Computer Chips and Paper Clips Technology and Women's Employment, Volume II: Case Studies and Policy Perspectives (1987) / Chapter Skim
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New Technology and Office Tradition: The Not-So-Changing World of the Secretary
New Technology and Office Tradition: The Not-So-Changing World of the Secretary
Pages 98-135
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From page 98... ...
The current phase of technological revolution, particularly its effects on American office workers, calls for further documentation. This paper examines the impact of office technology on the secretarial occupation.
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From page 99... ...
It argues that the persistence of patrimonial authority in secretary-boss relations, combined with new staffing ratios (when each secretary is assigned to work for more and more bosses) , determine to a far greater extent than technology itself—the work life of the word-processing secretary.
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From page 100... ...
The composition of the secretarial labor force has also changed. Since the 1970s, the number of minority women has increased dramatically; between 1970 and 1980 the number of black women secretaries increased 148 percent, while the number of secretaries of Spanish origin increased 131 percent (U.S.
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From page 101... ...
Employment agencies and secretarial schools eager to supply their clients with willing and trainable personnel have urged secretaries and prospective secretaries to acquire the new skills quickly so that they too can reap the benefits awaiting them in the electronic office. Many secretaries interpret this enthusiasm and encouragement to mean that all office work has become "high tech and expect that they wiD be given a chance to do challenging work, sharpen their skills, earn better pay, and move up in their organizations.
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From page 102... ...
In clecentralized word processing, satellite units are distributed throughout the organization. Inherent in this distinction is a focus on the difference between word-processing "operators," who perform VDT work at the centers under the supervision of a manager, and the word-processing secretaries who concern us here, i.e., secretaries working at satellite VDT terminals in face-to-face relations with principals or bosses to whom they are assigned.
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From page 103... ...
The third section explores how technology affects secretarial expectations and experiences in the new office particularly through changes in "staffing ratios" (e.g., private secretaries versus shared secretaries versus team or minipoo} secretaries)
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From page 104... ...
PATRIMONY IN TRADITIONAL SECRETARIAL WORK ~aditionaDy the secretarial role has been understood as a support role with the subordinate performing a variety of administrative, clerical, and personal tasks for a superior. For the last century, women have been secretaries while men have been principals.
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From page 105... ...
. legal secretaries typically might type corporate minutes, draft standard wills or petitions following boiler-plate forms, or check legal citations and references for her attorney.
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From page 106... ...
This perception of inequity is increasingly a source of grievance to secretaries. The Consensus Statement of Professional Secretaries International (a nonunion organization)
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From page 107... ...
, but they did not necessarily have the heaviest work loads. This was also true at Firm X, where legal secretaries to junior partners or senior associates had less status and pay but heavier work loads than senior partners' secretaries.
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From page 108... ...
As early as 1977 women were reporting a gap between what they expected from their jobs and what they felt they were getting. The Quality of Employment Survey, for example, reported a decline of some 25 points In the mean job satisfaction 5 There is a wide range as to what different workers mean by their Frights.
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From page 109... ...
Over the last few years, the combination of increasing expectations and declining satisfaction has increased political activism among many women clericals. Organizations of secretaries, including Working Women, 9 to 5, and Professional Secretaries International, all provide secretaries with an institutional base from which to advocate better pay, greater respect on and off the job, more opportunity to perform interesting and challenging work, and an opportunity to advance in their careers.
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From page 110... ...
Secretaries generally report that they like the new automated equipment and they are optimistic about what it can do for them (Westin et al., 1985; Johnson et al., 1985; ProfessionalSecretaries International and the Minolta Corp., 1984; 9 to 5, National AL sociation of Working Women, 1984; Honeywell Tnc., 1983; Bikson and Gutek, 1983~. In a national survey conducted by a major vendor, 86 percent of the secretaries reported being satisfied to very satisfied with their automated equipment (Honeywell Inc., 1983~.
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From page 111... ...
More important, none reportedly are eager to return to the typewriter (Pomfrett et al., 1984~. The problems associated with the quality of secretarial employment in automated offices have much more to do with organizational factors, including the design of new jobs, the way in which word processing Is introduced, and general working conditions, than with the equipment itself.
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From page 112... ...
In the last decade, for example, large numbers of white, educated women who formerly looked to secretarial work as an appropriate career have moved into professional and managerial positions. Their exodus, together with a staggering increase in secretarial jobs, opened up many clerical positions to minority women, who had traditionally been forced by discrimination to work at lower-paying, lower-status factory and domestic jobs.
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From page 113... ...
This, as the following sections show, occurs because of the dominance of new staffing ratios in offices where private secretaries are shared among principals or are obliged to work as specialists in minipools and because of the persistence of patrimony in secretarial work, in particular the still-operative stereotypes of the appropriate division of labor between principals and secretaries. SECRETARIAL SHARING AND MINIPOOLS: NEW STAFFING RATIOS IN THE AUTOMATED OFFICE Office economics, in particular the costs generated by investment in computers and concerns about labor overhead, are pushing many managers in a trend predicted by Mills (1956)
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From page 114... ...
Drafting letters and documents for boss's signature Electronic calendaring and time management Arranging conferences and meetings, including teleconferencing Planning and project management Project follow-through and cleanup Spreadsheets and financial management Research Inventory control Personnel records (time and attendance logs) Diplomatic and social tasks Gatekeeping and buffering Receiving visitors or incoming calls Scheduling appointments for boss Gathering information and gossip about organization Shepherding projects through bureaucracy Acting as soundings board for boss Advising boss Clerical tasks Placing telephone calls Making restaurant reservations Making travel arrangements Photocopying Stenography Taking minutes or notes at meetings Proofreading Maintaining files of paper copies Distributing~sending out mail Clerical tasks -- computer-based Text and data inputting Own (drafting)
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From page 115... ...
