Secretary (Lead Staff Assistant)

Full Job Description

Staff assistants acts as liaison and handles communication with many individuals, organizations and groups to assure coordination of services and ongoing communication with key internal and external stakeholders.

Interface is also provided with consumers, academic affiliations, Veterans service organizations, Headquarters staff offices, Congressional members, Veterans Affairs committee staff and others influencing the VISN.

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 03/03/2026.

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement.

For a GS-09 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-08. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service.

An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials.

If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement.

In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade.

Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

You may qualify based on your experience as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS-09 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization.

Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: receives, screens and manages office calls, email, visitors, and correspondence; maintains calendars and supports executive members; coordinates arrangements for meetings and conferences at the Executive level; develops work processes and systems for tracking and controlling a wide variety of correspondence requiring action or follow-up; develops, implements, and maintains various automated databases, spreadsheets, and graphics in support of office activities and operations; managing all incoming executive correspondence to determine the nature of the problem and/or request for data and assign the appropriate office that has the staff responsibility regarding the concerns addressed by the correspondence; performing preliminary research and in determining procedures needed for collection, analysis and evaluation of a variety of administrative data used by the office.

You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Clerical Quality Management Budget Administration Administration and Management Communication For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary however some duties may require standing, walking, bending and carrying light weight objects.

The incumbent will typically work in a well-lighted office environment. Use of phone, computer equipment and software typical to a business environment will be required. Major Duties:

Administrative Support Serves as Lead Staff Assistant to multiply VISN employees and to VISN Executive Leadership Team (ELT) providing a wide range of administrative support.

Serve as Lead to other front office staff members and the ELT.

Based on knowledge of the Leadership member's views, preferences, and policies, provides accurate and timely advice on procedures, reports, requirements, and other matters necessary to implement the office policies, directives, and instructions.

Facilitates the performance of the Leadership member's work by relaying information and requests to officials within and outside the organization.

Receives, screens and manages office calls, email, visitors, and correspondence. Maintains the Leadership members' calendars and supports the ELT.

When necessary to decline invitations to meetings, etc., arranges for representation by a subordinate official if required.

Makes sure the ELT members (or representatives) have back-up information regarding appointments and briefs them on information she/he should know regarding the appointment and/or meeting.

Schedules appointments on own initiative based on personal knowledge of Leadership member's workload and current issues of importance.

Reviews incoming correspondence, determines necessary action, routes and tracks items, and follows up on requests that can be handled personally.

Correspondence Control, Action Items, Suspense Monitoring The incumbent manages all incoming executive correspondence to determine the nature of the problem and/or request for data and assign the appropriate office that has the staff responsibility regarding the concerns addressed by the correspondence.

The incumbent will evaluate correspondence, action items and suspense items to ensure that they are timely, complete, and appropriate for the VISN Director's concurrence or approval.

The incumbent will monitor correspondence, action items and suspense items trends for responsible facilities, and monitor the effectiveness of correspondence and suspense procedure, Payroll and Travel Performs a variety of clerical and technical work that results in the bi-weekly or monthly determination of pay for civilian employees, incumbents examine human resources actions, pay changes, and employee requests to ensure accuracy of data submitted to payroll which serve as a basis for pay and leave computation and affect the disbursement of pay.

Office Management and Communication Incumbent serves as Lead Office Manager for the Network Director's office and ensure practices and procedures used by other office staff are consistent.

As Network continues to grow, coordination and communication with department heads from site to VISN and to VHA level must be adhered to provide seamless onboarding of employees.

Incumbent manages communication Develops and implements orientation and for incoming employees new to VISN office.

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 7:30am - 4:00pm OR 8:00am - 4:30pm Telework: Available for Ad-Hoc Virtual: This is not a virtual position.

Position Description/PD#: Secretary (Lead Staff Assistant)/PD003970 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required