Introducing Virtual Assistants to the world…

What is virtual assistants and what does a Virtual Assistant do? Have you even heard of this term before? Most people have not and it may seem like a scary prospect to have someone that you have never met face to face or have only seen on Skype. Yes Skype, the staple diet of the VA, the majority of communication between your employer and yourself would be handled in Skype.

Virtual assistants are workers like you and me but are not confined to any specific office environment. Commonly they provide administrative assistance They work from where ever they can and perform the same duties that the majority of us do when “at work”. Most of us work from a home office but there are a few that work from Internet cafes and coffee shops. This might not be as productive due to the fact that you have people all around you and might have the threat that your laptop or tablet may get stolen.

The cost factor is the biggest influence of working from home. No more fuel and vehicle maintenance bills, work can be done at almost any time and if your VA is working in a comfortable and relaxed environment they tend to produce amazing work.

What can a VA do for you?

So you are interested by now i take it? Well most offices have a admin person providing office assistance, this can be outsourced now to a remote office assistant or a team of VA’s. if you want to complete a project but don’t know how to get the man power to complete the task be it web design or even just transcribing minutes of meeting for you so you can go and watch that new movie… you are basically hiring someone adhoc, giving them a task that they applied for and paying them the agreed upon fee if you are happy with the work.

Virtual assistant pay is strictly up to you, you are basically saying “who’s good with typing? I’ll give R100 for someone to type up these documents by 10am tomorrow!” you can then go about your business and have someone do it for you. It really is that simple.

Now… it can get complicated because you are working with human beings and they are inherently flawed. We as humans will always try and do whatever we can to get what we want. If that means adopting the “fake it till you make it” attitude then that is the route some people go upon. So be careful when hiring people especially if they seem dodgy. This is no time to be politically correct. It doesn’t mean that you should rip them off or cheat them but rather see it as an opportunity to get work done. Normal hiring procedures will apply.

Once you have a need you would need to create a profile on a VA hire site. One of the more popular ones is UPwork. On this site you can put a list for someone that might be able to do what you are looking for.

A few things to consider when hiring would be:

Be honest and upfront with exactly what you want and what you need. Don’t post that you are looking for someone to update your social networks and once hired give them other tasks and pay the same. Reputation works both ways in this world. As employer you need to keep in mind that paying someone for work is very important. You should never cheat your staff out of pay like saying that you don’t like the work and are not paying but use the work they did to profit from. This can land you in very hot water and you may end up paying much more due to legal fees and such. You should also consider that once you start the interview process, always try and imagine that you are in their shoes. Make sure you are happy with the person you hire by allowing them to show you what they can do. This is also something you can use to judge the work and might be useful later on when they screw up. You can hold it against them to use as your evidence when they suddenly tell you they can’t do something.

Till Next time guys.

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