Stuff is messing with my brain. Work first (phone calls, emails, meetings, things to read and write, expenses)—then life. Shop for gifts and school uniforms, book summer trips and accommodation, arrange hospital appointments and after-school clubs. Many of the tasks on my personal to-do list are almost effortless, yet they add up to haunt me and sometimes disrupt my nights.
So when offered a month of a remote personal assistant to help with chores around the house, I gratefully said yes. Instead of an administrative assistant who manages my work diary, organizes meetings, and travels, my white knight is Laura-Faye Trainor, a remote personal assistant who will help smooth my private life. Kath Clarke, founder of BlckBx, which employs Trainor, had high demand for the service. Users will have more free time at home and greater gender equality, freeing women from household burdens and boosting their careers.
I was hesitant on the first call. Can I really ask Trainor to record the under-11 football schedule in my diary, find a gift and book tickets to the Beatles tour? Yes, she urged. Feeling awkward. But soon enough, it feels pretty good. I outsource the tedium.
Clarke started BlckBx during the pandemic after seeing women struggling to take control of work and home life as schools closed. The service, too, was born out of Clark’s own setbacks. Friends think the mother-of-three, herself a flexible-hours consultant, is living out her dream. Instead, she’s been “Googling time management, (wondering) what I’m doing wrong”. She realized that the women whose lives seemed to be in order had no better focus than support. “It’s a secret that all these successful people have been helped.”
Kath Clarke, founder of BlckBx, believes that real people are always welcome. ‘They both have empathy. You can’t replace it’ © Tom Pilston
So she set up a service aimed at employers to tackle “the really boring stuff, home management outsourcing.” She wishes they would offer a virtual PA as an employee benefit.
The sweet spot, Clark says, is the daily to-do list, “then Red Nose Day, World Book Day. The Christmas play, the fundraiser, and then all the Christmas shopping.” % are employees) can save a family 10 to 30 hours a month on tasks ranging from vacation ideas to booking online stores.
Melissa Smith, founder of The Personal Virtual Assistant service, said demand for remote PAs has exploded in the wake of the pandemic. “It gives people time to reflect.” . . people set aside weekends and evenings (to do life management). They think, ‘Why do I need to do this? ‘”
The days of asking a workplace PA to buy a gift for a spouse (or lover) belong to the martini-soaked days of the Mad Men era. Chloe Cotty is a virtual personal assistant from Devon who had previously worked as a personal assistant for a major company but had her career interrupted by having a baby. Many of her clients have an administrative assistant in the office, but their job isn’t life management: “If my boss makes me make dental appointments, it’s not right.” She also likes variety. “You don’t sit around all day dealing with invoices.”
Chloe Cotty, a virtual personal assistant from Devon, likes the variety in her job: ‘You don’t sit around all day dealing with invoices’
Barnaby Lashbrooke, founder and CEO of virtual PA company Time Etc, said virtual PAs are an increasingly popular employee benefit for those looking to “maximize employee productivity and reduce stress. Employers with a “pressure” approach. “People want to enjoy their free time. Also, pressing life managers tend to sneak into work time.”
Adam Hearne is the CEO and co-founder of Carbon Chain, a platform that enables companies to track emissions in their supply chains, and recently offered the service to employees because “people feel overwhelmed with managing their personal lives. measures.”
But the startup also wants employees to shop around for more sustainable products to reduce their carbon footprint. This can take extra time outside of family and work demands, so offering a virtual PA is “a way of supporting employees to consider low-carbon options”.
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Research Showing that a more equal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work would contribute to greater equality in overall employment rates, different types of employment and hours worked. But Abby Davisson, money and lovePoint out that more tasks are primarily mental rather than physical.
Sometimes called mental load, “these still take up time and brain space,” she says, which is where a virtual PA can really help.
For example, Hearne and his partners now put together a to-do list of tasks that are easily forgotten, such as routine dentist or health appointments. “It balances things out,” he said, referring to the couple’s division of chores.
Oliver Wyman’s managing partner and European co-head Christian Edelmann paid for the PA himself. (The consulting firm offers BlckBx assistants as an added bonus for new parents and those going through stressful points in their personal lives, such as divorce.) “My wife also works full-time,” Edelman says. “It made us realize that we wanted to split tasks 50/50. And it was often the women who took the responsibility.”
The same goes for Davidson, who has young children and recently started a business, as does her husband. “As a result, we’ve all been able to devote more brain space to our professional endeavors – and we’ve been able to focus more when we’re with our kids. The investment we’ve made feels worthwhile – and we do think it’s is worth it: an investment in our business and our lives, not just an expense.”
Ironically, Trainor helped me get my free time back, since she left her previous career as a lawyer when the workload overwhelmed her personal life. She is able to “sympathize” with clients who have poor work-life balance. There is some overlap between legal and PA – mainly the fast pace when clients need something urgently.
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Many traditional secretarial tasks, such as dictation, have been replaced by technology. With the proliferation of generative artificial intelligence, will virtual PAs still require human input? Clarke said they have used ChatGPT to automate some of the work. “AI technology can help with repetitive, recurring and predictable administrative tasks (such as when shopping for gifts) assistant picking . . . they know you inside out and can provide customized services.”
BlckBx is building an artificial intelligence platform to help assistants, and to improve and perfect the service. Clark believes that real people are always welcome. “They both have empathy. You can’t replace that.”
What struck me during my month at Trainor was how quickly a service that felt like a luxury became an entitlement. Trainor became a status symbol and, horribly, my family started referring to “your PA” as often as possible at social gatherings.
Soon I developed a sense of learned helplessness, especially after we said goodbye to Trainor. Having planned a train trip through France with various stops, I regret the loss. I feel too much myself.
However, I can’t attest to her recalibrating my relationship with my partner because the chores are divided equally. But my mental load is lightened knowing that my input is not required to get the job done. I’d say I use the extra time to focus on my work, but I doubt I use it to watch more TV.
FT paid for a one-month trial of BlckBx