Personal assistants require skills in administrative matters, communication, organisation, customer service, and management.

If you wish to develop skills required for a personal assistant, consider participating in the Advanced Skills for PA’s and Secretaries Training delivered by pdtraining in Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra and other cities in Australia.

A personal assistant manages a variety of tasks. To successfully complete each task, a set of different skills is required. Some of the important skills that a personal assistant requires are:

• Social Intelligence
• Communication Skills
• Basic Business Acumen
• Office Management
• Active Listening
• Time Management
• Meeting Management
• Writing Skills
• Organisational Skills
• Technology Skills

Communication

A personal assistant needs to communicate in-person with the boss, colleagues and clients. They also need to send emails and communicate via the telephone. Each type of communication requires certain etiquette. In-person communications can be private and kept confidential. However, when using email, it is vital to consider the confidentiality of the communication. If a communication is to be kept strictly private, it must be sent through a private channel. An understanding of the company policy regarding emails and social media communications can help here.

Apart from communication guidelines, strong interpersonal skills are crucial for success in this job. What to say and at what time is a skill that very few people possess. This skill can help to build positive relationships, prevent and resolve conflicts, convince and influence others, delegate tasks, and manage people and work effectively. It is a skill that can be used in many areas of work for greater ease and efficiency.

Management

Handling different kinds of tasks requires good management. For the successful management of physical objects, people, and tasks, a personal assistant needs management skills, including:

Management of time using prioritising, goal-setting, categorising, and planning

Management of tasks using scheduling, reminders, deadlines, delegation, and organising

Management of people using motivation, listening skills, and team building

Through effective communication and management alone, personal assistants can save time, increase their productivity, and make the completion of tasks smoother. Considering the wide variety of tasks a personal assistant needs to do daily, certain skills that pan most areas of the work can be developed for greater benefit.

Planning

Planning tasks leads to multiple benefits of getting the most important tasks done, avoiding confusion or chaos, and making the process of completion of tasks smoother. To maximise the benefits of planning, it must be done in a systematic and organised manner. For example, when planning a meeting, each task must be listed according to its priority.

It is wise to include the deadline for the completion of important tasks when planning. In case of time-sensitive tasks, it is advisable to keep the deadline a little before the actual deadline to ensure that the deadline is met even if there is a delay. Planning can be included in the list of tasks to be completed each day.

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