Virtual Assistant: The new way of delegating work

Finding a virtual assistant is not the first but one of the most important things you can do as a business owner. You must have a team or person to whom you can delegate specific tasks to save time and energy on activities that grow your company. Searching for a team member is essential in transitioning from sole proprietor to business owner. Having people on your team helps free up your time so you can spend your effort on the duties that have a major meaning for your income.

Advantages of Remote Staff

Whether hiring a single assistant or building an entire team of remote staff, outsourcing to remote team members can make a big difference to your productivity and business development.

Prestige

It is prestigious for a manager to have a personal assistant as a representative who takes on responsibilities for solving business problems.

Multifunctionality

Remote assistants can deal with a wide variety of business and personal tasks. Their functionality mustn’t be as strictly limited as, for example, that of an accountant. Therefore, the manager decides how many tasks to load the helper based on his needs and the company’s specifics.

Cost Reduction

Most business tasks do not require an actual presence in the office, which means they can be performed remotely. Now you can hire a remote assistant from any region and for any workload: from 1 hour to a full day. For example, a Philippines virtual assistant would cost less than half of what a virtual employee in North America would cost to perform the same tasks and responsibilities. This allows you to reduce the cost of wages, office rent, or coworking space.

Wide Choice

If you are recruiting for an office, you are only considering candidates from your city and possibly a few neighboring ones. But the ideal helper may live on the other side of the world.

So, as we said before, you can hire a virtual assistant Philippines and save money. Not having to recruit someone locally dramatically increases the pool of potential candidates.

Assistant’s Responsibilities

A remote assistant is an entrepreneur’s right hand who is engaged in the execution of various assignments at a distance. He is often the closest employee to the leader.

The main difference between remote and offline employees is that they work entirely remotely without being tied to an office or location.

Here are examples of the most common tasks that can be delegated to a helper:

• maintaining the manager’s schedule;
• telephone conversations;
• business correspondence;
• organization of business trips and business trips;
• administrative support of the office (organization of meetings, conferences, and planning meetings, ordering stationery, etc.);
• logging (taking notes of meetings and decisions made);
• control of contractors (agencies, printing houses, freelancers, etc.);
• control over the execution of decisions (reminder to employees about the completion of tasks, coordination);
• work with documents and social media accounts;
• personal assignments (ordering food, goods, tickets), etc.

Those personal virtual assistants who are already familiar with the main required functionality and the specifics of the company can be instructed to:

• work with clients;
• assistance in the maintenance of social networks and the formation of a personal brand of the owner/company (or control of contractors in this direction);
• work on projects;
• negotiation, etc.

How to Choose a Perfect Assistant

The selection of such a helper should be taken as responsibly as hiring an ordinary employee. You can find candidates at specialized sites but must decide on the requirements before that.

Make a List of What You Want to Delegate

We advise you to write out a list of tasks that can be transferred to a separate table. Namely, something that relates more to routine or tactics than to strategy.

Having determined this list, you must understand to whom these tasks should be given to work – redistribute between existing employees or hire another.

Decide on an Assistant’s Schedule

To do this, answer the following questions:

• Is it vital for you that the assistant is in touch from morning to evening?
• How many hours of work per day are required to complete all tasks?

You need to understand that remote assistants with 24/7 access (an irregular schedule) are more expensive than those with strictly fixed schedules.

Decide on the Search Criteria

Remote assistants may be new to the profession. These are those who, for example, have studied specialized courses and dream of working in this area but do not yet have much experience in their specialty. The advantages of such applicants are that they have not yet blurred their eyes and have a clear goal: to become a super professional. In addition, such applicants, as a rule, can “move” a little in salary because, for them, the priority is to prove themselves. Such candidates must be adapted to the company and trained a little more.

Remote employees can also be experienced helpers. The advantages of such applicants are that they are proactive and have already honed their skills, which means they will be ready to offer ideas and best practices to optimize your working time. Experienced freelancers have higher salary expectations that align with their knowledge base and the results they can bring.

Prepare Interview Tests

You must put together some tests to find the best candidate for the job. If your organization has been in the industry for quite some time, you will know employee churn rates.

Remote employees have the same churn rate. Therefore, take the appropriate tests and, from the very beginning, set the salary you are ready to provide the assistants.

If you need help creating tests, ask recruiters in your industry for help. Many recruiters will be willing to help you write good questions for a small fee. You can also work with your previous co-workers and be informed about relevant tasks that will be added to tests.

Conclusion

Among the remote professions, there is one whose demand is growing every day – this is a business assistant. Dozens of vacancies for such specialists in completely different business areas are published daily on specialized portals. Remote assistants can be an incredible help to entrepreneurs on their way to becoming more efficient. You can delegate some of your tasks to them, freeing time to focus on the company’s development strategy.