Good PAs are far more than just typists and tea-makers. No wonder they're so hard to find.

One of the best surveys ever to have come across EN’s desk in the past 15 years came from an (understandably) anonymous poll of personal assistants, who were asked about some of the degrading tasks that bosses inflicted upon them.

Although the undisputed winner was the PA whose regular duties included cleaning her boss’s glass eye (and no, it wasn’t Gordon Brown) EN couldn’t help but admire the industry chief who had an envelope sellotaped to the corner of his desk. If, when his assistant came into his office with his cup of tea, the colour of said beverage didn’t match the same shade of fawn as the envelope, he would dismiss both without a word by simply tapping on the envelope.

Mike Spurr, the partner in charge of executive search firm Odgers, Ray and Berndston’s Manchester office, says that such behaviour is no longer tolerated in the modern workplace and that demands for secretaries and assistants to buy wives’ (or mistresses’) presents are rightly given short shrift.

“Firstly, it’s highly embarrassing to ask and secondly a lot of PAs would turn around and say ‘do it yourself – it’s not my job’,” he says.

A straw poll that EN conducted among friendly recruiters suggested that he’s right. The most unpleasant task that we uncovered was a PA who was asked to do buy a pair of “tummy control”knickers (don’t ask) for her female boss. Even that was an emergency, with a suddenly unwell boss needing extra support to allow her to attend an event that night.

Moreover, although the most recent figures available from the country’s largest recruiter, Hays Montrose, suggest that the North West ranks near to the bottom in terms of PAs’ pay, with those reporting to board-level staff getting between £20k-£25k, a survey by the executive PAs’ trade association European Management Assistants
(EUMA) showed that its British members were among the highest paid, with a third pulling in more than £30k. Sally Toumi, managing director of executive search firm Start Brooks, suggests that top-level PAs can expect a salary ranging “from the high 20s” up to £40k-£50k at the top end.

However, this doesn’t mean that the nation’s PAs are suddenly being considered as the country’s newest profession. In fact, a nationwide poll by secretarialcareers.co.uk says that half of all PAs feel undervalued, and three quarters felt their skills were under-utilitised. Even Toumi says that the reason many PAs are paid so well
has more to do with the laws of supply and demand than any new-found respect for the sector.

Although her firm doesn’t hold database records of executive PAs – a role which is usually relegated in recruitment terms to a small ad in local newspapers – it has been approached a number of times in the past year by increasingly desperate executives.

“We have been asked by a number of top executives and entrepreneurs to help find PAs because of a lack of decent people. “There’s a perception that it is a less attractive career, and during the whole dotcom era it was felt that senior executives could probably get by without PAs,” she says.

As a result, many ambitious younger women are turning away from such posts and looking for roles that display clearer opportunities for progression.

Grant Mercer has enjoyed spells as MD of the Manchester office of ad industry stalwart JWT and then cofounded MKP, which was eventually sold to Omnicom. When recruiting PAs, he has deliberately targeted young graduates who are keen to work in the industry.

He does it on some pretty tightly defined terms. Those taking up the role are rarely in the post for longer than a year and they are given the training and development they’ll need to help them get on in the industry.

Mercer has just returned from a two and-a-half year spell in the Caribbean where he was working as marketing director for Cable & Wireless for the Americas in order to become chief executive of Manchester-based agency Dinosaur. His first task, he says, will be to find a new PA.

“The good ones are probably the most important appointments a managing director can make,” he says.

“It’s a great way for people who want to learn about the industry to progress, because they’re at the heart of what goes on in an organisation and they experience every aspect of the business.

“The last five people I took on in such a role went on to become an account manager or above, but it is incumbent on a boss to give them the opportunity and training to develop.”

Liz Taylor, managing director of Manchester-based Taylor Lynn Corporation, agrees. She has employed “dozens” of PAs since setting up her event management company alongside business partner Dianne Lynn in 1995.

“They’d come in on a Monday and walk out on a Tuesday,” she says. “I’ve found that it’s no good employing someone who is aggressive because I’m quite fiery and they’ll end up clashing with me.”

Her current PA, Kate Willsher, has enjoyed a far more stable relationship, having joined the business in 2003.

“She runs my life for me! She’s like my right hand,” says Taylor. Kate has succeeded where others have failed partly because she has a more realistic view of the industry, argues Taylor.

“People think that when they’re joining an events company they’ll be spending all their time at parties sipping champagne, but the job is all about planning, detail and organising things so the events run smoothly,” she says. “We’re already working on events that won’t take place until 2010 so I need someone who is methodical,” she says.

Organisational skill is something that Felix Group chief executive Andy Egan puts at the top of his list of priorities when recruiting a PA.

“Over the next 60 days, I’ve got something like 197 meetings lined up and I’ve got to squeeze in Christmas in between,” he says.

For him, the capacity to manage his diary in the face of changing demands is key.

“The ability to be able to tactfully rearrange and cancel appointments without leaving someone with the impression they’re being fobbed off is important,” he says. “A PA needs to be efficient without being officious.”

Thankfully, his PA for the past two and-a-half years, Sharon Purcell, had previously worked in London for record label V2, where she was handling seven or eight artists or groups at a time.

“If she could manage that, then she can manage me,” says Egan. Steven Clarke, the managing director of Manchester-based building design consultancy Act3, says that his PA of four years’ standing, Cath Ball, “has developed this kind of ESP over the years”.

Like Egan, he spends a lot of time away from the office as his job is often site-based. He says that Ball has developed a knack of knowing exactly what news he wants to hear instantly, what can wait until he gets back to the office and what she can quite happily deal with herself.

For instance, Kath handles most of the negotiations with printing firms, designers and other suppliers while routine administrative work such as typing is outsourced to the providers of the firm’s serviced office space.

“The modern PA is far removed from the traditional office secretary of the past who was expected to ‘take a letter’ and remain in the background,” says Claire Lister, managing director of Pitman Training. “The responsibilities of today’s professional PA are wide-ranging – from HR and marketing to accounts and event management.

“The majority of senior managers admit that they rely heavily on the contribution of their PA,” she says.

So much so that when a PA eventually decides to leave their post, some executives adopt an “air of desperation” according to Spurr.

“It’s never been an easy position to fill because the nature of the relationship between an executive and their PA can be such an intensely personal one and you have to place absolute trust in them.”

Fortunately, according to Toumi, good PAs are far more receptive to approaches from headhunters than finance directors, if only because they are less likely to receive them.

“Quite often, though, if they’re in a position they enjoy and are working for someone they like they won’t leave.”

This comes back to the relationship engendered between an executive and their PA. Which can, according to our entrepreneurs, develop into a reasonably strong bond.

“We don’t work on an employeremployee basis, but on a relationship basis,” says Clarke. “We take an interest in each other’s lives and Cath has been to social functions at my house.”

Egan says that he often feels as if, “I’ve handed my life over to Sharon, but with my wife’s consent.”

“A couple of weeks ago, and unbeknown to me, they conspired to block off some time for me to spend with my wife, and if they hadn’t I suppose it wouldn’t have happened.”

Sometimes, there is such a thing as being too efficient.

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