The Great 'EA' Retirement

A pressing need for the UK executive and business support profession is the ‘great EA retirement’ and it is picking up pace, as I had predicted it would!

Between 65% to 70% of the profession is reaching over the next decade what the UK considers 'official retirement'. Although this is somewhat a bone of contention now, as being able to retire completely is no longer an option for hundreds of thousands of Brits.

A point to note that not every UK profession sees this age demographic!

That being said, it is unlikely, as I have stated in blogs before, that many folks who have given 40 odd years to the same profession, will want to remain in the profession beyond official retirement. 

I don’t think I need to spell it out to people, that we are just about to lose a huge amount of knowledge and experience levels from this profession, but by goodness, do these (mostly women), deserve the retirement. They have more than earned it! I am going to miss some of them immensely.

With a profession that is not particular attractive to younger millennials and Gen Z, coupled with these generations also not likely to give 40 years of their working life to the same profession, a fundamental change of direction is needed. A repositioning of the business case and value proposition is now a must.

As an association, we had identified some time ago this would be a bigger threat to the UK profession than even technology, and I do still strongly believe technology will have a fundamental impact on the UK profession over the next decade too.

I had predicted the UK profession will decrease by approximately 30-35% over the next decade, but an esteemed leader in the profession told me very recently, he thought it would be around 40%. 

There is a very serious risk that roles could become extinct if we fail to attract the younger crowds to the profession and understand the way in which they like to work.  Firms will simply take the parts of the role that are most vital and allow this to be swallowed up in other office type professions and utilise technology for the rest.

People have either laughed at me, sneered at me or been completely baffled that this is a serious threat now. There is little I can say to this, as I absolutely stand by my research and blogs on this matter.  We are one of a minority of professions in the UK, who have failed to pick up on this much sooner. However, not all hope is lost quite yet!

I guess the first item to look at, is why these roles are simply not exciting to the younger generations?   

The short answer to this, is that we still have a fundamental problem with perception. It plays out on LinkedIn every single day and we as EAs and PAs have fed into this in some ways. I hate to say this, I really do, and it gives me no pleasure at all. This certainly wasn’t the case when I entered the profession – we were robust, resilient and always challenged the norm. I am not saying this has disappeared completely, but it is not in abundance as it once was.

Another thought is the way in which British teenagers were and have historically been asked to pick their further education – apprenticeship, college or degree and therefore that was your chosen profession for the rest of your working life…

Research suggests that people will now go through up to 4 completely different professions. People do not want to stay in the same profession for lengthy periods.

We need to stop promoting this as a profession for life and fully accept that some people will come into the profession and may only give 3 to 5 years before they move on. Therefore, any traditional career ladder, telling and informing young people how to get up the ‘EA’ ladder becomes pretty much extinct.

It is why we dropped the plans at EPAA to create a career ladder for this profession, as it became increasingly apparent, that despite a few traditional British industries, most people would not follow that route to provide executive support to C-suite leaders.

Indeed, we have seen an increase of people coming in from other professions, often straight into C-Suite EA roles and they do not come from a traditional EA/PA background. They are bringing skills in which CEOs didn’t even know they wanted!  This not a negative thing at all from my perspective.

We watched with interest when some very high-profile associations and institutes in other professions in the UK, have indeed dropped their career ladder pathways and created a set of ‘standards’, for anyone who comes into the profession – regardless of their backgrounds.

It was interesting to note, by way of example, that in the recent over hundred hustings I had to attend on behalf of EPAA, on the lead up to the UK General Election, there was some vast changes. This was the first election in my adult life, where I truly did see candidates from a variety of backgrounds – business owners, corporate workers, medical workers, veterans – several people were keen to throw their hat into the ring. Personally, I could see a good many EAs becoming politicians – just throwing it out there!

I digress…

EPAA visited schools when we first opened to entice young people to look at it as a viable career option. It wasn’t a waste of time completely, but we did learn the way in which young people are looking at their working lives was widely different to when we had been at school.

I also ran some focus groups again last year of mixed age ranges – and there were some commonalities in the age groups, but also some vast differences to how they saw the roles and what constituted a great EA? Who defines that metric as it seems to differ wildly from sector to sector?

Another point to mull over and was raised to me earlier this year from an exceptional former EA, who is now in business management. She mentioned that she felt she had been deliberately kept back in the role within one firm she worked with, because she was very good at her job. Most CEOs are selfish, it is part of the role, and not always a bad thing, but in this case, he wanted to keep her as his right hand. She had to leave the company to get the progression she needed.  She asked me, is this also part of the problem and how widespread is this?

I will also say out loud that another reason young people perhaps are not enticed, is down to the fact wages have fallen considerably for this profession. Despite all we have achieved for British businesses, they have continued to fall since 2008. Many recruiters will argue with me on this, but this is 100% correct. Why on earth would any young person want to take on a highly challenging role for peanuts in some cases?

There are lots of points that feed into this, and why we need to see more revolutionary thinking, than the evolution which is well worn and happens with every profession.

I can give you a clear example of why we need to change our mindsets ever so slightly – I was highly criticized for taking EPAA to exhibit at the CIPD show when we first launched. It clashed with what was The Office Show.

EAs and PAs were up in arms with me, and I received more than a few messages ‘telling me off’ for doing this. 

Herein lies the problem – I took EPAA to a show, to be in front of a profession that does not get us and has zero interest in us either… yet my own profession was not happy with this. It meant that I had to scale back some of my ‘radical’ ideas for more than a few years, because I realised via EPAA, that many EAs and PAs simply couldn’t see why I was doing what I was doing… It has been immensely frustrating at times.

I repeat - a repositioning of the business case and value proposition is now a must.

I don’t speak for the rest of the world for this profession. I am only concerned with the UK, but I am making a wild guess that some other countries will be facing this age demographic issue, and we won’t be the only country trying to tackle it! My only advice is don’t leave it too long before you do…  

Finally, to all the EAs and PAs who are nearing retirement or recently retired, can I just say in the absence of anyone else saying it out loud, THANK YOU! Thank you so much for everything - for exemplary service, for backbreaking work, for all the time you have saved your CEOs and Directors, the money you have saved British business and industry.  You will be missed. Enjoy retirement!