What is the Difference between a PA and an executive PA?

Do you have excellent organization skills and like to be task driven? You’d make a great executive personal assistant. While being an Executive PA may sometimes be similar to being a PA, being an Executive PA has a whole host of different elements. One of the key differences is salary although it is not the only one you may encounter during the application process. Let’s take a moment to understand each role specifically, so you can get a clear understanding of the differences between the two.

What is a PA?

A Personal Assistant (PA) provides help and administrative support to an individual (usually a senior staff member) although they may sometime offer their services to the wider team. Their services include typing, taking meeting minutes, diary management and even filing. A good PA must demonstrate excellent communication skills, as well as organization skills.

What is an Executive PA?

An Executive Personal Assistant or Executive PA shares some of the duties and responsibilities with a PA. It is however also their job to manage nearly every aspect of their boss’s day including various tasks that range from managing meetings, book appointments, email communication, business report writing to running personal errands. Therefore, by definition an executive PA’s job is to make their boss’s life much easier, by helping them manage their time effectively so they can focus on the important aspects of running a company.

The Difference between an Executive PA and a PA

The main difference between a PA and an executive PA is that Executive personal assistants work with managers at a higher level in the company. This means that they will tend to work with CEOs, as well as company directors and other high level staff.

This often means that they have greater responsibilities than personal assistants. While an executive assistant may still do some administrative tasks, their role calls for taking initiative and complete control over the tasks they undertake. Some of them are even called upon to take on additional tasks that can include organizing corporate events and client liaison.

Executive PA Skills

Almost every personal assistant will be required to have certain skills like time management and attention to detail. But an executive PA requires additional skills because they tend to have more autonomy. They must be able to adequately prioritize more important tasks with little guidance or supervision from their bosses.

A good executive PA must also understand the boss’s needs and the business needs of the organization as a whole if they are going to make good decisions under pressure. Great people management skills are also very important since they have to deal with people in the organization and potential clients.

Benefits of being an Executive PA

So, if you would like to be an executive PA, the following are just some of the benefits you can expect;

• Executive personal assistants tend to earn more than a PA because of the increased responsibility. The average salary is about £6000 a year.
• They are also more likely to have increased exposure to senior management and varied work experience leading to higher earning careers like Project managers
• There is also a significant increase in the number of companies looking for Executive assistants since they recognize the benefits of a good Executive PA

For more information check out Souters PA Courses