Category: virtual assistance

Simple Ways You Can Practice Discipline as a Virtual Assistant

Simple Ways You Can Practice Discipline as a Virtual Assistant

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Working at home or becoming a virtual assistant does not imply that you are exempted from the ‘professionalism’ requirement of your employer. Be reminded that despite being in a more comfortable zone, you still have to practice habits, which would ascertain that your work performance will not be tainted by slacking or behavior portraying less commitment.

It is your obligation to ensure your employer that despite having the convenience of easily reaching your loved ones or amenities of your home, you will never be losing focus. One way you could sustain professionalism while working at home is through discipline. However, what are the means of exhibiting this trait?

A few below might help:

Being on time. Being tardy would never give your employer a good impression. This shows that you do not give consideration to the others in the company, especially if the others are office-based. Simply imagine their efforts to reach the office on time. They have to wake up very early and travel. As for you, your work could be a foot away from your bed or a few steps from your bedroom.

You have a lot of reasons not to be late and you have more time to prepare beforehand. You are not required to don an office attire either, which gives you less time to prepare.

Setting up a dedicated home office. Yes, you are never restricted to a single space when working. However, be reminded that your concentration would not be greatly affected if you are in an area where fewer distractions are present. Moreover, setting up an environment, where you would feel you have to put your mindset to your job solely, is highly helpful in one’s performance.

Simply imagine having to sit in the living room where most of your loved ones stay. From time to time, you would not be able to help yourself but mingle with them. If you have a superb control of yourself, it is highly likely that they will enforce the distraction.

By having a dedicated home office, you could shut yourself out from the rest of your abode while working. This gives you full attention to what you are doing. You will not simply have a higher chance of finishing your work early, but ensure your efficiency is not jeopardized.

Following a strict schedule. It is best that you follow the schedule your employer has set for your work. This will not simply put your mindset in work mode. Instead, it could also give you a chance to plan your activities at home effectively. You may even use your schedule to set rules in the household.

For instance, if you are meant to work from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., you may inform your loved ones that you are not available to handle any chore between those times.

Even if your employer allowed you to have a flexible schedule, wherein the delivery of the work is what matters most instead of hours accrued, this practice could still apply. You should still set your mind and body to work on a specific time, so as to ensure you are concentrated on what you have to accomplish.

Not taking advantage of easy absence/ leave application. While it is true that working from home gives you the perk of leaving work much more easily, this should not be practiced. Take note that your employer expects you to behave as a dedicated office employee and value your work.

You should never abuse whenever an employer gives you a lot of allowances in missing your job. This will only give him or her more reasons to give you up. Who would even want to keep someone, who cannot even assure one’s presence or assistance anytime?

You are not prohibited from taking leaves or absences, but do it with discipline. Consider the situation of your employer, as well. Before filing your leave, it is also best to check whether the season is a busy one or the contrary. If it is the latter, then maybe you may continue seeking for absence approval. Otherwise, delaying it would be helpful. It would also show that you are not simply thinking of yourself, but the rest of the organization, which should always be.

Sustaining the trust of your employer. Discipline can be clearly showed when you do not take advantage of your situation and employer’s trust. There are cases that remote workers tend to work on multiple jobs simultaneously, for they think they would never be caught. Obviously, they cannot be monitored personally. This will always cause you harm, even if your employers do not find out what you are doing.

Multitasking is not recommendable. The quality of work is always not at par the employer’s standards and often than not, it results in errors and repeated work.

There is nothing wrong with taking on various jobs to earn more, but do it with discipline. For instance, you already have an 8:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. part-time work, then you should only accept another position if the hours are beyond the said schedule.

Prove to your employer that you will offer what is expected of you — dedication to your work.

By practicing the given means of exhibiting discipline, you would not be having any issue with your employer. Be reminded that your personality weighs more than your skills at work. With the competition in the online industry, having both good personality and skills will give you the edge.

Understanding: What Does It Mean for a Remote Worker?

Understanding: What Does It Mean for a Remote Worker?

