A personal assistant office could have several definitions. It could be the office where a personal assistant performs most of his or her tasks. Alternately, sometimes companies run virtual personal assistant services that are accessed online and can help busy executives or others organize their lives. Lastly, a personal assistant/office administrator may describe a type of personal assistant job that concentrates more specifically on business responsibility and assisting the business and sometimes personal lives of executives.
In the first case, not all personal assistants get an office and some may share one with their employer. If a personal assistant office is available, it would probably contain at minimum a phone, computer, and things like an online or offline Rolodex. Information specific to the type of job the employer does is usually close at hand, and file cabinets, desks and other organizing furniture are used. Some people work from home and might have a home-based personal assistant office, in place of or in addition to an onsite office they occasionally use.
The idea of hiring virtual personal assistants is certainly catching. A personal assistant office that offers this service to people could be located solely online or have a physical location. Employees may be outsourced employees that work in different countries, or they could be in the same country. The degree of satisfaction with a virtual assistant usually comes down to the ability to communicate needs and have them met by the assistant. This may be more difficult if a language or cultural barrier exists. A good virtual assistant can do just about anything a “real space” assistant would do including making travel arrangements, answering correspondence, and verifying appoints, but picking up the dry cleaning will have to be someone else’s job, especially if the assistant is not the same country.
Sometimes in business, a personal assistant title may be used instead of executive secretary or executive assistant. The personal assistant/office administrator could be responsible for running a whole office in addition to taking care of an executive’s extra needs. The terms of such a job tend to vary based on type of industry or business. Workers who get these jobs usually have strong computer skills, great interpersonal skills, and ability to work hard to please a single individual while contributing to an office team or managing one.
Given the number of definitions, personal assistant office is something of a nebulous term. It can be said in all cases that it swirls around the issue of working very closely with an employer and helping them to schedule and arrange very busy lives. Working closely does not necessarily mean in close proximity, as the growing popularity of the personal assistant office to hire a virtual assistant shows.
