PAs offered holidays and designer goods in exchange for deals

Rule number one of office diplomacy: don't mess with the PA. Now the power of the personal assistant is being sought by those outside the office.

Suppliers are offering lavish perks such as Prada bags, weekends away, hotel accommodation and free massages in return for a slice of the company's business.

Suppliers of stationery, coffee beans and corporate accommodation are plying PAs with gifts. One company, OfficeMax, is offering PAs the incentive of a $3800 weekend away for two at Maruia River Lodge on the West Coast.

Tea and coffee supplier Coffee Care is giving away a flat-screen TV in return for a 150kg coffee order.

It's a far cry from the days when the poorly-paid PA was essentially the office lackey - the person expected to make the coffee, get the sandwiches, take dictation and answer the phones. No longer.

Now they're often responsible for making key budget decisions, often worth thousands of dollars.

Although some companies prohibit PAs from accepting perks from caterers, hotels and suppliers of items like coffee and stationery, others are less worried about the practice.

"It's looking after people who feed business to us," said Noel Dillon, general manager of sales and marketing for Heritage Hotels.

Paul Retimanu, owner of Wellington's KPR Catering, which delivers to large corporate and state sector functions, targets PAs and secretaries.

"The PAs are important. They make the whole place work. They are the cogs that make the whole machine work," he says.

Mr Retimanu said increased competition led to the creation of the incentive scheme. PAs ordering food accrued points with each dollar spent. Those who earned more than 500 points started receiving "rewards", which included free food and the chance of winning a weekend away.

Mr Retimanu said competition meant most companies now offered food of a similar quality and price. "The point of difference is the relationship. Hopefully it keeps us at the forefront of their mind."

The Herald on Sunday spoke to a string of blue-chip corporates, who all insisted their PAs never indulged in reward schemes because supply contracts were negotiated at a corporate level.

But some of the same corporates were mentioned by organisations offering reward schemes, who used them as examples of how deals with PAs often went under the management radar. That meant they usually had the power to increase the size of an order, change the type of order or choose between suppliers.

Robyn Bennett, who trains PAs and executive assistants through her company Team Link Training, said the rewards practice was common because of increased competition.

"PAs make a lot of decisions and have done for quite some time but they are making more than ever now."

She said managers were paid to make "big picture" decisions and didn't want to be bothered about where the coffee came from.

Ms Bennett said PAs were getting increased budget responsibility and it was reflected in increased pay - top-end pay packets which would exceed $80,000 a year, and a car.

However, Friday Rountree, vice president for the Association of Administrative Professionals New Zealand, urged PAs to check with their managers about company policy on incentive schemes. "People should not compromise their work ethics."

Donna Lovejoy, a personal assistant with Auckland company MH Group Holdings Ltd, said suppliers would go to all sorts of lengths to woo the PA.

She has received a "really nice" Prada handbag, free wine, movie tickets and has even been offered free hotel accommodation.

"You get taken out for lunch and people do wine and dine you because you're the person that's going to be spoken to first-off.

"It's what people will do... they try to sweeten you up."