A superman, a shiva and a steadfast tin soldier — all talents of the world’s best personal assistant
Hardly has your boss started to lose temper, there is a cup of chamomile tea on the table in front of him — this is what a personal assistant should be — a supporter and a tower of strength. This is the rule Irina Zernova, business process and administrative director of Visa was always guided by in the beginning of her career. The expert spoke about her experience as a receptionist at ABT-ACTE Russia Educational session for personal assistants. The meeting was held in the Savoy on January 30 with the support of Intouraero and Air Charter Service.
«As I was not an absolutely typical assistant (I was a teacher before that), understanding of this profession came to me from books», Mrs. Zernova said. «I learned the main thing from them — an assistant manager should always find the solution, the way out of the most desperate situation, as it may seem».
Irina worked in the American Chamber of Commerce, then in Morgan Stanley and then in a Russian bank, and she came to the conclusion that a lot depended on «chemistry» of relations with the boss — characters and energies of these two persons should match. And it makes no difference whether it is a foreign or a Russian company. Although this factor, certainly, needs to be considered.
Thus, a personal assistant in a Russian company will definitely face some particular features of document flow. Besides, the role of an assistant is higher in classical western organizations — he not only makes appointments and phone calls, but also prepares presentations and has an opportunity to hire his team.
Another cultural difference in this question consists in the fact, that Russian personal assistants often take this position after they haveу received their degree, and foreign ones are trainees in most cases, and are only in the process of making up their mind on their future.
Participants who took part in the discussion added that all the processes were consecutive and regulated in foreign companies. And as for Russian companies, the range of job duties of a personal assistant is often unlimited: «You seem to be responsible for everything». The attitude to safety issues is also different — unfortunately, Russian companies pay much less attention to this problem.
Irina Zernova also cited results of research carried out by Superjob website, where Russian directors, as well as personal assistants themselves were asked to name the main requirements for an assistant director. The short list made on the basis of top managers` answers included due diligence, analytical skills, responsibility, and honesty. The most popular quality the second group named was stress resistance.
«In my opinion, an assistant director is a kind of a superman», Mrs. Zernova concluded. «He will spare the boss of unnecessary questions, he knows, where he is and what the best time to call him is. And no matter where the boss goes, he will take his assistant with him. Because he understands — otherwise he will be quite helpless. And believe me, it is very hard to find a professional assistant».
Oksana Kostiuk, personal assistant of vice-president of Parallels, went as far as to compare a personal assistant to Shiva — after all, he sometimes has to do the impossible. She also suggested participants discussed a case-study — arrangement of a trip to Munich for the boss, for example, on September 23.
You have only 2 minutes to ask your boss all important clarifying questions. Do not forget about the meetings planned earlier: he may have a visit to the ministry appointed to this date already 3 months ago, and it is under no circumstances possible to miss it, as it may lead to million losses for the company!
«Apart from visas, political situation, currency, protocol, etiquette, weather and natural disasters, you have to take into account that Oktoberfest is held in Munich in September», Oksana notes. «What does it mean? There are no hotels, tickets were sold out half a year before, and if there are some, they are definitely the most expensive ones. In one word, no matter how large your travel budget is, it will definitely be not enough».
Can you feel it? An ordinary business trip is gathering difficulties like a snowball.
«Moreover, it is necessary to find a hotel located near the meeting venue. You should take into account where partners will stay. And what if there are really no tickets at all? Are there really no tickets from the city your boss is leaving, for example, from Malta? In this case I always look for the nearest airport, or think whether an indirect flight is possible or not», the expert described the course of the thoughts.
And this is not all. You have found a flight, sent your boss to the airport, but he calls you and says: «I have left my passport». What is your reaction? «I can tell you from my experience — change the flight» Oksana says. «I also had a situation when I booked a flight with KLM for a customer from Holland using his driving license. And you should not exclude this opportunity as well».