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As a remote worker, it is a common practice to simply exchange e-mails or make phone calls with your employer and team members. Some virtual staff even find it odd whenever they face a lot of calls in a position that should not require much of it. For instance, they are required to attend various meetings with suppliers, customers, and partners of their firm among others.

The aforementioned situation may be the reason why there are cases in the remote work industry that call for better understanding among professionals. When you say understanding, it means you have to look at a bigger perspective. It is not simply what you comprehend on the e-mails you have received or hear on the calls you are getting.

One good example is when a co-worker denied to assist you with an urgent project. You have to remember that simply because a message implying rejection was sent to you, the said team member takes things personally. For example, he or she does not simply want to help for you are new in the company. This is not the case most of the time. As mentioned above, you got to look at the situation in a different light. Possibly, your co-worker is caught up in an urgent task, as well, which resulted in him or her not being able to help. Moreover, due to the pressing importance of his or her activity, he or she failed to explain the situation well enough.

This is where understanding would come in. If you practice understanding towards your co-worker, you would never think negatively right away. You will consider other possibilities in the picture. Be reminded that prejudice is not often welcomed in a team, especially a virtual one. With the limitation of simply being able to coordinate via messages or calls, you do not tend to see your team member the whole time. You do not see him or her working on his or her tasks or making haste to meet deadlines. In truth, you will be deluged with tons of possibilities, which would most likely be false instead of true.

The same goes for your employer. Being a company owner or an executive imposes a lot of responsibilities. If he or she fails to assist you or answer your inquiry right away, this does not entail that he or she is showing a lack of care for his or her employees. Take note that this could connote that he or she is attending meetings or working on more important matters in the company.

To gain the said trait of understanding towards your employer and co-workers more effectively, you have to mull over the fact you also go through what they experience while working. It is simply a give-and-take process. If you are in their shoes (having to rush and work on critical activities), letting go of possibilities to support or communicate with your team members due to pending assignments, they would likely understand your situation and give you space, as well.

The most beneficial result when all people in an organization practice understanding is the lack of rift. Harmony would be maintained and there could be a more personal connection to one another. With the build-up of good relationships in a company, there will always be a promising success onward.

Remember, it is all about widening your view of the situation. Let understanding rule your thinking before being assumptive.

Are You Using the Term “OC” in the Workplace Correctly?

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The term “OC” is commonly being used to virtual assistants, who tend to be keen to detail whenever working. In other words, they do not mind allotting time counterchecking their work. However, what does this term really mean?

Psychology.org defines obsessive-compulsive disorder as an anxiety disorder in which time people have recurring, unwanted thoughts, ideas or sensations (obsessions) that make them feel driven to do something repetitively (compulsions). The repetitive behaviors, such as hand washing, checking on things or cleaning, can significantly interfere with a person’s daily activities and social interactions.

From the aforementioned definition, it is quite inappropriate to call someone an OC if he or she is simply critical in pointing out mistakes to avoid repetitive work. A much better term should be “efficient” or perhaps, “reliable.”

Virtual workers tend to forget the fact a person, who ensures mistakes are not present in a certain work prior to submitting it, helps an organization from project delays and extra operational costs.

In the same manner, for instance, you have a superior, who tends to perfect things out (no matter how long it may take), then you should be appreciative of your situation. Apparently, if you get used to such setting, you will be able to adopt the same ethic. As a result, you will not let your work be a substandard one. Always keep in mind that your work reflects who you are as an employee.

If you submit deliverables, which have to be checked repeatedly, you are making your client realize that it is useless to have an assistant. This is due to the fact he or she still has to do all the checking in the end. Extra work is synonymous to extra burden for him or her. As a virtual assistant, you are meant to handle the time-consuming tasks of your client. Give him or her peace of mind despite being occupied with other business matters.

Should the real concept of having an OCD is applied to a virtual assistant, then that person would never be satisfied with his or her work. Additionally, the said employee would never finish his or her task within a specified time.

As a remote employee, one should keep in mind there is a huge difference between having OCD and being an effective employee. If you use these terms interchangeably, there may be misconceptions. A person you are supposed to pay a compliment by calling him or her an OC may result to him or her taking it negatively.

This topic may be trifling for some, but remember if you are a true professional, you would not let this fact an inconsequential matter.

