CHAPTER ONE
3.0 INTRODUCTION
3.1 Background of the Study
A secretary is a person who has a wide knowledge into the art and science of handling office correspondence and machines. In other words, a secretary is that person who has under gone secretarial courses and having the knowledge to operate all office machine available, such as typewriter, franking machines, adding machines, duplication machines etc. He or she also received information, makes calls, receives calls either within or outsides the organization. It is important to identify the functions a secretary performs in the modern business world, by this we would be able to appreciate the role computer plays in secretarial activities.
Computer has been defined by many authors and computer analysis as an electronic device that has the ability of automatically accepting data, applying sequence of process to data, store and automatically execute a program of instructions and supplying the results of the process. Computer evolved as results of man’s search for fast, accrual calculating devices. But it will be wrong to think that computers just arrived unto sense of secretarial profession and organization. Computer comes into existence between 15th and 16th century. The first known data processing devices consisted of the use of fingers, stones and sticks for counting on a string, Socrates on a rock and abacus as keeping devices. In addition, a follow-up development on the data processing was the introduction of manual computer and machinery to perform arithmetic and science operations, but with the dynamic nature of business worlds. Its importance has been stretched beyond these spheres of operations, but business offices or organizations and even to private homes.
The introduction of computers and machines to perform arithmetic operations is often attributed to blaze passels of France and Volition of Germany in the seventeenth century A.D. In order to honor blaze Pascal, the programming language was named after him, Pascal with the introduction of electronic computer since then a series of radical breakthrough, the computers based upon the order form of electronics have been replaced by a new “generation of computer based upon a new form of electronics.
3.2 Importance of Computer
Until the evolution of computers into the sense of industries, most duties were performed manually but after the introduction of computer, most of jobs that were carried out traditionally now become computerized such computer has its own unique code. Computer is an important management tool for the following reasons;
a. It performs operation quickly
b. It stores data compactly
c. It handles effectively the routing large scale data processing tasks, such as wages and salary calculations and billing etc.
d. It handles large quantities of data
The introduction of Computer to the secretary
The computer is a wonderful tool but not a “spoon feeder” which can restructures an inefficient organization. The computer will aid secretary in processing information Note that the first thing that connects a company and its customers is the business letter or other information sent. It is the duty of the secretary to check the quality of output from the organization, with computer the secretary can actually of work without stress, produce work or which she can be proud recall information on a screen on this screen all corrections can easily be made.
The performance/Role of the Secretary
In many organizations, managers are likely to find out that running the computer system of computer without the personal back up of a secretary has the effect of actually covering up the management mistake so there might be found a high degree of complimentarily computer according to Robert (181-8) he had observed that.
“The secretary is the interface between technology and the manager”. This does not mean that she has to have expert knowledge of the whole computer. This also falls in line with Cameroon (1982-5) who claim that the computer has no altered the time honoured role of secretary. The same idea was expressed by Eni (1991-5) when he pointed out that: the secretary is often the company’s first contact with prospective customers. Her effectiveness can either give the customers a good impression to call again on the company”.
So from what Robert and Eni said one can see what the secretary has a very important role to play in an organization. She connects the technology in the office to the outside world which includes the customers. The most vital features of what a secretary produces is data. The most vital features of what a secretary produces in actually must be harmonized with her top event loss or corruption of data.
So a secretary should see the computer as a “catalyst by which her careers will become more explicit, it will even aid her to distinguish between responsibility and competence the computer with the secretarial performance it poses yet another set of question dealing with employee attitudes according to Benson et al (1980-1995) computer is:
When computer is brought into an organization old pasterns of interaction … are altered or entirely destroyed and new pasterns are faced upon employees and managers.