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Final results are in

Results are in, ahead of the holidays, for the last UK APA Diploma programme of the year. The December cohort of five senior PAs all scored a pass in their Diploma test and can all now add the designatory letters DipPA to their signature blocks.

APA DG, Garth Osborne said: “This was a particularly strong group of PAs and they bonded and participated well in the final two-day session of the course (incorporating the final test). They felt the course was challenging and worthwhile and was designed to reflect the needs by PAs of their status and experience.”

“We already have a number of PAs signed up for 2012 and look forward to training and qualifying them to this very high Diploma standard. We have trained around 500 PAs in 2011 and expect to train may more next year.”

Places are filling quickly for January, February and March and members should book early to reserve a place.

APA

Pictured (L-R) are Diploma holders: Claire Verrall, Jayne Pearson, Anuszka Elland, Ann Haynes and Joanne O’Rourke.

Season's greetings

The head office staff and roving team of APA send the warmest season’s greetings to Members in the UK and around the world. May your holiday be peaceful and relaxing and may you, and those around you, enjoy good health and happy times.

APA will be working with a reduced staff from 19th December until 3rd December but will be accessing and replying to essential emails throughout the holiday period. The office will be closed from Thursday 22nd to Tuesday 3rd January 2012.

Please feel free to use the following addresses to contact us:

gareth.osborne@paprofessional.com

training@paprofessional.com
membership@paprofessional.com

APA looks forward to supporting your career in 2012.

APA 2011

I've started, so I'll Finnish

APA Training has finished on a high with its final qualification programme of the year, for the prestigious Diploma (DipPA), taking place in Sweden this weekend.

Course leader, Anders Magnusson said: “The Diploma has been exceptionally well received in all of the Scandinavian countries and we anticipate even greater take-up in 2012. APA’s DG, Gareth Osborne, has long been recognised as an innovation guru in this region and has worked with private sector and Helsinki university partners to embed the PA programmes in plans for business development. We have delivered a number of courses in Sweden and Finland and our first in Denmark in 2011. When we deliver an Oslo programme in January we can genuinely suggest APA has region-wide coverage.”

Gareth Osborne said: “Scandinavian PAs have all the challenges and frustration UK PAs face. With outstanding knowledge of English they are great to teach and benefit enormously from the knowledge we share. We plan to take a group of UK PAs to meet them next year.”

Pictured (L-R) are: Julia Turenen, Alice Karlsson, Aada Salo and Ida Makela. Missing are: Emma Kinnunen and Olivia Gustafsson.

APA

Never a better time to book training

“I know from experience that the hardest person on the team to buy for is your PA. As a good Boss you have probably bought many a small thank-you throughout the year (the odd bottle of perfume from travels abroad and oodles of chocolate) but Christmas is always difficult.”

If your Boss is struggling for ideas (or worse, asks you to get yourself something!), you couldn't do better than suggest they enrol you for a professional qualification with APA. The ‘PA Professional’ programme is a great starting point for experienced PAs and if s/he is feeling really generous with the company’s funds (and it is tax deductable) then ask them to commit to the full Diploma and get some letters after your name. You can always mention the perfume as an after-thought!

Gareth, APA

Office? A thing of the past by 2021

Workers in the UK expect that by 2021 offices will face extinction as technology enables mobile working, says a new study.
 


Some 58 per cent of the office workers surveyed as part of the research believe that companies will no longer require an office space to do business in ten years. The study, commissioned by Virgin Media Business, reveals that 56 per cent of employees expect to see a marked reduction in the amount of time they spend travelling to and from work or to meetings.
 


Nearly two-thirds, or 63 per cent, hope that one device will be all they need to work, offering access to everything they require in not only their professional but also their private lives.
 


Mark Heraghty, Managing Director of Virgin Media Business, says, ‘This is a trend that we’re already starting to see across the UK, with mobile working tripling in the last year alone. ‘As employers search for more agile and effective ways of running their businesses, we’re increasingly finding that firms are swapping expensive office spaces in favour of a virtual workplace, where all activities can be conducted remotely.’
 


Some 83 per cent of the workers polled say they are more productive now than in 2001, as smart phones and cloud computing make it easier to work out of the office.

 
APA

Working for professional status

This week has seen 8 more PAs undertake training towards professional qualification and status with APA. Five PAs completed Module 2 and sat the final test (assessment) for the award of their Diploma (DipPA) and three more started Module 1 for completion of the Diploma in the New Year.

Desribing the training as challenging, Claire Verrall said: "It was a great experience." And Anuszka Elland who always enjoys meeting other PAs said in a message to cohorts: "It was really nice to meet you all and hope you have recovered since yesterday's trauma! I feel exhausted today!"

Pictured (L-R) are: Claire Verrall, Jayne Pearson, Anuszka Elland, Ann Haynes, Joanne O'Rourke. Then: Vicky Fryer, Shelley Hulka and Kristine Eglite.

Gareth Osborne, Director General, who delivers most of the Module 2 training himself said: “It is good so many great PAs find our programmes challenging, there would be absolutely no sense of achievement or reward if they were, like many courses, just a walk-in-the-park. APA sets and maintains an exceptionally high standard, and some fall, but most rise to the opportunity and leave elated. We recognise that PAs can’t take long learning periods away from the office so we make our courses intensive – yet achieveable.”

APA

Public sector strike fails to disrupt training

When we first heard that the recent public sector strike was schedule for a day APA was running a training course in London we feared the worse. Fortunately PAs are made of sterner-stuff and despite some essential drop outs; mostly due to childcare arrangements, the current ‘PA Apprentice’ course ran with great success.

The strike failed to delay arrival, delivery or departure and the course went well.

APA

Pictured Left (L-R) are: Danielle Cliff, Holly Denny and Stephanie Doyne.

The bigger they are the later they pay ...

I don’t often use this forum for gripes but there is one thing that has always annoyed me and it does affect us all. It relates to those large businesses that operate holier-than-thou corporate policies and then abuse small organisations by taking advantages of them, demanding excessive discounts and taking unreasonable credit by paying their bills late.

I felt so strongly about this issue that it became my raison d’être when I was a member of the Cabinet’s small business advisory panel. As a result of this passion I subsequently went on to co-write the recommendation to Government for the introduction of processes to ensure small business gets a fairer crack-of-the-whip.

Again this week I have been wound-up by a number of UK blue-chip organisations that are taking advantage of APA (a classic smaller business). One has overcharged us by £1,000; and dismissed it as an oversight. One has failed to pay an already extended and discounted invoice and one more has suddenly decided to take payment from our credit card (42 days) ahead of providing the service. This thuggish behaviour should not be tolerated and it certainly isn’t here – I will update you if I don’t get suitable apologies – and will definitely stop using the businesses concerned services.

Gareth, APA