Key Takeaways
- Executives with full EA support reclaim an average of 12.4 hours per week for strategic work
- 67% of executives spend more than 10 hours per week on tasks they believe a skilled assistant could handle
- For a $200/hour executive, a $2,500/month EA generates roughly $4.30 in recovered executive time per dollar spent
- EAs handle an average of 9.3 distinct task categories per week, from calendar management to travel and vendor coordination
- High-delegating executives supported by EAs generate 33% more revenue than peers with low delegation habits
Executive assistant productivity statistics 2026
An executive assistant's value does not show up in a single line of output. It shows up in the 12 hours an executive did not spend managing an inbox, the board meeting that ran without last-minute prep scrambles, and the strategic decision that got made because the calendar had room for it.
Productivity research on EA support has gotten more rigorous over the past five years. The data below draws from Harvard Business School, McKinsey, Gallup, Prialto, Belay Solutions, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and IAAP. Where figures come from proprietary surveys, that context is noted.
Data sources and methodology
Statistics in this article draw from:
- Harvard Business School - Porter and Nohria CEO time-use study (2018, 27 Fortune 500 CEOs tracked for 13 consecutive weeks)
- McKinsey Global Institute - Time use and knowledge worker productivity analysis, 2023 and 2024 reports
- Prialto - Executive assistant productivity benchmarks, 2024-2025 survey (1,200+ executive respondents)
- Belay Solutions - Virtual EA and assistant cost analysis, 2025 annual report
- Gallup - "Delegating: A Huge Management Challenge for Entrepreneurs" (2015; data continues to benchmark industry surveys)
- International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP) - Salary and role-scope survey, 2025
- Robert Half International - Executive and administrative staffing surveys, 2025-2026
- Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) - Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, SOC 43-6011 (Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants)
- DDI Global Leadership Forecast (2023, 13,000+ leaders across 1,500+ organizations)
- Bain & Company - Executive time analysis and management effectiveness reports
ROI calculations use the BLS mean annual wage for chief executives ($239,200 in 2025, roughly $115/hour at 2,080 annual hours) as a conservative floor. C-suite and founder hourly rates are adjusted upward based on Bain benchmarks. EA cost benchmarks use IAAP in-house salary data and Belay/Prialto virtual EA rate ranges.
How much time executives actually lose without EA support
Before measuring what gets saved, you need a baseline for what gets lost.
Harvard Business School (Porter and Nohria, 2018): Fortune 500 CEOs averaged 62.5 hours per week. Of that, 72% was spent in meetings and 24% managing email and reactive communication. That works out to roughly 15 hours a week in an inbox and calendar, for executives earning well above $115/hour.
McKinsey Global Institute (2023): Knowledge workers spend 28% of their workweek managing email and 19% gathering information. For senior leaders, McKinsey found the numbers run higher: an average of 23 hours per week in meetings and 8-12 additional hours in reactive communication tasks.
Prialto (2025 Executive Survey): 67% of executives report spending more than 10 hours per week on tasks they believe could be fully handled by a skilled assistant. Only 14% have enough EA support to actually offload those tasks.
That admin load is the subject of a lot of the CEO time-use research. It does not appear as a line item in a budget, but at $115-$300/hour, 15 hours a week of misdirected executive time costs between $89,700 and $234,000 per year in recovered opportunity - before counting the strategic decisions that never happen because the calendar was already full.
Hours saved: what EA support actually frees up
Task-level time recovery
Prialto's 2024-2025 executive survey tracked executives before and after onboarding a full-time EA for 90 days. Mean hours reclaimed per week were 12.4. Median was 11.2. Executives with complex travel and communication demands reclaimed up to 18 hours per week.
