PERSONAL ASSISTANT

A 'personal assistant', 'personal aide', or 'PA' for short, is someone who assists in daily personal tasks. For example, a businessperson may have a personal assistant to help with their correspondence and run errands. The role of a personal assistant has expanded as the business environment has required more responsibilities. Today, a PA may be responsible for screening incoming calls, checking emails, reviewing documentation, sending mail, doing research, scheduling reservations, booking meetings, etc.

Contents

The need for personal assistance

Personal assistance for non-celebrities

Role

Bibliography

The need for personal assistance

The more high-profile a person is, whether a celebrity, professional athlete, minister, politician, attorney or entertainment executive, the more necessary it is for him or her to be able to concentrate on performing the most important tasks of their career. The proper management of their lifestyle can favorably or adversely affect his or her success and career prosperity.
The more efficiently and effectively the celebrity performs the important tasks involved in their work, the greater the benefit to career endeavors and any business enterprises he or she might own. He or she should be able to concentrate on those important tasks if relieved of some other duties involved in the job which, while still needing to be performed, can be done by somebody else on his or her behalf or under her or his supervision. In other words, the celebrity needs assistance, and that can be provided by at least one assistant.

Personal assistance for non-celebrities

Personal assistants are no longer only available to the extremely wealthy or celebrities. Assistants who help with the management of schedules and errands for families in which both parents work are often called household managers. People who cannot afford to hire their own personal assistant to run errands or answer phone calls full time can hire a "Concierge Company" or part-time assistant to help manage their lifestyle.
Most companies offer secretarial personal assistance as well as basic assistant services like research, scheduling, travel arrangements, and more. Costs of a part-time employee can end up exceeding how much it would have cost to hire a full time employee. Other companies charge a flat monthly fee for personal assistant services, based upon the number of requests you think you will place each month. In addition to the personal assistant services that are provided with the membership, other incentives such as local discounts, concierge services, dining recommendations and overall knowledge and expertise may even outperform the skills of a regular personal assistant staff member.

Role

The personal assistant job is associated with two contradictory images. The first is that it is an easy, fun, and glamourous position, granting access to the friendship and luxurious lifestyle of celebrities and high-powered people. The other is that personal assistants are merely unskilled "gofers" who perform menial and degrading tasks. Both of those images are inaccurate.
In fact, to do their jobs well, personal assistants must apply good organizational skills, tact, diplomacy, effective communication skills, and excellent judgement, i.e., the same "soft" skills required for many other professional roles, such as management, public relations, and high-level administrative assistance.

Bibliography

★ SABINO, Rosimeri F.;ROCHA, Fabio G. Secretariado: do escriba ao web writer. Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): Brasport, 2004.

★ Revista Excelência. FENASSEC. Trimestral. Brazil.