By the Conference chair Paul Pennant.

This quick icebreaker will give you an opportunity to meet other PAs and EAs in the room helping you feel more comfortable and at ease for the rest of the day.

Our working lives are always changing, but what drives those changes, and what is coming towards us in the coming years? To help us plan for the future we need to get above the everyday urgencies and consider the bigger picture. In this interactive session, Phil will share the essential tools which enable you to think strategically, while connecting the bigger picture to a level where you can do something about them.

For Personal and Executive Assistants, the ability to see how the wider strategic picture can influence what is seen as urgent or important can help make the difference to the professionalism they bring to their role.

The ability to relate what is immediately in front of you to the organisation’s values and mission also provides the opportunity to develop your thinking about the importance of the Assistant role.

This session will enable you to align your work with the language and terminology of strategy and improve effectiveness by considering how your organisation can adapt and grow.

Personal and Executive Assistants in modern organisations engage with their roles and responsibilities aiming to produce good work with speed and accuracy. But in some companies Assistants can struggle to understand the objectives of the business and what is expected of employees. This creates a gap between executives and Assistants, and as a result, neither the organisation nor the Assistant are able to maximise their potential. Failing to offer top level training in the most vital skills - ICT (information, communication and technology) - affects the productivity of Assistants as well as their employers.
Dr Neslyn Watson-Druée will address this and other challenges Assistants face every day in the workplace. Based on her long-term experience as a leader and executive coach, she will provide valuable insights on how these problems can be overcome and will offer practical tips on how Assistants themselves can make their roles better remunerated, more valued and more enjoyable.

In our Expert PAnel, speakers and guests reveal what they look for in their assistants, and discuss the qualities and characteristics that go make a great PA/EA. Is it a specific skillset, technical ability, or experience? With such a cross section of industries and organisations represented, there will certainly be a range of views on offer!

PAnellists:
Phil Ingle, Leadership & Strategy Consultant
Dr Neslyn Watson-Druée CBE, Executive Coach & Business Psychologist
Alicia May Morton, Money, Mindset & Confidence Coach
Sarah Howson, Founder & Director at Strategic PA Recruitment
Marianne Whitlock, Director at Strategic PA Recruitment

So how resilient are you? ``Resilience`` a word that’s thrown around in many corporate settings as a focus for the wellness of colleagues and the capacity that each individual holds in response to any given moment or situation. Your resilience is your SUPER POWER & it's time to learn all about what makes the ``tough`` stuff & how you can flex your mental muscle. Awareness is the first step in building your mental strength. As a PA or support member of staff you'll be subjected to high pressured environments, tight deadlines and sudden changes day to day. So grab your notebooks & pens and get ready for a 45 minute deep dive into the world of this all important topic. You ready to tap into that big old juicy brain of yours? Let's go!

In the near future the Assistant profession will not be possible without mastering Artificial Intelligence (AI). With the advent of AI and natural language processing technologies, Assistants have been empowered with unprecedented capabilities.

AI is revolutionising the Assistant profession by providing advanced tools and technologies that enable them to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently.

Don’t worry, ChatGPT is here to assist you, not replace you. However, if you don’t know how to use it, you might be replaced by someone who does.

Stay ahead of the competition!

In this session Paul will cover:

✔ Brief History of ChatGPT
✔ Ways to use it in day-to-day work to save you time
✔ Dangers of ChatGPT
✔ Mastering your prompts: categories of prompts, prompt qualifiers, prompt examples
✔ Using AI in Microsoft Office 365 right now
✔ and much much more