Hey Anne, could you do me a favour…?

Fax machines, clunky screens, landline telephones and thick hardback dictionaries were standard equipment for any assistant two decades ago. It’s hard to believe how work utensils and everyday working life at RWE Supply & Trading have changed over the past 20 years. If you show the current trainees pictures from back then, you will get incredulous looks – it’s hard to imagine how you could “survive” without a smartphone and the internet.

A personal assistant (PA) has always been of enormous importance for managers. Structuring the many tasks, coordinating deadlines, putting information on paper – for this, managers have always needed someone who thinks ahead when time is pressing. But what has changed over the years? And when did the humble secretary become the highly trained assistant?

20 years ago, a typical working day for many assistants consisted mainly of writing, making photocopies, faxing, managing calls and the all-popular filing work. Mountains of paper were moved around and a good keystroke speed could still earn a nod of appreciation. The work was carried out on the supervisor’s direct instructions and left little room for manoeuvre for PAs to help shape processes and workflows. Activities that required more in-depth expertise and took up a lot of time rarely fell within the assistant’s area of responsibility. “I always liked my job very much,” says Edeltraud Wollowski (PA to Dr. Georg Neuhold, Head of Structuring & Valuation), “back then, a lot of things were more standardised and therefore easy to plan. But today my areas of responsibility are more versatile, making my job far more exciting. The entire team counts on my support and I am happy to help. I think this is true for all assistants.”

Digitalisation and technology have made huge advances in recent years, not only in industry but also in PA work. Portable laptops and the internet replaced the bulky monitors, suddenly people were writing quickly transmitted e-mails instead of sending faxes and printing piles of paper, and they used Google instead of leafing through dictionaries for specialist terms. Where folders used to pile up in the past, unexpected space was now being created – not only of a physical nature, but above all space to design their work. Suddenly, PAs had time to immerse themselves in IT problems, completely restructure digital calendars, take on project assistance tasks and get involved creatively in order to optimise the visibility of their own department within the company.

Naturally, the new tasks and challenges have also led to completely different expectations now being placed on PAs. Assistants are expected to be IT experts, communicators and consultants, all in one person. The best example: The Windows 10 migration did not run smoothly for everybody in the company, so many PAs demonstrated how flexible they are by spontaneously taking up the challenge of acting as business partners during the technical migration. “We are no longer only the personal assistants of our line-managers, but administrative experts who know how to handle the associated tasks and processes,” explains Sabrina Kaufmann (TA at Corporate Affairs).

“To exchange information across departments and make new knowledge accessible to all assistants in a quick and easy way, we communicate via online communities such as Assistenz@RWEST and via OneNote. This kind of dialogue brings us closer together”, says Natalie Dressel (PA to Magdalena Rutz, Head of Controlling).

But despite all these changes, there are still many tasks that remain, such as travel planning, effective appointment management or information gathering. Our assistants are the communication hub for all of us, the good spirits of the company, solid as rocks in crisis situations. That’s why there’s one request that will probably never lose its relevance, namely: “Hey Anne, could you do me a favour?”.

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So to all PAs: Thank you for your work. We appreciate it greatly!

Written by: Dana Turi