Britain’s half a million Personal Assistants (PAs), the power behind the thrones of the UK’s most influential business leaders, have today suggested that their bosses are working harder than ever before and maybe even approaching dangerously high levels of pressure and work-related stress. They believe that standards are slipping and some of the fun (or good humour) may be missing from the workplace.

A survey, commissioned by the Association of Personal Assistants (APA, www.paprofessional.com), the professional body for PAs, has found that over 50% of PAs believed their bosses are working much harder than they were three years ago and 8% feel the level of work is causing them to be seriously stressed. Only 10% think that the workload is the same as before and less than 5% believe technology has resulted in a less stressed environment for Directors.

“All-in-all it presents a pretty worrying picture,” says Gareth Osborne, Director General of the APA and himself a committed workaholic and ‘do as I say’ champion of the cause to improve work life balance. “I guess that most bosses, especially entrepreneurs, actually get a buzz from the pressure of their modern working life but too much pressure definitely impacts on a leader’s performance, is damaging to their health and leads to them making poor decisions and becoming excitable and frustrated.” “Hiring a great PA is one remedy and they can help take some of the strain from a busy executive by managing their diary, their travel and their meetings and scheduling in some quality time to help the boss unwind.”

With the technological revolution well advanced and threatening to increase the speed at which we communicate still further in the future, everybody expects an immediate answer from their leader and this piles on the pressure to take more meetings, make more phone calls and process more and more correspondence, mostly in the form of emails. And PAs suggest the result of this increased workload is seen in their boss’s performance; citing them having to work longer hours (62%) and needing to take more work home at nights and weekends (86%).

Some PAs suggested that they had seen a fall in professional standards (24%) and an increase in mistakes (22%) but on a positive note, they observed a greater degree of delegation from their bosses to others (56%) and an even greater dependence on their support and assistance. Carly Beales, a PA to the Legal Governance Team at the Bank of America and a Director of APA said, “The Association has a serious role to play to ensure that PAs are equipped to give their bosses the very best support possible and to help them alleviate some of the routine demands of the day to leave their bosses free to make the important decisions. We will be doing our bit to bring the concerns to the PAs themselves, their bosses and their representative groups like IOD, CBI and the Chambers.”

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