The new Ms Moneypenny

The 'Secretary,' was a highly sought-after position during the 1980s and 90s. Today, that breed, although not extinct, is definitely on the decline.

Sophie Coutinho, 61, has fond memories of being a secretary at the Standard Chartered Bank in Mumbai. Soon after finishing school, she attended secretarial college and was hired as a 'personal assistant'. Working her way up, she soon became 'secretary', a position she held for 16 years. "Because I was good at shorthand, stenography, editing and making layouts, I was often sought by other project officers to assist them," says Coutinho, who now holds an administrative position at a medical center.

So what led to the trickle? "A secretary no longer has to maintain appointment diaries or take notes," says Prerak Shah, an HR personnel with a manufacturing company in Mumbai. "Besides, the workplace culture today demands that managers handle their own appointments and follow an open door policy, so colleagues and subordinates can just walk in if they want to talk." Add to this the fact that online calendars and applications like Siri and Google Assistant make it convenient for professionals to manage their work days, it is easy to understand why the days of the secretary might be numbered. "In most companies, only the senior management is assigned secretaries, and it is indeed an indulgence," says Shah.

Witnessing this shift is the century-old Davar's College of Secretarial Studies and Services in Mumbai. Silloo Chinigar has been a secretary for the past 44 years, and is now the director of Secretarial Studies at the college. "We get 200 students on an average every year for the course. The numbers have definitely dropped, but we try to keep up with the changing times," she says.

Making a case for people, Rashmi More (name changed) says that technology cannot always be relied upon. "We are not becoming redundant, but are evolving to stay relevant," says More, a secretary for the last 25 years who currently works at a multi-national company. "Applications like Siri and Google Assistant cannot troubleshoot a situation or re-schedule meetings end-minute. Nor can they work without data connectivity. But we can."

Describing secretaries as "the foot soldiers" of organisations, More says that times may change and the secretary may take on a new name, but the values of responsibility, commitment, teamwork, self-motivation will remain for as long as workplaces are around.