Yesterday I said that Grant Thornton’s decision to axe almost 100 ‘secretaries’ was a poor business decision. I stand by every word.
Yesterday I said that Grant Thornton’s decision to axe almost 100 ‘secretaries’ was a poor business decision. I stand by every word. But today, I want to share a different angle. Because the comments I read this morning under the Financial Times article give me hope. Yes, of course, there are still people whose view of assistants is stuck in the 1970s. Comments along the lines of: 👉 “Managers started doing their own admin in the 1990s.” 👉 “I never had a secretary, I did it all myself.” 👉 “100 jobs isn’t significant in a firm that size.” This is exactly the mindset we’re still up against. And it explains why the profession continues to be cut without recognition of the damage that does to productivity. But here’s the good news. Many more readers – senior leaders, consultants, seasoned business professionals – pushed back and saw it for what it is: 👉 A consulting professional described outsourcing admin to India as a “disaster waiting to happen.” Unless tasks are written step-by-step with screenshots, they aren’t completed. The result? Onshore staff pick up the work anyway. Short-term savings evaporate into long-term inefficiency. 👉 Another noted: “Senior people can do more, better work when they have a good secretary. That makes the firm more profitable.” In other words, assistants don’t just support productivity, they drive profitability. 👉 One pointed out how much has been lost since the 80s and 90s, when leaders had secretaries to protect their focus: “There are some tasks where having secretarial assistance makes the firm more profitable, never mind someone who knows your schedule and can run your office life.” 👉 Others were blunt: “This is very short-sighted.” And there were thoughtful questions too: What level of assistants were cut? How will service to partners be impacted? Is this a small slice of the overall support structure, or a major blow? Even the sceptics recognised there’s a risk to service quality if senior people lose local support. That matters. Because it means the wider business community is waking up to the fact that assistants aren’t an overhead or all at one level. They are infrastructure. They create the capacity for leaders to lead, and they protect the organisation against risk, inefficiency, and wasted talent. So yes, I am still angry about what has happened at Grant Thornton. But looking at those comments, I am also hopeful. Because this conversation is shifting. It’s not just assistants defending their own value anymore. The business world is starting to say it too. This is the moment to push the narrative forward – louder, clearer, and in business terms. Let’s keep defining it before someone else defines it for you.