The main problem you may have with transfer is how to find the driver. Therefore Oksana always draws the scheme of the airport for her boss and marks the place where the driver will be waiting for him. «But even the most improbable force majeure situations are possible», the speaker shared her experience. «Just imagine, my boss called me during one of his business trips — and he had had 19 of them for half a month — and said: „Oksana! I have walked around the whole airport three times and I can’t understand where I am“. After several questions it was clear that his plane landed in another terminal because of adverse weather conditions. And of course the map of Terminal 1 had nothing to do with Terminal 3. It was in Turkey, at 3 o’clock in the morning by Moscow time, no hotel was booked because the boss went there for one day only. I rang the support, and they started speaking Turkish with me, although it was written in all the documents that they spoke English. As the result an online translating service saved my life. I phoned a taxi driver, printed what I wanted to say in English and pressed the sound button to have the translation pronounced in Turkish. I have remembered this interesting situation for all my life. I hope no one of you will be that lucky».
Then Oksana drew her colleagues` attention to the main details of trip arrangement:
a) director and his spouse;
b) partners;
c) a trip for a group of 4.
In the first case it is necessary to specify, whether the pair is going to take children on the business trip. If a customer is accompanied by a partner, the most important thing is to establish contact with his assistant who will help book two seats next to each other, and booking should be made simultaneously. As for a team of 4 people, it is necessary to find out whether they have the same program. Who will prepare the data, develop the agenda, print materials?
It is great if you have enough time to settle all these problems, and what if you don’t? Elena Lebedeva, business assistant in Best-Novostroy spoke about the ways a personal manager can cope with time crunch in his work. The expert’s presentation was called «A rush to Guam».
«Let’s imagine your boss calls you and says: „I need to go to Guam“. Who knows where it is? To tell you the truth, I looked on the Internet and found out it is an island in the USA that is suitable for high-quality family rest. Okay, we have the destination, and we have a wonderful partner who is ready to help us solve organizational issues like that — a travel agency. We delegate this task to it, and then we check out all the offers we have received. We collect results, arrange everything, and buy tickets. And here is the final picture: the boss gets on the plane, we watch him go and wish a good rest. But your eye is twitching... Is this situation familiar to you?»
For many of us the lack of time becomes a usual situation, we can’t stop working even on holiday. «You are delegated one task, a second, a third — and they all are for you, you, you. The speed of work increases, you don’t even have time for coffee, it has been getting cold on your table for three hours already» Elena says. «And this is it, a vicious circle, you fail to complete tasks in due time, plunge into the state of stress, lose self-control, start being rude to someone of your relatives. As the result is a sick leave».
What is the way to avoid it? Time-management is the way out, it is necessary to be on the first-name basis with time, to manage it. And to distribute responcibilities correctly. The right problem definition is 50% of success.
«Learn to have a good rest after a busy day. Then your feeling of a vicious circle and routine work will disappear. Every day will be completely different», the expert added.
And what is more important, you will have energy to solve non-standard problems. Elena cited one of examples from her own experience: «One day my boss called me in the afternoon and asked to book a table in a certain restaurant for that evening. An ordinary task, as it may seem. I called this restaurant, and they told me: „Lady, don’t say that, we are fully booked. Come on Sunday“. You can call your boss and say: „Come on Sunday“. The second way is to call a company that may help solve this problem. And there is the third option which I used: I sent my colleague to the restaurant, and gave her money. She sat there, ate, drank and ate again. As the result our boss had dinner with his partner in a popular place, as we wanted. Believe me, he does not care about how you will do it. The main thing is the result. We should have a strong belief that there are no impossible tasks».
«If you feel that it is difficult for you to find your way in information, attention is distracted, you feel uncomfortable — close everything and leave your room for at least 5 minutes», Elena gives her recipe of coping with time crunch : «Just simply switch off from this process. With the belief that everything passes, and this too shall pass».
No doubt, directors often don’t know, what work difficulties their assistants have, what they have to face. «But it is important to remember that they trust us, and know that we will support them in any situation. The proof is the fact that we have to solve not only their working, but also private issues. Therefore, love your directors and your work!» Elena summarized.
