Transcription

00:00:06 Introduction

Welcome. You're listening to Links at Bain and Gray, a catalogue of podcasts centred on all things business support in the workplace. Our aim is to bring you interesting and relevant content that will keep you up to date and thriving in your role.

00:00:18 Emily

Hello and welcome to Links Bitesize. My name is Emily Bain, and today my guest is Andrea

Freeman, Principal of the Oxford Media and Business School. Welcome Andrea.

00:00:30 Andrea

Oh no. Welcome. Thank you.

00:00:31 Emily

Andrea, I can't think of anyone better to join me on this Bitesize podcast. And today we're going to be talking about the PA, the secretary and the EA role and how it's changed and evolved over the last 10 to 20 years. Firstly Andrea for our listeners on Links, please do tell us a little bit about you and your background.

00:00:50 Andrea

Ooh I started life as you just said as a business teacher I've always been in teaching and training and education. I moved to Oxfordshire to be with my my now husband and that was many, many years ago and after teaching five years at Saint Aldates in Oxford, I then took a time out to have three children. Whilst that time, I was involved in, I became a principal moderator and examiner. I wrote a book on the first word processing. Do you remember that name, guide to take an examination?

And I've I've been a keynote speaker from various at various schools and so on. And in 2007 I became the Principal of what is now Oxford Media and Business School, and uhm, I just love it.

00:01:44 Emily

I think that's when our paths first crossed around then, wasn't it?

00:01:49 Andrea

I I think that probably they they did, and it's just been great and working with people like yourself. It's just wonderful.

00:01:56 Emily

Super. Well, I think when well, when I first started working in this industry and I think obviously you a little bit before before the Oxford Media and Business School rebranded from Saint Aldates, but the secretary, the PA role was interchangeable. They were quite sort of similar, but I don't really hear the word secretary anymore?

00:02:12 Andrea

Absolutely. You, you don't. We don't. I mean, years ago it was the proof, the the typing. That word. We don't even use anymore. Umm, on manual typewriters going back, way back. And you're absolutely right. You just do not hear the word secretary anymore.

00:02:28 Emily

Was the course actually called a secretarial qualification?

00:02:33 Andrea

Was many, many, many, many years ago, as indeed in Oxford and there I think there was four or five what was then secretarial colleges. But that soon changed and that the central dates changed its name to Oxford Media and Business School. The course changed, and it's now.

00:02:49 Emily

What is the course called?

00:02:50 Andrea

Now it's now called the Professional Business Diploma.

00:02:53 Emily

Wow, so it's.

00:02:55 Andrea

A name that's meant to be. Well, it is. It's generic. We are not pigeonhole anybody to be anything in any sector. We're giving everyone the skills that we know they need to know to get the job.

00:03:06 Emily

And you've obviously you've obviously reacted to what market and companies need.

00:03:12 Andrea

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

00:03:14 Emily

And your course, I suppose, has massively evolved over the years.

00:03:17 Andrea

Changes daily.

00:03:18 Emily

OK. So tell me, Andrea, if I was looking to become a PA or secretary, back in the 1990s, what would the course have looked like? What, what? What would we have been learning to get us ready for the workplace?

00:03:32 Andrea

All those, all those years ago?

00:03:34 Emily

Yeah. Not today.

00:03:35 Andrea

Not today. Well, I I vividly remember moving to Oxford. And manual typewriters. I I can't believe I used to teach students how to get quicker typing, using music and then carriage return. I mean, it was I. It's, it's truly taking me down memory lane.

00:03:55 Emily

So hang on. Carriage return. Is that that old fashioned, when you ping the typewriter?

00:03:58 Andrea

Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, I remember when golf ball typewriters came into being, I don't even know if you.

00:03:57 Emily

I don't even know what that means, no.

00:04:02 Andrea

OK, I am so much older than you, so I'm I'm embarrassing myself now, but it's it's changed. It was heavily heavily into keyboarding and proofreading, creating documents. And just doing what was asked of you. Typing, typing, typing, if if you look back.

00:04:21 Emily

Well, I did a secretarial course, when I was 19 and I think probably 50% of the course was just typing, would that’ve been right?

00:04:30 Andrea

Yeah, yeah. It would have been, right. Definitely. And it was, yeah.

00:04:37 Emily

And shorthand.

00:04:38 Andrea

Shorthand! New era. Yeah. Here we go. Yes. Now we we we stopped that, we we changed its name to fast note-taking right or speed writing, diluted it. So it was not as onerous to to learn everything. Mm-hmm. And and we stopped it. What? Three years ago now and four years ago.

