Hiring a Virtual Assistant? Here’s a list of Pros and Cons

Want to hire a Virtual Assistant? You’ve done your research about the pros and cons of hiring a Virtual Assistant, but still having doubts because of the cons you’ve read? Or because of the bad experiences of your friends who hired VA? Worry not, we will tackle the pros and cons of hiring a Virtual Assistant and what we can do to minimise the effect or chances of the cons.

But first, let us define what is a Virtual Assistant and what are the benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant.

What is a Virtual Assistant?

A Virtual Assistant is a professional individual hired by companies to do various tasks as needed by their business in a remote setting. These various tasks may be from administrative and clerical tasks to more complicated and proficient level activities.

Benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant

Increases efficiency

Hiring a Virtual Assistants who will do the administrative and clerical tasks of your business as well as other repetitive tasks free up your time as a business owner. That way, you can focus on more important aspects of the business.

Contributes in Scaling a Business

When a business expands, it will also mean that tasks and workload will increase. This does not necessarily mean that you need to hire an additional full-time employee. Additionally, hiring a full-time employee will cost more due to the hiring process and the benefits that full-time employees seek in their work.

You can hire a Virtual Assistant to perform the tasks on a project basis or a contract that will end once the project is done.

Enhances Productivity

Business owners can be weighted down by the day-to-day tasks that their business requires, giving them little time to focus and plan their business. These day-to-day tasks can be delegated to Virtual Assistant, allowing business owners to prioritise the more important matters that will help the business grow.

Offers New Skills to Business

Business owners certainly have skills necessary to operate business such as business development, good strategic skills and negotiation skills. But from time to time, business owners need help in completing tasks that are needed by his business.

Virtual Assistants are skilled in many different areas, some of them have their own niches that they specialise in, most of them are even capable of learning new skills necessary for your business.

Improves Flexibility

Virtual Assistants work in a different timezone from you. As such, they can work even when you have already logged out for the day. This is advantageous for business owners who want to offer 24/7 business operations to their clients as well as to businesses that have clients that demand immediate results.

Cons of hiring a Virtual Assistant and its solution

Language and cultural barriers

Everyone agrees that English is the universal language. But even with this miscommunication still happens between businesses and their Virtual Assistants. If a message is not communicated well, it can result in an unsatisfactory task.

To avoid this, when communicating do not use jargon and use formal language. It will be much better that each side confirms that the message is clear and that both understand and expect the same result.

Delayed Updates due to Differences in Time Zones

In the Pros, it is listed that hiring a Virtual Assistant improves flexibility, then why is it that in the Cons, there are delayed updates? As said in the Pros, the Virtual Assistant can work even when you have already logged out for the day. But what happens, when a task arrives during the time the Virtual Assistant is logged out? The task will have to wait for the Virtual Assistant to log in, causing delay in response.

A clarified timeline or due must be implemented to avoid delays on updates. If the timeline is shared with the clients, it would be better so everyone understands and knows when they are going to receive a response or result.

Lack of Dedication and Commitment

Virtual Assistants often work for more than one client or business. This makes them susceptible to losing focus on the tasks you’ve given.

To ensure that you and the Virtual Assistant are on the same page, you must clearly communicate your rules and objectives at the start of the work or contract.

Risk of Data Security

With the new technologies and innovation, hackers or unruly individuals who are skilled in illegally gaining access to other individual and business confidential information are rampant.

With this, before hiring a Virtual Assistant a thorough background check should be done for your security and your business. Additionally, a reliable Virtual Assistant should have a good data security policy to offer to their clients.

Potential for abandonment

Virtual assistants work remotely, as such meeting them in person is a rare occurrence. Most of the time, you will communicate with them using social media applications like Viber, WhatsApp, Zoom and other communication tools. There is a chance that they will only work for you in the beginning and leave due to reasons they only know.

Due to this, looking for a reliable Virtual Assistant is a challenge in itself. You can only look for signs that this Virtual assistant will not leave, signs like their work history. If an individual or firm has stayed for a business for more than five years, they are likely to stay and work or stay until the contract is done.

There is no perfect thing in this world, and most of the time there are negatives. We could only minimize its effect. At the end of the day, the decision whether you will hire a Virtual Assistant or not is still yours. We only hope that we are able to remove your doubts and we are hoping that you will find a suitable Virtual Assistant for you and your business.