At what point on career ladder is work just meetings and no admin?

[ToeSucker]

Started at a new more senior role and I'm doing lots of admin. Level above delegate it all to me. They just attend meetings and talk.
Is director level where the admin stops?

Can you not delegate some downwards?

Probably depends on the employer.

Middle management is the worst, especially if you’re under staffed. I’m lucky that I have a great team and only have to cover one specialist element when an officer is off. Overall I can delegate quite a bit of admin but the layer above me seems to be more what you describe. I’m a senior manager but director is very much meeting based. My head of dept is similar but he seems to love admin and lists/spreadsheets that we all have to populate then mostly ignore because we’re busy doing the doing.

I've started a new role at a more senior level and I can now just delegate the admin down to the managers below me. My life pretty much is attending meetings and then writing actions for other people to complete. Works brilliantly because I loathe admin tasks

So an example , SLT (university) told my Director of Operations that they needed a report on X. She asked me for my departments information. I asked members of my team for their data, collated and reported on it, sent it to her, she put the 3 departments together and added an overview.

So it wasn't all on her, or all on me as middle management. I could have got the data myself but I had other things to do.

Can’t you delegate some of the work down your own chain?

I worked closely with my own manager in my last job and his job was definitely mostly admin. Higher ups always looking for reports to be pulled, things to be collated, documents to be drawn up.

I'm deputy director level I delegate all admin down including diary management. The job title says it all, I direct, not do

What type of admin? I’m a director and I do admin. I schedule committee meetings if I’m the secretary, tidy up files, arrange meetings with external people. Some things I get admin or juniors in the team to do but it’s often easier to do it myself.

I cannot imagine that attitude in senior management. ‘Oh I dont do’

What do you mean by "Admin"? Because in the middle there's a lot of actual work, not meetings. that's when you're the active "doer". The person who gets shit done. The one who is experienced enough to create that process, to prepare that plan, to write that proposal, to design that house, to complete that task. Senior people are the ones making decisions, setting strategic directions, reviewing and fine tuning output.

If you mean admn like filling in forms and answering phones, then I'd have thought there would be actual people in genuinely junior roles who do that.

I have been delegating a lot of admin since I was a manager and had a person in my team. It is great for me (I hate admin), as well as for their development, and probably some of the admin they can do quicker as they do so much more regularly/

I think it depends on the business. Most senior management team do a lot of their own admin now - set up meetings, keep on top of their own expenses etc. is that what you mean by admin?
I had a shared PA in one role as a director; but otherwise just do my own?

Agreed - as middle management I do a lot of developing processes, writing proposals and business cases etc. But I don't do a lot of 'admin' e.g. chasing others for things, run the processes once they are ongoing (rather than at development), organise meetings (particularly larger ones that need calendars matching) etc.

It depends on the company and its size and your particular role, not your seniority. The most meetings I ever had was when I started out as an admin assistant. I would have entire days in meetings taking minutes.

Now as the head of a department I have around five meetings a week.

In large companies I've reported to directors who were in meetings 80% of the time. In small companies it's more like 30%.

In large companies I did very little admin as I had assistants in the team. In small companies I've done most of my own admin but can pass some tasks to the reception team.

You have to have that attitude though or you’d sink. You are doing something just your doing something is different!

Exactly this. I'm bloody busy all the time, I make decisions that are worth many millions of pounds. The buck stops with me. I read reports others write. I give them the credit. If you are in a sionor post and doing admin all the time then you are doing it wrong.