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Look After Your PA Or Suffer The Consequences

Written by: Lorraine Pirihi

Article Overview: Many managers and business owners will often say their personal/admin. assistant is invaluable to them yet they often treat them as if they're not.

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Look After Your PA Or Suffer The Consequences

Hi there

Many managers and business owners will often say their personal/admin. assistant is invaluable to them yet they often treat them as if they're not.

Day after day, week after week the P.A. is in the office, slogging away making sure the work gets done. In many instances it is the P.A. that holds the business / department together.

On various occasions when doing business with others, if it wasn’t for the P.A. or assistant, I would have spent my money elsewhere.

Not only are they integral to the running of any business, their income and the way they are treated may not always reflect the importance of their role.

Jenny's Story

Jenny has worked for her current employer for the past three years and thoroughly enjoys her role as Personal Assistant to the General Manager. They have a great working relationship.

If she requires the occasional afternoon or morning off to deal with personal matters, all she has to do is ask. Her boss praises her regularly for her contribution and rewards her … sometimes monetarily and other times with a dinner out or movie tickets when they achieve their sales targets.

Because of this attitude with her employer, she does her utmost best in her work and never thinks twice about working overtime on the odd occasion. In fact she works twice as hard because she’s appreciated and has some flexibility in her working hours.

This is a totally different situation to Jenny's previous employer. Jenny had been working for another organisation where her boss was 'married to the job'. Although he had a wife and family, his behaviour didn't reflect this. He worked all hours of the day and night and couldn't understand why everyone else went home at 5.00 p.m.

Although she did her utmost best to organise him and get the work done on time, he would always ask for tasks to be done just when she was getting ready to leave for the day.

On the many occasions when she worked back or took work home so that her boss would have what he wanted for the next morning, he never thanked her. He just assumed that's what she should do. He never considered her needs. She was a single parent and therefore had major responsibilities. She had a life too. Her boss on the other hand was fortunate to have a wife who didn't work and took care of their personal life.

Prior to Jenny being in this role, there had been three other people who had worked in her position, and each one had lasted less than 3 months. This guy needed heaps of personal development. He obviously had no idea on how to communicate effectively and how to be an effective manager.

Jenny had enough, she left after 6 months and found her current position. It wasn't the money that was her main issue. It was the flexibility and appreciation. Although her boss was pleasant enough, he just didn't understand that there is more to working with someone than just paying their wages. How many people do you know who run their own businesses or are in positions of authority with no idea on how to be good leaders?

Learn How to Look After Your People

As soon as you have people to manage, the most important skill you need to learn is how to look after them.

Every client I have coached will often say their biggest challenge is the people that work for them…and no wonder it was their no. 1 headache! It’s easy to see why when they initially commence coaching. They have been so disorganised that it would have been a nightmare working for them. Their own undisciplined approach to running their business would have created a major impact on their people and their profits. They have been busy being busy with no time to pay attention to the important aspects of their business. Up until we started working together that didn’t have the time or learned the skills on being a masterful manager.

And that’s why being organised and knowing how to manage your time effectively is essential.

The Final Word

When employing a personal assistant or anyone else for that matter, make sure they are the right fit. If you're looking for someone who can be extremely flexible in their hours and can come in early and stay late, then make sure that person is in the right personal situation to do that. Using our invaluable tool How to Hire the Right People can save you time, money and stress before you go through the process.

Employing people is a skill in itself. Keeping them happy so that they will be an important part of your business is another story.

Have a great week
Lorraine

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