Many business owners nowadays are opting to delegate their secretarial work to a virtual receptionist, rather than appointing an internal full time secretary. Appointing a virtual employee is one of the finest business decisions that a small business setup can take to keep their overheads low without compromising the quality of work.
In spite of the advantages the model brings to the table, it has strong reservations amongst some owners of small businesses. Let’s discuss about the common misperceptions prevalent regarding outsourcing of work to a virtual assistant and ways to overcome the same.
Not sure of the model: Any professional is certainly accustomed to deal with employees in person. However, gradually it is seen that the interactions and communications with staff are taking place most of the times online or virtual with the use of phones, Skype, e-mail, video conferences. This model is no different from that, in fact you eradicate the necessity of physical proximity and can source first-rate talent from anywhere in the world.
Not confident of what work they do: The thumb rule is that they can do similar capacity of work or more like your in-house virtual secretary. Stimulate your thought process to understand the advantages of virtual delegation; it can be an element of leadership effectiveness that can translate into further growth of your business. Stay focused on what you do best for your business - thinking, writing, and consulting and offload the rest of the work to a virtual assistant.
Disconnected from daily business issues: This holds true for all organisations, when the field staff and interstate branch offices are all located and working remotely, disconnected from the daily routine business concerns. Like them, you need to connect with your virtual assistant through weekly conference calls, skype or social media.
Working hours of virtual assistant: Get clarity on the work by enlisting the priorities, estimate the time for each task and then offload the same with proper deadlines.
Monitoring and evaluating performance: Well, this is an ongoing challenge for any employee concerned and the evaluation process is simply based on the performance or output given to business.
Trial and testing: The virtual assistant agencies do not assign a virtual receptionist randomly they find. They understand your specific needs and then follow a rigorous selection process.
Share your virtual employees: This depends on the scale of your work; and your capacity to outlay – for it can be easily customised by the agency to suit your needs.
Misuse of important information: You can tackle this problem by appointing a virtual secretary from a reputed agency with proper reference and background checks of the assistants done and applying appropriate policies in place with agencies, for protection of personal and critical business information.
Be open and stop perceiving the model as an added expense. With time, this can augment your business or your career to the next level. It is definitely less pricey, less risky and an ideal investment decision, and a good alternative to hiring a full-time employee.
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