CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The word communication is very complex and could be used in different contexts to mean to wide range of things. Communication particularly in business organizations provides a means by which power is required, exercised, shaped and sustained.
Generally, communication is an act shaped by all living things. It originated from the Latin word “communies” meaning to share. Communication is the act of imparting a share of something.
To emphasized on the importance of communication, Cicero (1970) said thus “If a wise man were granted a life of abundance of materials things, so that he has leisure to contemplate everything worth knowing, yet if he could not communicate with other human if he could not communicate with other human beings he could abandon life”
By John fists (1982) “Communication is talking to one another, it is television, it is spreading information by whatever means. It is our life style, it is literary criticism, the list is endless.
Two schools of though exist on communication. The process school and the sem school. Both schools agreed on the fact that for communication to be effective, there must be a sender, a receiver, a channel and the subject matter which is being communicated on. There could also be noise which is anything that is being added to the communication signals between its transmission and reception that is not intended by sources.
Communication in a business organization encompasses more than mere oral transmission. It involves all the sensory, oral and written activities that form part of our organizational life. The actualization of communication is the equipment. This is because when instruction are communicated through the equipment,. The people working know their responsibilities and the secretary dispensers her duties appropriately. Thus, the organizational goal would be enhanced.
1.2 WHO IS A SECRETARY
The word secretary us coined from the Latin word “Secretus” which literally means “a secret”. Perhaps it is the fact that aspect if the work of a secretary involve keeping secrets that the secretaries are often regarded as a keeper of secrets.
The National Secretaries Association (United stated of America) defined a secretary as “an assistant to an executive, possessing mastery of office skills and ability to assume responsibility without direct supervision, who displays initiatives, exercises judgment and takes decision within the scope of her authority. There is therefore no doubting that fact that the secretary is the wheel on which the executive activities revolve. The secretary is often refereed to as the executive alter ego.
1.3 ROLES OF A SECRETARY
The role of the secretary plays in an office is wide and varied depending on the size and type of organization in which she is working. Technological innovation in the office has increasingly made the work of the secretary more complex and sophisticated though a lot easier.
However, there are some of the routine duties a secretary is expected to perform.
ARRANGING FOR MEETING
It is the duty of the secretary to arrange for meetings, take accurate minutes of the meeting and type them out neatly.
DECISION MAKING AND PROBLEMS SOLVING
H.A. Dauda (1993) The secretary should assist the executive in his decision making and problem solving role. She does this by filtering calls and callers which enables the manager to concentrate fully. She also furnishes her boss with adequate information from files and elsewhere. The secretary should seek as the ears of her boss when he is away and inform him accordingly when he is back.
COMMUNICATION AND DISSEMINATION OF INFORMATION
The secretary joins the manager in his communication processing and dissemination of information. Modern communication and information technology can enable people communicate locally and internationally at the shortest possible time. Local area networks, teleconferences and caller phones are good facilitators of both near and far distant communications. The secretary in particular plays a great role in dissemination of information. He must give adequate and timely information.
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS.
Every organization is made up of different kinds of people/business associates, clients, peers and staffs of the organization. It believes on the secretary to develop a good public relations skill by which she grapes quickly the mood of views of all these people and adjust his own responses accordingly such skills include: being a good listener, making people feel at ease and being able to interpret the body movement and signals people display.
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THE INFLUENCE OF COMMUNITY EQUIPMENT ON THE EFFICIENCY OF THE SECRETARY
