How to Onboard an Executive Assistant: Access, SOPs and Inbox Rules

To onboard a new executive assistant who is useful in week one, finish three things before the start date: delegate access to email and calendar plus a shared password vault, written inbox rules, and short recordings of the five tasks you do most. Then hand over the calendar on day one and the inbox by day five.

What access does an executive assistant need on day one?

An executive assistant needs delegate access to the leader's email and calendar, a seat in the shared password manager, access to the document drive and the task or project tracker, and an account in the team chat. Banking, payroll and personal accounts can wait. Create everything before the start date so the first morning goes to real work.

Use the assistant's own account for everything. In Google Workspace that means mail delegation and calendar sharing with "make changes" rights; in Microsoft 365 it means delegate permissions on the mailbox and calendar. The assistant signs in as themselves and sends as you only when the rules say so. You can remove access in one step on the day you need to.

Turn on two-factor authentication for the assistant's accounts on day one. For tools that only allow one login, store the second factor in the password manager so the assistant is not texting you for codes all week.

Which inbox rules should you write before the first day?

The inbox rules a new executive assistant needs are a short written list: who gets an immediate answer, what the assistant can answer alone, what gets forwarded with a summary, and what gets archived. One page is enough. Without it, the assistant either asks about every email or guesses, and guesses on the wrong emails cost more than the questions.

A starting set of rules:

1. VIP list: names whose emails reach you within the hour (board members, top customers, your partner, your accountant). The assistant flags these and does not reply unless you say so.
2. Answer alone: scheduling requests, vendor confirmations, document requests where the document is in the shared drive, polite declines of cold pitches.
3. Draft for approval: anything with a number in it (price, salary, date commitment), anything to a customer about a problem, and introductions.
4. Archive: newsletters you never read, automated notifications, sales sequences.
5. Labels: Action (you must reply), Waiting (someone owes you), FYI, and Done. The assistant applies them every morning.

Add a daily summary at a fixed time. It lists what needs your reply, what the assistant handled and what is waiting on others. Most leaders read it in five minutes and stop opening the inbox at all by the end of the second week.

How do you write SOPs for an executive assistant without spending a week on it?

The fastest way to write SOPs for an executive assistant is to record your screen while you do each task once, talking through the decisions, and let the assistant write the checklist from the recording. Five recordings of five to ten minutes cover most of the first month. Your job is to correct the written version.

Record these first:

• Scheduling a meeting: your preferred lengths, buffer rules, which days are protected, how you handle time zones.
• Booking travel: airlines, seats, hotels, loyalty numbers, budget limits.
• Preparing for a meeting: what goes in a prep note and where it lives.
• Filing an expense: the tool, the categories, the deadline.
• Triaging the inbox: open your inbox and narrate ten real emails.

Each SOP ends with the decisions the assistant can make alone in that task. That line matters more than the steps, because it is what keeps the assistant from asking. Store the SOPs in one shared folder with a simple naming rule, and ask the assistant to update them whenever you change your mind about something.

What should week one look like?

Week one for a new executive assistant should move from watching to owning, one area at a time: access and calendar on the first two days, inbox triage by midweek and a first daily summary by Friday. Keep a 15-minute call each morning and one 30-minute review at the end of the week.

What the assistant owns after week one, and how to measure it over the rest of the month, is in what a CEO's executive assistant should own in the first 30 days.

How much authority should a new executive assistant have?

A new executive assistant should start with authority to act alone on scheduling and routine replies, to draft but not send anything that commits money or a date, and to escalate everything else. Write those three levels down and move items up a level as trust builds, usually after two to four weeks of clean work.

A simple way to track it is a delegation list with one line per type of decision and its current level: "act alone," "act and tell me," "draft for approval," or "ask first." Review the list at the end of each month. Most leaders find they moved half of it up a level by month two, which is when the assistant starts returning real hours. If you are unsure the person you need is an assistant at all, compare the scope in executive assistant or virtual assistant before you write the list.

Does onboarding change for a remote executive assistant?

Onboarding a remote executive assistant follows the same steps, with two additions: agree on the hours of overlap with your day before the start date, and use video for the first week of morning calls. A remote assistant who shares your business hours can take over the calendar as fast as one in your office.

Time zones are the main thing to plan for. An assistant in Bogota or Lima works on UTC-5 all year, which matches US Eastern in winter and runs one hour behind Eastern during US daylight time; Mexico City is on UTC-6 all year. Set the scheduling SOP to always state the time zone in invites. If you are ready to bring someone on, you can hire a remote executive assistant and run this checklist before their first day, or start an executive assistant search now so the setup is done by the time you pick a finalist.

How Remote Latinos can help

Have the onboarding checklist ready before the search ends. Remote Latinos sends a shortlist of finalists vetted against your scorecard, you interview and choose the executive assistant yourself, and the access setup can start the day you decide. The professionals work your hours and join your standups from Latin America, which keeps week one's daily calls easy to schedule. Find an executive assistant you can onboard this month.

Frequently asked questions

Should I give my executive assistant my email password?

Use delegate access instead. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both let an assistant read, send and organize mail and manage a calendar from their own account, so you never share your password and you can remove access in one step. Shared logins for other tools belong in a password manager.

What SOPs should I write for a new executive assistant?

Start with the five tasks you do most often: scheduling a meeting, handling travel, filing an expense, preparing for a meeting and triaging the inbox. A short screen recording plus a one-page checklist for each is enough to begin. The assistant can turn your recordings into written SOPs during the first two weeks.

How long does it take to onboard an executive assistant?

The setup takes a few hours if you do it before the start date: accounts, access, inbox rules and recordings. With that ready, most assistants run the calendar in the first week and the inbox by the second. Without it, the first week goes to waiting for logins.

What should a new executive assistant not have access to at first?

Hold back banking logins with transfer rights, payroll, and personal accounts until the assistant has run the business calendar and inbox well for a few weeks. Add sensitive access one system at a time, with a written rule for what the assistant can do there, and keep a list of every account you shared.

Sources

• IANA Time Zone Database: South America
• IANA Time Zone Database: North America