In most critical situations described by the experts a business charter can be a real way out, Alexander Bonda, senior expert of VIP and business travel department of Air Charter Service noted. Alexander told the participants about a real situation the company had this January — organization of a trip to Davos Economic Forum. «There is a boss Alexey Romanovich and his assistant Natalya. In the morning on January 20 she receives a task — to take their Austrian partners from Vienna, to get them all to Davos, after that to take them for one day to Nice, then to take partners to Vienna and to take the boss back to Moscow. The trip lasts for three days, and there is less than 24 hours to arrange it», this is the basic data.
As the result Natalya turns to aggregator websites and sees that there are no available options on this route. After she enters a «business charter» or a «VIP-charter» search query, she receives a lot of offers from companies that provide such services. «Further, as she is guided by the principle „to cooperate with large companies that have the necessary experience, financial guarantees and understanding of international standards“, Natalya calls Air Charter Service and I pick up the phone», Alexander continued.
Experts check the nearest airports on the route Moscow-Vienna-Davos-Nice-Vienna-Moscow: Davos, Saint Moritz, Zurich. Only transfer time will vary. Alexander also suggests including a helicopter into the business charter program. Besides, it is very popular in Davos.
The whole procedure takes relatively little time: getting the request, consideration of options, some extra details, contract conclusion. In this case travel costs amounted to approximately €39,900.
«Besides, our employees always stay in touch — both during flight preparation, and during the flight, and are ready to react to all the changes quickly — it is a flexible process», the expert emphasized.
And by the way, such surprises as a buffet reception on board the plane or the customer’s spouse with a little dog don’t cause panic in the company.
«The flight was a success, Natalya was awarded, everyone was satisfied, and partners were favourable impressed, which is very important. Business charters are often used to demonstrate the customer’s loyalty to his partners», Mr. Bonda noted.
By the way, Air Charter Service has celebrated 20 years of successful business in Russia this year. The company operates in five continents. And in 2014 it made more than 7500 charters.
Oleg Sorokin, development director of Intouraero travel agency continued the topic of cooperation with providers. He said that assistants should be especially attentive when buying air tickets on aggregator websites.
«Sometimes you expect a certain flight price, and in the process of booking it turns out to be higher for some reason. You call the help desk and learn that the website shows the starting price of the ticket, that is it „from...“. It turns out, that your ticket was already sold within 30 seconds that it took you to make your booking. Hence the conclusion: in this case the price is only an approximate value and it can change at the time of payment».
Other inconveniences are the following: you can only buy a ticket on the website, but you can not book it. There is no post-payment as well. And if you need to return or change the ticket you have bought, it is impossible to do that through this website. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Payment can be made only with a credit card or through a payment service.
Besides, analytical data shows that it is more efficient for a company to buy redeemable tickets, provided that about 30% of all its tickets are returned or changed. Otherwise it is better to purchase the cheapest tickets.
And as for the website that is very popular with travelers, Booking.com, a lot of disputable situations are possible, the expert warned. «Read Rules and Terms on the website». Mr. Sorokin addressed the audience. «After you read them, you will find out that after you have made a booking, you are in direct legal relations with hotel, but not with the website. When you make an order, you agree to everything the hotel says about this order. At the same time it does not guarantee it has provided you with clear and exact information, that it doesn’t bear any responsibility for information». And it’s important to take this fact into consideration when you use websites like that.
The seminar ended with a lottery organized by the partners of the meeting.
«I am grateful to everyone who has found time, opportunity and desire to come here today, to talk to each other and to listen to speakers who raised very useful topics, in my opinion. And they spoke with enthusiasm, very interestingly! There is no doubt, that the role of a personal assistant can not be overestimated, and we all have something to learn from each other in this area», Ekaterina Alexandrova, deputy executive director of ABT-ACTE Russia said when she was saying goodbye to the guests.
Marina Osipova