path ramblings that show the Chair to be a prat drunk on his own self importance than it does to cut through ten solid minutes of that to note Action: Contact Association for clarification (XX).

However, there might be other factors at play with the employee. Hearing issues are insidious and can make meetings a pain, especially as people mumble and turn away as they're speaking. Audio processing difficulties are common with ADHD (it's a bit chicken and egg). Typing speed is definitely a thing, by the time they've typed a phrase, the conversation has moved on and they haven't heard the next bit. Looking at the screen and hearing the taps on the keyboard distracts away from listening, compared to head down, listening and writing by hand. Audio typing is a skill that not many people have now, never mind mentally editing it, rewording it and putting it into an accepted format as you go along.

And are they being paid extra for this? Bet they're not.

The person doing the minutes does that then sends out the corrected version.

We use Copilot (speaking German) and it's OK. And getting better. It asterisks out swear words too..

Touch typing not required unless it's verbatim minutes.
You listen and type or write down the key points only.
Most of meeting is waffle anyway !

Assuming you have a MN agenda she only needs to add to that with an "actions required" "who was allocated the action" and deadline.

Frankly? It's now her job. She must do it. End of story