Belay Solutions tracked 600 client executives in 2024 and found a 13.1-hour average weekly reclaim. The largest gains came from email triage (4.2 hours recovered) and calendar management (3.8 hours).
| Task Category | Hours/Week Without EA | Hours/Week With EA | Hours Reclaimed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Email management and inbox triage | 8–12 | 2–3 | 6–9 |
| Scheduling and calendar management | 4–6 | 0.5–1 | 3.5–5 |
| Travel coordination | 2–4 | 0.25–0.5 | 1.75–3.5 |
| Meeting prep and follow-up | 3–5 | 1–2 | 2–3 |
| Report formatting and data entry | 2–4 | 0.25–0.5 | 1.75–3.5 |
| Vendor and contractor coordination | 1–3 | 0.25–0.5 | 0.75–2.5 |
| Total | 20–34 | 4.25–7.5 | 15.75–26.5 |
Sources: Prialto 2025 Executive Survey; McKinsey Global Institute 2023; Harvard Business School CEO Time Study 2018
The range in the table is wide because executive time use varies by role, company size, and how much authority the EA has been given to act independently. An EA who can only suggest calendar changes recovers less time than one authorized to accept, decline, and reschedule on the executive's behalf.
What tasks EAs actually own
IAAP's 2025 role-scope survey found that EAs at the senior level manage an average of 9.3 distinct task categories per week. The most common:
- Calendar and meeting management (98% of EAs)
- Email triage and correspondence drafting (94%)
- Travel booking and itinerary management (89%)
- Document preparation, formatting, and filing (87%)
- Meeting minutes and action item tracking (82%)
- Vendor communication and invoice routing (74%)
- Research and briefing preparation (71%)
- Budget tracking and expense reporting (68%)
- Event and offsite coordination (61%)
- Board or stakeholder communication support (54%)
Robert Half's 2026 administrative staffing report found that senior-level EAs increasingly own project tracking and cross functional coordination work that was previously handled by operations or project management roles. At companies with 50-500 employees, the EA function has expanded into light chief-of-staff duties in 38% of organizations surveyed.
Productivity multiplier: what the recovered time is worth
Recovered time is only valuable if it gets used differently. The research here is consistent: executives who spend less time on administrative tasks spend more time on strategy, revenue-generating relationships, and talent development, and those inputs produce measurable output differences.
Gallup (employer entrepreneur study, 2015): Executives who score in the top third for delegator talent generate 33% more revenue than peers in the bottom third. This held across company size and industry. Executive delegation data from more recent surveys has replicated the direction and rough magnitude of this finding.
Bain & Company: Senior leaders who control their own calendars and limit reactive interruption show a 2-4x productivity differential compared to leaders whose time is fragmented across unplanned demands. Bain's framing of "maker time vs. manager time" maps closely to the hours EA support recovers.
McKinsey (2024): Organizations where senior leaders spend more than 50% of their time on their top strategic priorities outperform peers on revenue growth, profitability, and employee engagement. Only 30% of executives surveyed hit that threshold without structural support for managing lower-priority work.
DDI's Global Leadership Forecast (2023) found that executives who reported having high-quality administrative support were 3.2x more likely to describe themselves as effective leaders than those without it. That is self-reported data, so it should be read alongside objective output figures rather than in isolation.
ROI per dollar spent on EA support
In-house EA ROI
BLS 2025 data puts the median annual salary for executive secretaries and administrative assistants at $68,900 ($33.12/hour). With benefits loaded at 30%, the total employment cost runs roughly $89,570/year, or $43.06/hour.
For an executive billing at $115/hour (BLS floor for chief executives):
- EA frees 12.4 hours/week, which is 644.8 hours/year of executive time
- Value of recovered executive time: 644.8 × $115 = $74,152/year
- Net ROI: ($74,152 − $89,570) = −$15,418; break-even requires the executive's effective rate to exceed $138.90/hour, or requires the EA to generate direct output (client-facing work, revenue-linked coordination)
At a $200/hour executive rate (realistic for many founders and VP-level operators):
- Value of recovered time: 644.8 × $200 = $128,960/year
- Net ROI: ($128,960 − $89,570) = +$39,390
- Return per dollar of EA cost: 1.44x
At $300/hour (C-suite, senior partner):
- Value of recovered time: 644.8 × $300 = $193,440/year
- Return per dollar of EA cost: 2.16x
These figures do not include indirect productivity effects (faster decisions, higher-quality strategic work) or the compounding impact of the 33% revenue gap Gallup found between high- and low-delegating leaders.
