Working with a PA; how to manage email addresses?

[urquattroGus]

I head up a department of more than 250 people within a business.

I have been in my role for about 18 months now.

At the moment I have just the one email address that goes directly to me. My PA does have calender access, but that's all.

So far this has been out of choice and because I had some old witch of a PA until about 6 months ago.

A couple of other department heads have two email addresses; one general one that his PA manages and one personal one.

From the outside I find this a bit confusing and feel that a lot get duplicated, but I'm starting to wonder whether I'm missing out....

How do other people do it? any recommendations? Unfortunately we use the dreaded Lotus Notes.

How about one address with two people checking it; a recipe for disaster!?

Edited by urquattroGus on Monday 14th September 16:37

[Bikerjon]

I would think that adding your PA as a mailbox delegate would be the most obvious route, but worth checking with your IT department to see if there's a preferred method.

[foliedouce]

Depends how much you trust your PA / how sensitive the emails are.

I gave mine designated rights to send / receive emails on my behalf from my main inbox and calendar read / wright permissions, but I also had a private inbox for board level confidential emails. That email address was only given to a handful of people so there was no duplication, and they were educated what it was to be used for.

[jonamv8]

foliedouce said:

Depends how much you trust your PA / how sensitive the emails are.

^^ This & also how much personal usage goes through your company email acc

[soad]

Pics?

[rog007]

There's no right or wrong here; it's usually a conditions-based decision.

As mentioned above, some of those conditions include volume of emails in scope, sensitivity of the correspondence and capability of the PA.

If the stars align, a top PA can manage the email account, only forwarding on to you those that need your personal attention or forwarding on ones they have dealt with or drafted a response on your behalf.

Ultimately it's a business decision on whether your time is best spent managing an email inbox or leading your organisation; I've always invested in high quality assistance.

Good luck!