OIT SECRETARIAL TRAINING REQUIREMENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90G00993R000300020016-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 16
• Publication Date: February 11, 1986
• Content Type: MEMO

ILL Frig
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/20: CIA-RDP90G00993R000300020016-5
STAT
DATE: February 11, 1986
SUBJECT: OIT Secretarial Training Requirements
Nancy,
NOTE TO:
I am replying for George, as he is in Florida.
Based on your note to him, I understand that you are looking for
information that will help establish training requirements for
advancement within the new secretarial career service. Not knowing the
plans for the new career service, or to what level pay a secretary can
aspire, I will assume it will follow a similar General Service Pay Scale
that marches along with that of their supervisor. I will also assume
that in general, the secretarial career will always have a steep
pyramidal relationship with the office structure of the Agency. In
other words, the number of GS-09 equivalent secretaries are proportional
to the number of SIS-041s.
I make all these assumptions because I believe it is in our best
interest to train secretaries for higher paying and higher responsible
jobs both within the secretarial field and outside of the secretarial
field.
The most important secretarial skill is attitude and personal
interest in the job. Training in this area should include self
assessment, employee development and inter-personal skills training.
The next most important secretarial skill is organization and basic
competency in office procedures. The training for this includes proper
etiquette on handling telephones and messages, managing your inbox and
outbox, adequate speed on typing skills with adequate accuracy (I'll
explain why later), basic knowledge of office automation equipment, and
in our case its Delta Data, IBM PC's, and WANGS. Accuracy is not
important as long as you use automation and make use of automated
dictionaries. This should also apply to format and style of
correspondence. Where possible, automation most often takes cares of
all format and style. However, it is good to have training in Office
characteristics of format, carbon copies, chronos, as well as filing
procedures.
The third most important skill is good inter-personal skills,
especially as it relates to the supervisor or boss. Training in this
area relates more to keeping calendars, scheduling
appointments/meetings/trips, etc. and making sure that all loose ends
are taken care of. I really believe that an office is as good as the
secretaries that run it. They should take pride and ownership of the
responsibility as a valuable part of the smooth running of an Office.
The forth most important skill is ambition. This is demonstrated
through off the job training, expanding the knowledge one needs in the
job to move onto the next level. For example, in OIT, additional
training would be naturally office automation courses, and even data
processing courses. A logical follow on would be how to prepare
graphics, and presentations (all of which an office has requirements for
at various times, usually with short deadlines). In some cases, use of
computer systems, or helping fellow workers with administrative aspects
of their jobs ie., recording secretary for a Project Design review may
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/20: CIA-RDP90G00993R000300020016-5
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/20: CIA-RDP90G00993R000300020016-5
be applicable and interesting.
Now to digress a little. I believe that shorthand should go the
way of the dinosaur. One can take it (like Latin), but it should never
be used as a criteria for ANY advancement.
More and more functions like T & A's, Travel, etc. will be automated
over time and a secretary will be required to use a computer terminal,
therefore ANY computer related training should be stressed, and I am
expanding my thoughts beyond just things like AIM, and VM, to include
STAT things like SAFE, and eventually training
on standard micro computer packages that the Agency will adopt, such as
Microsoft Word and/or 1 or 2 other word processing packages.
To some extent, secretaries will only be as good as their office,
and boss will encourage and allow. Therefore, as managers move up in
the world, training for them should include improving your relationship
with your secretary.
Periodically, all secretaries within an office (I realize this is
impossible, but there are ways to work it) should gather for a
conference and go over Office mission and goals, and Office procedures.
It sure makes an office run smoother when the hierarchy processes things
the same way.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/20: CIA-RDP90G00993R000300020016-5