CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:
Secretary refers to a person who performs routines, administrative, or personal tasks for a superior. Those in secretary occupation perform duties such as typing, computer processing, and scheduling for an executive. Secretaries are often hardworking, important members of a business. Its administrative workings better than anyone else. Since the renaissance until the late 19th Century, men had assumed the title of secretary in the 1880, with the invention of the typewriters, more women began to enter the field since World War I. however, the role of secretary has been primarily associated with women. By the 1930s, fewer men are entering the secretarial occupation.
In an effort to promote professionalism amongst secretaries, the National Secretaries Association was created in 1942. As technology continues to expand to office across the professionals was greatly evolved office automation and organizational structure had led secretaries to assume a wider range of near responsibilities. One researches for managerial and professional staff. Many secretaries now provide training are orientation for new staff, conduct research on the internet, and operate and troubleshoot new office technologies. In the midst of these, however, their responsibilities have remained much the same, although changed from manual to electronic performing and co-ordinating an office’s administrative activities, storing, retrieving and integrating information for dissemination to staff and client.
Secretaries are responsible for a variety of administration and clerical duties necessary to run an organization and maintain paper and electronic files, manage projects, conduct research and provide information on the telephone, postal and e-mail. They also may prepare correspondence and handle travel arrangement.
With the above unique functions played by secretaries, it is sorrowful sighted that occupation change which Ozigi (1989) defined as picking up job in another discipline or field of endeavour outside what one has been working for some years has affected the secretarial profession, at present where, some secretaries who have been properly trained vehemently take up a job in another field of specialization abandon in the secretarial jobs, this idea of leaving one’s occupation or profession to another can also be observed but it is more pronounced in the secretarial profession. This work is therefore designed to find out why people trained as secretary take up jobs outside the secretarial profession.