How Documents Reflect the Type of VA You Are

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Documents will be part of a virtual assistant’s life. These serve as means for clients to provide their requirements, whereas VAs use documents to submit their output. Regardless of the format, documents will represent whatever accomplishment you had for the day. This is the reason why one should not neglect the proper presentation of documents, no matter how comfortable you are with your client.

Primarily, documents show how organized you are a virtual assistant. You could begin with the formatting. A simple act of ensuring that the font type or font size of the texts in your document is not varying from one section to another is already a way of showing how coordinated you are. There are virtual assistants, who fail to do this. As a result, they present a clutter instead.

Moreover, you have to consider the preferred formatting of your client. There are those, who could be very keen in detail. Thus, discussing this prior to the accomplishment of a document is a necessity. If they did not provide any specifics, then you have the green light to format the spacing, font size, font type, and sections of your document at your notion.

Did you know that even the naming of your document matters? If you do not want to be tagged as an unorganized employee, avoid file names that are way too complicated. Make sure that the document name specifies its contents clearly. If including a date will make it more helpful for your client’s file management, then add it accordingly.

In preparing documents, as well, you have to select the correct format to present depending on what is required. If your client simply needs a research work with excerpts from various books, then a simple text document would work. On the other hand, if figures are involved, it is best to at least present your document in Excel or sheets.

By keeping the pointers provided, you will be able to show that being a virtual assistant does not make you less of an effective employee; that you can still offer high-quality output regardless of how simple the requirement is.

Are Virtual Assistants Difficult to Work With

Are Virtual Assistants Difficult to Work With?

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You may be among the business people, who are still hesitant to hire a virtual assistant. This is probably due to the speculations that you would encounter a lot of issues in having one. For instance, you may think that virtual assistants would not be similar to office-based workers in many ways, such as in productivity or performance in general. This is understandable since not all entrepreneurs or executives are still open to the idea of remote staffing.

Despite technology advancements, there are still businesses, which are behind what is expected of them. They will still prefer to stick to their traditional ways than go paperless. However, if you are among these companies, do you think that your conventional operations are still benefiting you or it simply got you stuck where you are since the beginning? If it is the latter, then a change in your firm may be the solution for progress.

With companies considering the use of digital solutions for their operations, they become more competitive in their industries. Additionally, they tend to simplify their once difficult activities, such as sales and marketing.  As a result, they save more and earn more. Why deprive yourself of the same leverage opportunity?

The savings in hiring a virtual assistant is given, but in terms of the difficulty in handling one, the whole picture may still be unclear to you.

Primarily, you should know that virtual assistants are not less competent compared to office-based workers. The truth of the matter is, some of them are even office employees previously. In other words, they are aware of how things work regardless of the environment. Furthermore, if being qualified is what you worry about, then you should know that virtual assistants are not short in degrees or fields of expertise. Due to lots of experience, some could even handle both administrative and technical work simultaneously. Conclusively, you will not have an issue in working with them if performance is your concern.

Moreover, virtual assistants will never be difficult to work with since communicating with them could be seamless. You simply have to open doors to make this happen. Apart from e-mails, you can simply allow your VA to get in touch with you even through messaging platforms. You could also set up a conference or direct mobile calls, when necessary. Hence, seeing them face-to-face would not be even difficult to achieve.

In the instance of ensuring they do not abuse their freedom of working without you being there to supervise them in the flesh, then you could simply rely on an agency or a supervising company. This virtual assistant firm will allow you to have peace of mind since they will guarantee your VAs will be supervised accordingly. In other words, every minute you pay for will not be wasted.

Furthermore, virtual assistants have the initiative to report their progress frequently. This is to give you assurance that they are delivering what is expected of them.

For the case of time differences, a virtual assistant is honed to work based on the time zone of his or her client. This is how the online industry works in order to provide the employers the utmost advantage. If you want to work hand-in-hand with your VA even if it is nighttime on his or her end, then it could happen.

With the aforementioned facts above, would you still think that virtual assistants are difficult to work with? Hopefully, your doubts have now dissipated, and you are now ready to take in remote workers.