Do small tasks continually overwhelm you, especially those that add no real value to your core work? Would you be willing to outsource these without having to hire a full-time assistant? The truth is, thousands of people are already doing this through the help of virtual assistants. Virtual assistants are independent contractors who offer business support services from their remote offices, practically anything that does not require physical presence.
Below are some reasons why you need to rethink staffing and go the virtual assistant way.
Find the Right Person
We all know that hiring the right employees takes forever. In addition, it comes with a lot of risk and takes a lot of time. Consider this; before hiring someone, you will need time to research the hire, arrange to get your work done while arranging for the hire, and the risk of not getting the right person or one that scales with you is always looming not far behind.
Calculate the Personnel Budget
Employees cost more than their salary. Unless you are a one-man show, you are likely going to have to deal with the headaches of a full-time employee. This includes such requirements as health insurance, life insurance, short-term disability and more. According to experts, the true cost of an employee is anywhere between 35-50 percent of the employee salary. Clearly, the cost of even one employee is discouraging and even for agile businesses, there is nothing agile about hiring.
Find a Place to Put People
Once you feel you have found the right hire, you now need to designate an office for them, purchase a computer and an additional phone line, order basic office supplies, and other necessary office requirements. For most medium-sized businesses, extra space is an extra expense. As an employer, you also need to consider travel costs and continuing education for your employees if they are to get the job done right.
Keep People Busy
Not everyone works as hard as you do, and this realization will come quickly to you when you do not say what you want done. Most people will be content with doing as little as possible, especially for part-time hires. Self-starters are not looking for part-time work and more of these people are not even looking for employment in the first place. This means you have to settle for less and micro-manage, at least to some extent.
Firing and Re-Hiring
Firing people is usually not pretty and is often very uncomfortable. It hurts the business owner, hurts the job market and hurts the economy. However, when you hire enough people, chances are that you will have to fire someone, and in order to keep your business productivity up, you will need to make a re-hire and go through the tedious process again. This disruption is something that businesses have to deal with day in and day out.
Are you looking to cut on costs and time and everything in between when hiring? A virtual assistant is a viable option to consider. Why not check out some of these services on the Web and see if a virtual assistant would make more sense to you?
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/5-reasons-why-you-need-a-virtual-assistant?cid=roadrunner