A company secretary is usually a senior administrative position in either a private corporate sector organization or public sector organization. The name CS is a globally acknowledged professional designation currently given to Company secretaries. A secretary, in simple terms, is someone who carries out the day to day secretarial duties of higher officers or managers. Normally, the highest ranked position that a company holds is that of a company secretary as this position entails a lot of responsibility. The duties of a typical company secretary include correspondence, secretarial services, receiving and sending messages, planning internal work flows, managing and implementing payroll systems and bookkeeping.
Companies generally appoint one individual to be the company secretary on a temporary or permanent basis depending on their requirements and working style. The most important thing for a company secretary to perform is to carry out the duties assigned to her and ensure compliance with the company's legislation and policies. A good example of the many duties that a company secretary normally has to undertake are those of preparing and filing payrolls, conducting internal and external company records management, scheduling and cancelling official appointments, ensuring the organization's safekeeping, delegating various duties such as meeting minutes, chairing disciplinary hearings, reviewing proposals for business deals, approving employee contracts, reviewing compensation proposals, and many more. A company secretary also ensures that the correct copies of relevant documents are received and forwarded to the appropriate departments and executives.
There are some specific duties that a company secretary may have to undertake depending on the nature of the organization she works for now. These include budgetary duties, providing executive management services and guidance, implementing strategic planning, overseeing the company's compliance with laws, implementing employee benefit plans and health and safety programs, reviewing strategic plans, planning and implementing company wide communications programs and assisting the organization's employees with career development. Generally, a company secretary's scope of duties does not extend as far as the actual performance of her office though she may still be required to report on the status of company operations to senior management regularly. In fact, many company secretaries find it hard to perform the most basic of administrative duties as they have to deal with a huge volume of data and work schedules that they have to manually enter and process manually. Most of these duties can be delegated to other members of the staff if the company requires them.
In contrast to the traditional views held by most private and public companies, the positions held by company secretaries are very much in demand today. As more organizations try to cut down on costs incurred in employing temporary employees, many are resorting to hiring individuals who are knowledgeable and talented in administrative tasks to meet these cuts. By hiring an external company secretary, organizations are not only saving money but are also able to maintain a high level of quality and efficiency within their organisation as these individuals are skilled in performing multiple functions. External company secretaries are especially effective for organizations that are small in size or have limited internal resources.
To qualify as a company secretary, it is important that the individual possess certain qualities. For starters, the person needs to be well organised and understand the administrative tasks that he is required to perform. Apart from this, the applicant must also have good communication skills. It is important that the candidate possesses good professional qualifications in legal requirement areas such as corporate law, contract law, labour law etc. However, while applying for a position as a company director it is important to note that there is no legal requirement for holding this post.
Today, many companies are seeking individuals with legal experience to fill the company secretary position because the professional helps in providing sound administrative assistance to the company directors. If you are interested in this post, you must possess good communication skills and be able to carry out tasks impartially. Moreover, you should possess experience in conducting meetings, drafting reports and planning meeting minutes. You must be able to keep track of multiple tasks and deadlines without getting distracted. Moreover, it is important that you are detail oriented and prepared to provide timely and accurate legal advice to the company directors. Find out more details in relation to this topic here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary.
