The personal assistant is a common sight around many businesses, organising the key personnel within the company and ensuring things run smoothly. But how do you tell the difference between a personal assistant (PA) or an executive PA, also known as an executive assistant or EA?
The key responsibilities of a PA
At its heart, the role of the PA is to offer administrative or office support for the business, either for a specific person within the company or for a team or division. The aim is that their services reduce time spent on tasks such as taking phone calls, booking an appointment and arranging travel, allowing others to concentrate on what they do best.
Tasks that they are often asked to do on a daily basis include:
- Creating and maintaining office systems such as filing and data management
- Organising calendars and schedules to include meetings, business trips and other events
- Organising travel including visas, transport and accommodations for people within the company
- Screening phone calls to ensure the right person receives the call
- Meeting and greeting business visitors
- Carrying out research and presenting findings
- Producing documents, briefing papers, presentations and reports
- Ensuring their boss is ready for meetings and other business events
Tasks vary between businesses depending on who the PA works for directly and what their role is within the company. But they are prized for their organisational abilities, their ability to work under pressure and to reduce the workload for their boss or team. Some can even act as a deputy for their manager, standing in when they are away.
The role of the EA
In some cases, the role of a senior PA and an EA isn’t that different. Much depends on the company if they use both terms or simply class everyone as a personal assistant. Where executive PA or EA is used, these tend to be people who work directly with the high-level areas of the business, providing administrative support to executives.
While they share some duties with a PA, the scale of their role can have a greater impact on the company – potentially even affecting profitability. Their role will often involve complex market research, for example, to help the board or their manager decide the future direction of the company.
Researching products, competitors or alternative services can all be part of their duties. In effect, they are a key part of project management within the company and may often even have the top-level decision making on what happens with the research they do.
Transitioning from PA to EA
Not every business has the scope for both a PA and an EA but if you do want to move from one role to another, there are steps to take to ensure that you are more likely to be successful in your efforts.
For example, an EA will often have a degree of some relevant kind and have in the region of 10 years’ experience in different PA roles. Taking some Executive PA Training in Manchester or wherever you live is a good idea to brush up on the skills you have from your time as a PA in order to help make you more qualified for the role. If you are already doing the equivalent of an EA’s role in your current job, it might be worth seeking an upgraded title. This will look good on your resume if you do decide to move on and reflects better the work that you do.
PA or EA?
For businesses, there is often confusion as to whether they are looking for a PA or an EA and the lines between the two can become blurry. Focus more on what they want from their personal assistant and how you can fulfil that need rather than worrying too much about the specific title involved at first.
Collaborative post
Nice Article.
Excellent Differentiate between PA and EA.