Virtual EA ROI
Virtual EA services through platforms like Belay, Prialto, and Stealth Agents typically run $1,500–$3,000/month for dedicated, full-time support versus $7,460/month for an in-house EA with benefits.
For an executive billing at $200/hour using a $2,500/month virtual EA:
- Annual EA cost: $30,000
- Hours reclaimed: 644.8/year (same 12.4 hours/week)
- Value of recovered executive time: 644.8 × $200 = $128,960/year
- Return per dollar of EA cost: 4.30x
A more detailed breakdown of this comparison is in the executive assistant ROI statistics, including how in-house vs. virtual EA support compare across cost, task coverage, and time to productivity.
EA cost vs. ROI comparison
| EA Type | Annual Cost | Hours Reclaimed/Year | Value at $200/hr | Return per $ Spent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-house EA (BLS median + benefits) | $89,570 | 644.8 | $128,960 | 1.44x |
| Virtual EA (mid-tier service) | $30,000 | 600–650 | $120,000–$130,000 | 4.00–4.33x |
| Part-time in-house EA | $44,785 | 300–350 | $60,000–$70,000 | 1.34–1.56x |
Sources: BLS Occupational Employment Statistics 2025; Prialto 2024-2025 client benchmarks; Belay Solutions 2024 analysis
Tasks offloaded: what high-performing EA relationships look like
There is a measurable difference between an EA who manages a calendar and one who owns the executive's operating rhythm. The Prialto 2025 survey broke down what EAs own in high-satisfaction executive-EA relationships (those where the executive rated the EA 9-10/10 on effectiveness):
- EA drafts or sends email on behalf of executive: 87% of top-rated relationships
- EA has authority to decline meeting requests without pre-approval: 79%
- EA manages project tracking for 2+ internal initiatives: 71%
- EA handles all vendor communication and invoice routing: 68%
- EA prepares executive briefings for major meetings: 65%
- EA owns travel from booking through itinerary finalization: 92%
In low-satisfaction relationships (executive rated EA 5 or below), those percentages dropped to 31%, 22%, 18%, 14%, 19%, and 61% respectively. The gap does not track to EA skill alone. It tracks to how much authority the executive was willing to extend.
Key takeaways
- Hours saved: Executives with full EA support reclaim 11-13 hours per week on average. At 12.4 hours/week (Prialto benchmark), that is 644 hours per year of executive capacity returned to strategic work.
- Tasks offloaded: Senior EAs handle around 9-10 distinct task categories per week. The highest-impact ones are email triage, calendar ownership, and meeting prep, which account for the bulk of unrecovered executive hours.
- Productivity multiplier: Executives who delegate admin work generate 33% more revenue than low-delegating peers (Gallup). McKinsey finds that executives who spend more than 50% of time on strategic priorities outperform peers on all financial metrics.
- ROI per dollar: A $2,500/month virtual EA frees executive time worth $10,700/month at a $200/hour rate, roughly 4.3x return on the spend. In-house EAs at BLS median rates return 1.44x at $200/hour. Both figures exclude indirect and strategic value.
- What limits EA productivity: Authority and trust matter as much as skill. High-rated executive-EA pairs share decision making authority on calendar and communication at significantly higher rates than low-rated ones.
If you are still spending 10+ hours per week on scheduling, inbox, and admin work, the cost of not delegating compounds faster than the cost of the hire. See what hiring a virtual executive assistant looks like at the operational level.