Does anyone work as a PA/ Secretary?

lynzpower

hiya

Im just wondering something

Im applying for a job with my employer on redeployment, its an admin job.

One of the things that they are asking for is knowldge of diary management.

Now, what on earth do I put. diary management isnt something Ive done before, but it cant be that hard- can it?

DO you do this, and could you please explain what and the hows of how you do it? i know its not easy to explain here, but I really dont want to be missing anything while im going my form .

Cheers in advance
lynz

LondonDiva

The last jd I prepared for an admin post had this and I meant:

*Booking appointments and meetings ~ being able to charm people to fit appointments round my schedule or knowing when to be flexible, or when who's more important than me overrides my wishes
*ensuring I set off with directions and papers ~ if a long journey, what work can I take with me to do on the train?
*Forward planning using a b/f brought forward system, so I can start or begin any due actions and nearer the time be happy that they have been done or are in hand
*Making sure there are times between meetings to get to the next, read the paperwork and get regular day to day stuff done
*Reviewing the diary a month, two weeks, day before etc in advance to check for clashes or potential problems ~ sorting out the problems or if neccessary chatting to me so we can prioritise
*Update paper and electronic diaries and blocking out time when I am in the office working
*Making sure I attend meetings that I need to be at not as decoration

Hope this helps... this is what I meant when I put it in. It's mainly commonsense and gaining experience of the idiosyncrasies of the person who's diary you're managing.

I trust that the stuff in my diary's relevant and will look regularly to plan ahead in partnership and discussion, whereas my opposite number makes appointments without feeding back to her PA and chaos begins!;)

november

I used to be one but it was many years ago.

Diary management is simply looking after someone else's diary for them, booking appointments, meetings etc. E.g. as the PA someone will call and say there is a meeting of the bla de bla on Wed 5th Dec can Mr/Ms Smith make that and you look it up and say yes/no. If its a yes you put it in the diary.

Couple of things to remember. Allow for travel time. Sounds daft but you would be surprised how many people think they can do a meeting from 9 - 11 in Bath and from 11 - 12 in Bristol. Also allow for lunch breaks! Another thing is communication with the person who's diary you are managing - they may have booked something in, planned admin time or even leave etc but not written it in there so its a good idea to have an idea of what they think they are doing.

Another point is provisional booking - you provisionally book the meeting in the diary but get back and confirm when you know Mr/Ms Smith can make it (very useful when Mr/Ms Smith also carries their own diary)

Diarys can be done by hand (in books) or more likely these days on a computer or both (on computer but the person carries round a diary book as well). Local authorities frequently have a system where everyone can see where a person is/what they are doing.

As for experience - if you have ever managed your own work diary with complicated mixture of tasks I would say you have good experience.

Hope that gives you an idea until someone else comes along.

lynzpower

thanks to both of you, thats really useful

Well I maanged my own diary beofre in social work, but it was never worth the paper it was written on! therewere daily cancelleations as a bigger crisis always occured! so it was fly by the seat of the pants diary management!

Right, Ill get this form done now!

Cheers

Motherof1

Hi I'm a secretary and diary management is part of my job. Every Monday I get my managers diary and update the electronic diary. I book him a place to stay if he needs, directions to get to and from, tickets for this and that. Basically I ensure both are exactly the same as someone could call in his absence wanting to arrange a meeting and I can do this on the electronic version, tell him about it and update the diary he carries with him. It's very easy and you will manage okay.

lynzpower

thanks Mother of one.

I hadnt thought about travel, but as its government I doubt there would be a great deal, but there might be, so ill mention it

greytroot

I am a PA and can assure you diary management is easy, I use Microsoft Outlook calendar. I also book trains, planes and automobiles. The odd hotel booking and the reassurance that everything will run smoothly.

Hope you get the job.

Astaroth

I am not a PA but do have one of the best ones that I have ever known at the moment - a good PA can take 50% of the stress out of my job where as a bad one can double it (and the temp I had more than managed that).

Our company uses PAs, MAs & EAs - if you ask a PA what the difference is they will say nothing other than the massive difference in salary but an EA sitting on their manager/ senior manager grade contract and associated salary will say the difference is massive and the only similarity is the Assistant part of the job title

According to my PA (who is arguably closer to an MA anyway) the hardest part of her job is diary management. It may be going beyond your normal PA role but on the surface it is. as others have said, to make sure that all meetings are in the diary and are achievable (ie no back to back meetings requiring you to travel 10 miles to get to the next one), that all the relevant paperwork is printed and given at an appropriate time (ie not too early that their desk gets over loaded with print outs that are likely to get lost but not too late that there isnt time to read/ digest/ get further info if needs be) and that all transport is arranged.

Managing someones diary is tricky enough and really does require some delegated authority for you to decide which of 2 meetings that clash are the most important and which are movable/ can be avoided. The real trick comes when you have to organise a meeting and trying to get in the diary of up to 30 other people so having to balance getting as many of the most important attendees there whilst keeping an eye on timescales.

With my temp, nice woman but totally useless, I couldnt trust her to arrange meetings so had to do it myself (I know, poor me) and trying to arrange a couple of meetings very easily could take up almost a whole day - my current PA is much quicker at it than me but has the advantage of having "networked" with all the other PAs and knowing the tricks of the trade..... I tell our COO's PA that he has to be at a meeting and she says she has to check... my PA says that the COO has to be at the meeting to his PA and she clears the COOs diary

RoCas

lynzpower wrote:

I hadnt thought about travel, but as its government I doubt there would be a great deal

Free trips to the Caribbean?

lynzpower

as PA wouldnt they need me to go too? :A being a lynchpin ( whatever that is) and all that :rotfl:

lynzpower

thank you Astaroth very useful indeed

Sounds like she gives you time to do MSeing- which HAS to be a good thing - right