BLOG : You're Hired: Building & Maintaining a Relationship with your Personal Assistant

When placed with the responsibility of hiring and supervising Personal Assistants, your inner manager has to come though and shine. I'm far from perfect and have had major missteps along the way. However, one piece of sound advice I can pass on with confidence is this: be honest with yourself and the people choose to hire. 

Recruiting, interviews, no-shows, assessing another person's trustworthiness, and training is all a very exhausting process. It's akin to doctor appointments and waiting in line at the grocery store in my personal opinion. If I expect to have PAs to help me live out my life as independently as possible, then I have to take responsibility and make decisions.

With that said, choosing attendants isn't that easy. The people you choose to hire are not coming to give advice on the latest floor tiles or what furniture is best for your home. Personal Assistants are life lines; people you have to trust with your life. Unfortunately, not everyone is worthy of trust, but there are some really wonderful people out there too! 

It is important to remember that while this will be a professional relationship, there's a level of intimacy involved. Personal Assistants are people too: people who work and may have families to support, bills to pay, lives of their own to sustain. So, it has to work for the both of you to positively gain from the relationship you have. 

People are complex creatures. We're comprised of life experiences, thought processes, influences, distractions, habits, and an endless well of various emotions that can dictate the flow, good or bad, of the day. As with any other intimate relationship, you have to have a level of trust and respect in order for things to run smoothly. This includes being open and honest about your needs. 

A frank discussion is the order of the day to ensure the two of you are on the same page as to what to expect from one another. Are you strict on tardiness? Are you a neat freak? Are you sensitive to smells, like perfume? Are you a night owl or an early bird? Do you love loud music? Do you need as much quiet as possible? Do you allow smoking in your home or not? Are you open to meeting a Personal Assistant’s family? Some of the questions are hard, some not so obvious, and some may seem innocuous but really aren't. 

As you go along, you will learn just what you want and what you don't want. Reasonable compromise and understanding can go a long way if the situation calls for it. It's different for everyone and no two PAs or Consumers are alike. 

I always wonder about how other people choose their Personal Assistants. I also wonder what some Personal Assistants think about the general issues within their field. I'd like to peer into everyone's mind. Do you have any fears, anxieties, frustrations? What are your negatives and positives when it comes to relationships with your Personal Assistants?

Written by Trichele Reese

Note: While Concepts of Independence does not provide guidelines or advice on hiring, training, supervising and/or terminating Personal Assistants, we are pleased that many of our Consumers are happy to offer such advice from their own experiences. They are peer mentors, and their advice is their own to offer, and does not reflect the policies or guidelines of Concepts of Independence.  This article is written by a Concepts Consumer in the spirit of peer mentorship.