A personal assistant can be a huge asset for taking your business to the next level. But for the ultimate gains, you’ll need to hire the right person for the job, train that person in an effective way, and work together as a team every day.
Here are some tips for the new year about how to leverage your personal assistant for maximum productivity and profitability.
Personal Assistant Tasks
Personal assistants can help with many different tasks depending on what their bosses do for a living. These tasks may include screening phone calls, answering letters, managing schedules, and taking notes for meetings. Personal assistants also often make travel arrangements, run errands, arrange meetings, type documents, and plan events.
Personal Assistant Requirements: Key Personal Assistant Qualifications
Even though there may not be a definitive set of general personal assistant requirements, there are certainly personal assistant qualifications that are beneficial to have. For example, a personal assistant should typically be organized, have good time management skills, be skilled in written and verbal communication, and have a strong attention to detail.
If you work in a technical field, you may need your personal assistant to be familiar with a certain type of software or hardware. It may also be important to you that your personal assistant can work under pressure, use discretion when necessary, and know how to do basic research tasks.
Creating a Personal Assistant Task List
To make the most out of your personal assistant relationship, it’s a smart idea to create a personal assistant task list to ensure that you both are in agreement with what needs to be done and in what time frame. Rather than having scattered notes and emails to keep track of, simplify your communications so that there is just one task list to work from.
This can be a simple spreadsheet with columns for project names, priority level, due date, and status. There are many high-tech solutions these days to keep track of information like this as well, so you may prefer to use an app or specific type of software for your shared task list.
Personal Assistant Training Tips
If you need help finding and screening for the perfect assistant, consider working with a trusted staffing agency like Household Staffing International. Then to work well together, a personal assistant must not only be qualified but be on the same page with you to work together in harmony. You should plan to spend a good amount of time with your personal assistant, at least in the beginning, to learn about each other’s communication styles, strengths, and weaknesses. While training, be as specific about what you need as possible, but keep the steps concise to aid memory retention.
Other personal assistant training tips for greater productivity include recording your delegation meetings for your assistant’s review, learning to trust your assistant to filter your email inbox, and to have your assistant write a manual about lessons learned on the job to help a future assistant if you have to hire a new one later on.
Make sure to offer constructive criticism throughout the training process and show appreciation when a job is well done. Ongoing performance checks provide personal assistants with ongoing feedback and help solve small problems before they become bigger ones.
As much as you feel comfortable with, let your personal assistant in on some of your big-picture ideas so that he or she feels like an invested and included member of your team. Encourage your personal assistant to ask questions about the steps involved for daily tasks and the company in general. Over time, you’ll have a clear picture of whether you need a full-time, part-time, or occasional personal assistant and can adjust your administrative professional’s work hours to cut unnecessary costs and get as much done as possible every day.