00:04:55 Emily

Gosh.

00:04:58 Andrea

And and it it's a shame because it's an unusual skill, and if you're a journalist, you you may well use it. And if you know it now, it's a skill that can help you remember things.

00:05:07 Emily

I think 3 years from today going back is is amazing that you kept it that long because in sort of today's world, or even in the last 10 years, it's it's highly unusual to be asked for somebody. One of our candidates to to do shorthand. Yeah, I'd say it's it's quite sad. It's a dying art, I'd say. So that's. I'm not surprised that you've dropped that from the course.

So in terms of of of sort of the PA and the secretary up until perhaps 10 years ago, would you say that it was more you would support perhaps one person? And you were very reactive rather than proactive in terms of you be given work, you'd be given typing, you'd be told to fill out a paper diary, um, you'd be organising some travel and you know good old filing, and I suppose nowadays the PA role doesn't look anything like that?

00:05:57 Andrea

No, I would say it's more organisational. They really, really have to organise their boss. They have to be, do a lot of dairy management because even though people may now not be physically travelling a lot because of all the virtual meetings they can now now have, you know, they've if they're communicating virtually with somebody abroad, it's a different time zones. So the the diary have to manage that. So it's hugely, hugely management prioritising and that type of thing.

00:06:30 Emily

And how have you managed to complement that in your syllabus?

00:06:33 Andrea

We do a lot of Outlook, so with the IT we do still make sure that our students it's Microsoft Office that they know all of the different packages. We probably know though Emily do a lot more on Excel. We find that when we ask our students, once they've graduated from us for feedback, what is the biggest package they're using, Excel usually is the biggest.

00:06:55 Emily

Gosh.

00:06:58 Andrea

So we do a lot of Excel. The database access on Microsoft Office is probably now, we barely touch it. We just make sure our students appreciate what a database does so that when they do go out they they know what that.

00:07:07 Emily

Yeah. They understand it. Because there's so many databases, I mean you can create your own database, yeah.

00:07:11 Andrea

There are indeed. Yep, Yep. But do you know what else I've just been thinking about? This is Canva design. So many now, a personal assistant role, is wanting you to design things because we're all visual, aren't we? Everything we look at is visual. We don't want to always read,

00:07:27 Emily

But also it sits nicely with social media and marketing.

00:07:31 Andrea

Absolutely. And usually it needs to go on social media. So we are really heavily doing a lot on Canva. Wow. And students love that.

00:07:37 Emily

Wow, and when did you bring that in?

00:07:43 Andrea

Well, it's got bigger and bigger as the year has gone on for quite a few years, but it's growing. As we, as the year progresses.

00:07:46 Emily

OK. That's really interesting there. Would you say that, I mean, like I said, you know, the “secretary” word is really, gosh, it's no more, I can't, I can't remember the last time we got briefed by any of our clients for a secretarial role unless it's a company secretary, which is obviously a role in its own right. Yeah, but I suppose the main function of the PA in today's world, I'd say it's more strategic definitely for their executives. And I would also say that some PA and EA roles tend to lean towards a more partnership style relationship with their CEO. Certainly one of our clients treats all their EAs as partners. They're in a team together, which I think is wonderful. And I think why that is, and I don't know if you agree, but it's to allow the person that they're supporting, to really concentrate on their sort of principal objectives without being distracted by the sort of admin and and and the organisational.

So I'd say that PAs have become more of the backbone of of many businesses and are really sort of respected for that. How do you prepare students on your course to really understand these sort of industries? Because I think also they have to have that knowledge and actually be sort of experts within an industry now and have an interest in, how do you prepare?

00:09:01 Andrea

Mm, you’re absolutely right in what you're saying. So what we have done now I I introduced this last year, but I've really moved it forward more this year. So simply on the timetable every Monday we have a slot that literally says Monday talks and not necessarily every Monday, but most Mondays I will invite in people from different sectors. So for example, this coming Monday I've got Ted Sandbach from the Oxford Wine Company. He's coming in to explain to my students what it means to work in the wine industry, what his story is, and what my students can do if this is of interest to them. We've had Winch Design, interiors for yachts. We've had, Morgan Stanley, we've got a father coming in a couple of weeks who's going to talk more about finance and legal. We've had PR. We've had property. So I'm trying to bring in lots and lots of different sectors to enlighten our students on what they they could be working in.

