Virtual assistants are the backbone of the modern business world. Unlike traditional assistants, whose selection process was long and tedious and whose onboarding could take a while, hiring a virtual assistant is rapid. You can do it via an agency or directly, but the result is always the same:
- Reduced costs for the enterprise
- Saving time on menial tasks
- Improving your productivity
- A more flexible business model as a whole
Here’s how this works in practice and why you should seriously consider hiring a virtual assistant for your business.
- Reduce costs
The first major reason people hire virtual assistants is that most employers find this model cheaper or more cost-effective.
- Virtual assistants are remote employees, meaning you often have the privilege of hiring someone from the region with a lower purchasing power parity. This means you can hire someone with the same qualifications for a reduced cost.
- Another thing to take into consideration is the cost of in-house recruitment. Recruitment costs for positions comparable to what a virtual assistant would do can go fairly high. You must interview multiple candidates for an in-house hire, conduct background checks, and more. Going through an agency and hiring Rocket Station virtual assistant ensures that someone else handles this task in your stead.
- One of the costliest aspects of direct employment is employee benefits. Insurance, paid leave, and retirement plans are incredibly costly. You usually hire independent contractors by hiring a virtual assistant, meaning they’re responsible for their benefits. Remember that this is more of an accounting simplification since the contractor will likely count this into their labour cost (it’s not like you won’t pay for it at all, you just won’t pay for it directly).
- Also, virtual assistants are usually contractors, which reduces the likelihood that they’ll just walk away. This reduces the chance that you’ll have to handle recruitment, training, and onboarding independently. You would be surprised at how long and costly these processes can get.
Remember that skilled help will never come cheap; every bit helps.
- Saving time
A scenario in which you decide to hire an assistant (or a virtual assistant) is when you don’t have enough time to handle all the tasks on your own. There are many menial tasks that a virtual assistant can help you with.
- Data entry is an important task for any enterprise, but there are many instances where this can’t be automated. If the data is structured, then automation is the quickest and cheapest way out, but what if we’re talking about unstructured data?
- Social media management is another area in which virtual assistants perform admirably at. They can maintain your online presence without engaging in major social media marketing campaigns.
- While accounting may be a bit out of their scope, a virtual assistant can handle rudimentary bookkeeping.
- Most importantly, people hire virtual assistants to help with administrative tasks.
- Some virtual assistants are even competent at content creation and curation. However, this means you’ll need extra requirements while hiring.
All of this means that you won’t have to handle these tasks and will be free to focus on core tasks. As a manager or an entrepreneur, there are many tasks that no one else can do. So, hire someone, delegate these tasks, and focus on things no one else can do.
Just make sure to consider automation, as well. Some issues are better just automated, while others need actual human input.
- Productivity
Previously, we’ve mentioned the importance of being able to focus on your core tasks, but there’s more to it than just the ability. There are many ways in which hiring a virtual assistant can make you more productive.
- You’ll eliminate many distractions by being free to focus on core tasks and not worry about anything else.
- Some studies suggest that multitasking, while necessary in some workplaces, is ruining your productivity. By hiring someone to multitask, you can dedicate your full focus to a single task and do these things right.
- Having someone else to handle these “extra” tasks will give you more time to specialize in what makes you money. By entrusting a virtual assistant to handle a part of this process, you’ll perhaps be able to streamline it more effectively.
- By hiring a virtual assistant, you’ll reduce the chance of burnout. After all, you no longer have to pull those crazy hours (not that you won’t, it’s just that you no longer have to). This allows you to have a much healthier work-life balance.
- Most of the time, virtual assistants are handling your schedule. A better schedule will improve your overall organization, directly boosting your productivity.
While the surgeon is, beyond doubt, the most important person in the OR, would they be able to do just as good of a job without a nurse in sight? That answers your question regarding the impact of virtual assistants on your productivity.
- Flexibility and scalability
The best thing about hiring virtual assistants is the scalability of this method. You’re never too small to start hiring virtual assistants and never too big to stop hiring them. Here’s what you need to know about this flexibility and scalability.
- You have more flexibility when hiring virtual assistants since you can negotiate different contractual arrangements. You can hire them as full-time or part-time employees, which means you can balance your budget and your current workload.
- Onboarding and offboarding for virtual assistants require less red tape and bureaucracy (there are already more than enough things you need to cover).
- The scalability of virtual assistants means you can hire more during peak season without permanently changing your roster.
- Most importantly, you don’t have to expand your office space or install new workstations. After all, they’re remote employees.
In other words, hiring virtual assistants is a fallback option you can use at any given moment if you believe there’s a need for such a move.
Wrap up
At the end of the day, getting some help is always appreciated. Virtual assistants seem to be the most convenient way to get quick assistants and the method that puts the least weight on your business model.