Exploratory research suggests that wordprocessing secretaries who are shared perform a more restricted 7 This is not to say that the private secretary has disappeared,, in the automated office. In almost every office, one can find examples of the private word-processing secretary working for a single executive or manager.
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From page 116... ...
They report that the two secretaries felt they were spending more time doing word processing and associated tasks than they had previously spent at typing in the precomputer office, with a reduction in task variety and hence work satisfaction. In addition, managers continue to vie with one another for a secretary's time—just as they did in the precomputer office, and pull rank and status with her to get their work done first and fastest.
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From page 117... ...
Secretary Many companies are using new office technologies as a vehicle to reorganize their secretaries into small decentralized pools. Although such pools existed in the precomputer office for years, they are considered by some management consultants today to be the latest trend in reorganizing office work.
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From page 118... ...
Whitej middlecIass women are likely to move into the private secretarial jobs or be promoted to the team supervisor jobs. Minority women are likely to move into lower-level shared or pool jobs.
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From page 119... ...
Even in organizations where word processing is highly integrated and executives work "on liner a great deal, secretaries and principals do quite different tasks (Johnson, 1984~. And, just as in the traditional office, it is the principals who perform most of the creative and rewarding tasks, namely, those demanding high levels of verbal skill, discretion, responsibility, and decision making, such as writing original material, manipulating financial programs, or creating project management systems (Bikson and Gutek, 1983~.
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From page 120... ...
(Honeywell Inc., 1983; Kelly Services, 1982; Verbatim Corp., 1982~. Contrary to the promise of many vendors and schools oh fering word-processing instruction, however, preliminary research indicates that clerical women are increasingly frustrated with the opportunity for advancement offered them in the "office of the future." Many are reporting uncertainty as to whether word processing per se should be viewed as a clerical, a technical, or a professional occupation (Verbatim Corp., 1982~.
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From page 121... ...
In an employer survey of a large, highly automated customer-service organization reported on by the same researchers, t~vo-thirds of the women clericals said they were not satisfied vnth their chances for advancement (Weston et al., 1985~. Similar numbers were obtained In a 1983 study of professional secretaries (Professional Secretaries International and the Minolta Corp., 19843: 49 percent of the secretaries said they were dissatisfied with the opportunity for advancement offered by their jobs, with 22 percent being every dissatisfied.
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From page 122... ...
Typically these team secretaries, after a couple of years on the job, will come to her seeking raises because they are not permitted to move up to work for partners and their skills on the office's very advanced word-processing system have greatly increasecI.9 Hirschhorn, however, in a concept paper, suggests that a did ferent scenario is occurring in the automated office. He posits that because a shift is taking place whereby office workers do more "negotiating on their jobs than "taking orders," three "paraprofessions" may emerge from "the increasingly obsolete secretarial role." These are the pare-publisher, the pare-librarian, and the pare-manager.
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From page 123... ...
Department of Labor, 1986; Professional Secretaries International, 1984~. A great many secretaries fee!
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From page 124... ...
As a result, the issue of equitable pay for secretarial workers has taken on a new relevance. According to a study by Kelly Services, 88 percent of all secretaries believe that learning as much as possible about using word processing will help them increase their salaries.
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From page 125... ...
Most secretaries, however, want to see their new computer skills reflected in their paychecks and argue their case through organizations such as Professional Secretaries International and The Working Women's Education Fund. In a recent poll of 1,250 secretaries, almost 90 percent believed their computer skills should earn them higher pay.
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From page 126... ...
, and the resources and wealth of the office or work group. Office Size Office size has always had an impact on secretarial work.
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From page 127... ...
Secretaries in the caste-like Wall Street law firms are, by definition, barred from moving into any professional jobs, except for two or three supervisory jobs in personnel or as "leadersn or coordinators of a clerical team. Public versus private sector is another variable that may affect the nature of change in secretarial work in the automated office.
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From page 128... ...
They may also be more likely to implement secretarial sharing or minipoole In their office when word processing is brought in. They are also the least likely to give extra pay to secretaries who work for a large number of bosses and who have very heavy work loads.
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From page 129... ...
In the new, an in the traditional, office, favoritism and manipulation of a boss is more likely to produce a move upward to a professional position than any reorganization of career ladders that is technology-driven or management-inspired. Moreover, secretaries shuttled from private secretarial status into slots as shared secretaries or into strict m~nipool~ lose access to even the shortladder career routes (e.g., pool to executive)
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From page 130... ...
But there is also a troubling trend toward eliminating some secretarial functions. The trend of word processing by professionals, in which authors or bosses handle everything from the generation of ideas to the generation of finished texts, may be growing.
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From page 131... ...
:5-6. Grandjean, Burke, and Patricia Taylor 1980 Job satisfaction among female clerical workers.
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From page 132... ...
Johnson, Bonnie McDaniel 1985 Organizational Design of Word Processing from Typewriter to Integrated Office Systems. American Federation of Information Processing Societies, Inc.
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From page 133... ...
1981 Rationalization and Satisfaction in Clerical Work: A Case Study of Wall Street Legal Secretaries.
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From page 134... ...
Survey sponsored by Minolta Corp., in cooperation with Professional Secretaries International Research and Educational Foundation. Kansas City, Mo.
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From page 135... ...
Verbatim Corp. 1982 Office Workers' Views and Perceptions of New Technology in the Workplace.
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