00:10:01 Emily

So, it’s sort of inspiring. Inspiring sectors.

00:10:02 Andrea

It’s totally inspiring. You’re right, yeah, yeah.

00:10:03 Emily

Wow, I wish I'd had something like that when I was younger. I mean, how should an 18 or 19 year old know what they want to do?

00:10:07 Andrea

Well they don’t, do they? There’s no way they've no reason to know. So it's it's our job to make sure we're saying, look, this might not be for everybody, but it could be. And let's just listen to this.

00:10:17 Emily

That's fantastic, because I do think now that PAs and EAs should generally have a good understanding, will not be a specialist in that particular sector. But I do think if you're gonna go into private equity, you've really got to have an understanding of that sector. What it means, what it entails, or at least have a genuine interest in it.

00:10:33 Andrea

Hmm, and one of the one of the things too, though Emily is that, I feel now it's all about personalities. People have to understand their boss's personality and and other team members. So we spend a lot of more time now than ever before on personal development. We make sure students are aware of their Belbin team role, not just theirs, but other peoples and what that may mean. Myers Briggs. We make sure they understand their natural personality.

And I was only the other day again listening to your wonderful podcast with Katy, Katy Hill. And she's clearly, in fact, I would say you, me and Katy will say we're all the same. We’re all “Es” Myers Briggs, we’re “E”, meaning that, you know, we like to be around people. And not everybody does. And my students have to acknowledge just because they are a certain way, it doesn't mean that everybody else is. And they think in a certain way. So it’s, we do an awful lot of that, making sure they understand.

00:11:28 Emily

That's so interesting. I mean, again, the idea of doing something like that 10, 15 years ago is just alien, no?

00:11:34 Andrea

You wouldn't have thought about it.

00:11:35 Emily

You know, you would have learnt the hard way. You'd have gone in and done work experience or got a job and been utterly miserable. So that is and we can only advise the best that we can, which is part of what we try and do and obviously one of the biggest topics is obviously AI technology, I say technological advancements automating certain routine tasks and PAs I think have been able to shift their focus towards high value responsibilities like project management, event management and strategic planning.

But what are your thoughts on on sort of technology and A, well, how much has changed and AI and and what what you predict sort of moving forward, what what, where does the college sit on that?

00:12:16 Andrea

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Well, it's good to ask this question. We are having lots of meetings about this, quite rightly so, because we've got to make sure, we're preparing our students to enter the workplace. So we've got to make sure we are teaching what the workplace wants, needs and so on and so, with AI we we're not needing, our students do not need to use AI for while studying with us to to to pass examinations we don't need it, so they don't need it yet for their personal use. So we are delivering AI in more of the marketing side of things so that our students appreciate that you may be asked to create content and you may use AI to help you, because actually it explains it in a better way than you perhaps thought you could, so it's not about you personally. You're not saying something personal about you, you're saying more about the product or whatever it is you are delivering. So we're using more on the creativity of it.

Now it will evolve. It will change and if we were to be here now next year, same time we may be talking totally different. So we've just got to be mindful of being up-to-date, listening, taking advice from you guys, recruitment agencies from my companies that I work with. But for now, we're making sure our students, we're introducing it in a couple of weeks, when they do graduate from us, they will know what could be expected in the workplace.

00:13:32 Emily

Well, don't worry, we will be working very closely on this. It's something that we're really interested in as well.

00:13:35 Andrea

It's quite exciting. It's exciting.

00:13:37 Emily

Well, it is and it's nothing to fear. I think you've got to work with it and embrace it. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think we all feel that AI can be a brilliant, sort of compliment, but at the moment.

00:13:48 Andrea

Mm, used in the right way.

00:13:50 Emily

Exactly. And if it, and if it helps, and if it's gonna take roles and jobs and away from from certain jobs, that's great. But it's never gonna replace the human.

00:14:00 Andrea

No, and the human feelings and relationships? No, no.

00:14:02 Emily

Exactly. Andrea, I would love to sit down with you again in 10 years time and we can compare this this chat with with with, then, because I think you know when you actually when I sat down and really thought about wow, how much it has changed, it's it's actually quite fundamental. But I think PAs and EAs have never really been as valued as they are now.

00:14:24 Andrea

The PA knows everything. Personal Assistant is the key to any company. It's the support person.

00:14:30 Emily

Yes, super. Well, thank you so much, Andrea. It's been a pleasure to have you.

00:14:34 Andrea

Totally. Thank you.

00:14:35 Emily

Thank you.