Administrative staff vs office assistant

The differences between administrative staff and office assistants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 1-2 years to become both an administrative staff and an office assistant. Additionally, an administrative staff has an average salary of $77,101, which is higher than the $31,517 average annual salary of an office assistant.

The top three skills for an administrative staff include telephone calls, word processing and travel arrangements. The most important skills for an office assistant are data entry, patients, and customer service.

Administrative staff vs office assistant overview

	Administrative Staff	Office Assistant
Yearly salary	$77,101	$31,517
Hourly rate	$37.07	$15.15
Growth rate	-8%	-5%
Number of jobs	119,030	103,293
Job satisfaction	-	5
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 42%
Average age	50	47
Years of experience	2	2

What does an administrative staff do?

As the administrative staff, they primarily provide administrative and secretarial support for the department. Typically, they do report-writing, filing and scheduling, and payroll. They plan department weekly meetings, schedule conference calls, and work on solving administrative related concerns and issues. They do a complex task that involves multi-tasking from the preparation of department reports, analyzing data, and finding solutions. It is a requirement to be an experienced, collaborator, and trained cross-functional communicator. Moreover, other duties will include scheduling company-initiated activities, meetings, and events.

What does an office assistant do?

Office assistants perform various tasks to ensure that the business runs organized and efficient. An office assistant must possess excellent communication and multi-tasking skills to handle essential duties such as scheduling meetings, monitoring office supplies, storing documents and necessary paperwork, handling customer inquiries and appointments, coordinating in company events, and accomplishing other clerical tasks and administrative support. Office assistants are also required to communicate any observation that would possibly make an impact on the company's performance.

Administrative staff vs office assistant salary

Administrative staff and office assistants have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Administrative Staff	Office Assistant
Average salary	$77,101	$31,517
Salary range	Between $58,000 And $101,000	Between $24,000 And $41,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	Washington, DC
Highest paying state	California	Vermont
Best paying company	NVIDIA	Analysis Group
Best paying industry	Professional	Government

Differences between administrative staff and office assistant education

There are a few differences between an administrative staff and an office assistant in terms of educational background:

	Administrative Staff	Office Assistant
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 42%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Pennsylvania	Western Carolina University

Administrative staff vs office assistant demographics

Here are the differences between administrative staff' and office assistants' demographics:

	Administrative Staff	Office Assistant
Average age	50	47
Gender ratio	Male, 31.9% Female, 68.1%	Male, 17.3% Female, 82.7%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 9.2% Unknown, 3.9% Hispanic or Latino, 16.2% Asian, 3.8% White, 66.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%	Black or African American, 10.1% Unknown, 4.8% Hispanic or Latino, 21.0% Asian, 8.3% White, 54.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.1%
LGBT Percentage	6%	6%

Differences between administrative staff and office assistant duties and responsibilities

Administrative staff example responsibilities.

Support medical doctors, manage sensitive and confidential records pertaining to high risk patients with emphasis on accuracy.
Prepare PowerPoint presentations for management distribution.
Maintain payroll information by collect, calculate and enter data.
Prepare briefing slides and presentation material using PowerPoint and Visio.
Maintain accounting statements, databases, and other financial information such as payroll coding and budget preparation
Provide cloud base customer relationship management with Salesforce for optimization in coordination of the workforce development program and other community orient events

Office assistant example responsibilities.

Manage filing, photocopying, collating, and faxing public and seal case documents.
Manage CI s SharePoint pages and serve as CI s subject matter expert on SharePoint working groups.
Manage operational FedEx relationship through order fulfillment, shipment tracking, and communication with parties involve in shipment transaction.
Compile payroll records, detect and reconcile discrepancies, accurately report outcomes using QuickBooks.
Maintain office services by organizing office operations and procedures, preparing payroll, controlling correspondences, and designing filing systems.
File client paperwork upholding HIPAA standards.

Administrative staff vs office assistant skills

Common administrative staff skills

Telephone Calls, 19%
Word Processing, 16%
Travel Arrangements, 7%
Payroll, 6%
Personnel Actions, 6%
Financial Reports, 5%

Common office assistant skills

Data Entry, 16%
Patients, 14%
Customer Service, 9%
Telephone Calls, 7%
Scheduling Appointments, 6%
Front Desk, 6%

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Administrative Staff vs Office Assistant

Updated January 8, 2025

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