Message #73200

[Cathy S]

The organisation has a responsibility for recruiting quality staff and maintaining that quality through appraisal and review mechanisms BUT sometimes these formal structures don't work well ... especially in the PA/Boss relationship because very few organisations actually ever provide support to developing that relationship formally.

... what could work really well is a really high quality peer network - maybe the CEO's PA in your organisation Gee feels isolated from her peers? Isolation makes us behave sometimes in a way that further isolates us.  Perhaps she would benefit from others' skills and knowledge at handling tricky PA/Boss relationships?  It is very easy after all for any of us to look on from outside a relationship, make judgements without understand the workings of that relationship.

I am sure we have all been involved in peer networks where the same few folk get together once a month to whinge about their employer and non present colleagues for an hour ... that does nothing to further professionalism within our ranks.  A good peer network needs to offer something to everyone at every level; needs to be positive and constructive (ie problem solving not nit picking); and needs to be interesting enough that admin/secretarial staff prioritise attending rather than allowing their work to be an excuse ... again

Maybe it is something worth developing?

Cathy