Tag: virtual staff

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.

Traits That a Virtual Team Member Should Possess

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Virtual assistance is not limited to working alone or carrying out tasks for your client individually. There will be cases that you need to work in teams. Thus, you need act as a team member and cooperate accordingly. Nonetheless, being a part of a group does not entail that you will simply handle your tasks and you are done. There are traits that you should possess in order for you to contribute well to the success of your team’s project. There is more to just receiving instructions and doing them.

In order to enlighten you, given below are the traits you should possess as a team member:

Open to Communication. You should note that even in team work, communication is a foundation for success. If you are not communicating well with your co-members, you may end up not understanding what exactly you have to do. Alternatively, they may not be aware of your concerns.

There should be exchange of not only instructions, but suggestions, propositions, and criticisms in a team. This is critical, particularly in a setting wherein all of you are working remotely. Relatively, you only depend on calls or messages to ensure a certain project is accomplished.

Friendliness. If you are too stoic, you may give an impression that you do not want to work with your team members. There is nothing wrong with establishing friendship with your co-members. In truth, this is your means to ensure that everyone is comfortable with one another, making your work more bearable, regardless of the pressure around.

Highly Professional. There will always be a possibility that not all of your team members will have the same perspective as you do. This implies that you have to be understanding at a greater extent, which can be synonymous to being highly professional. You are not meant to argue and win a discussion. Your goal is to stick by what is right and accept your mistake, should you commit one, minus the heated arguments.

Instead of simply focusing on your own beliefs, you should also put yourself in the situation of others. This is when you will have a better view of what is best for all of you as a team.

Benevolent in Sharing Knowledge. If you have been in the workplace longer than the others, you should be kind enough to assist and impart your knowledge to others. Remember, in teams, one’s success is everyone’s. If you will keep your skills to yourself, you may end up impairing the possibility of your team to carry out tasks effectively.

Whenever your team members are asking for your opinion or guidance for a certain task, do not neglect them. Instead, consider it your responsibility to train them.

On the other hand, if you are a new member, accept the learning being channeled to you. This is regardless of how skillful or experience you think you are. Note that one environment could be different from another.

Blunt. As mentioned earlier, criticisms are also exchanged among team members. Thus, if you want your co-members to improve, do not be afraid to voice out your concerns regarding their inefficient workplace behavior or need to better their skills.

In return, you should also let your team know that you are open to receiving negative feedback regarding your work. This will create an atmosphere of pursuing growth and learning rather than competition among your team members.

To sum all the points provided above, a quote from Henry Ford would definitely be ideal:

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

 

Setting Reasonable Expectations With Your Virtual Assistant

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As someone who hired a virtual assistant, you should be aware of your boundaries when dealing with them. Indeed, they are totally flexible compared to the office-based workers you have in your firm at present, but remember that they are still humans that deserve to be treated with due consideration.

There should be no discrepancy in terms of dealing with either remote or office worker. They also get tired, their skills may be limited to certain fields, and you cannot push them to produce something unimaginable or time will not allow.

One good situation to explain the aforementioned thought is this:

Anna just hired a social media manager for her accounts, specifically on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The virtual assistant or the person, whom she assigned the tasks to, is Julie. Indeed, Julie has this relevant experience in marketing via social media platforms. However, Anna set an impossible goal: Julie must see to it that with one hour every day, her social media accounts have at least one fresh post. Furthermore, the VA must be able to engage with people on her account.

The end result? Julie appeared to have failed the expectations of Anna although she deserves to be provided with more hours to prove her skills.

What Anna asked for is totally unachievable, given the fact social media posts may be easily lodged onto someone’s account, but it does not mean that these only take minutes to be created. Be reminded that creating content for social media accounts requires careful research, analysis of one’s industry, consideration of the target audience, determination of the client’s wants for the posting, content writing, and graphic design. Apparently, these tasks will never take an hour.

Also, engaging with people on one’s account will not last a few minutes at all. There are cases that inquiries may even call for coordination with the management itself or other departments of the firm. For instance, the questions are relative to products or services on hand, which the Virtual Assistant may not be able to respond to accordingly without further confirmation of information.

Be reminded that when setting expectations with your virtual assistant, it is best to have a meeting with him or her and clarify things out. For instance, you could ask the VA to give you an estimate of hours for the work completion. To be assured that you are not being led on (i.e. for the VA to acquire more hours than necessary), require a concrete explanation on how the hours will be spent.

You will know that a virtual assistant is telling the truth based on how they give details on their steps. They will certainly provide you with specific activities entailed on the task you have given and their corresponding required time.

From this perspective, you can see that setting expectations is also accompanied by trust – trust that your virtual assistant will work accordingly without spending more time when not necessary.

Importance of Setting a Schedule With Your Client

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There are a lot of problems arising when there is no consistency or set of standards followed when working with a client. As a virtual assistant, you should remember that at times, it is you, who should be taking the first step in ensuring problems will come out of a lack of organization. One good example is when you do not agree upon a schedule with your client.

It is true that there are virtual assistants who tend to work on a flexible schedule. It does work for some, but there are instances, it will not.

One good way of explaining this is with an example situation:

Imogen and Claire just started working last week. The former is the client in this circumstance, wherein Claire is the virtual assistant. Apparently, Imogen complained about not getting responses from Claire via their chosen messaging platform last Friday. However, when Claire’s side was obtained, it was found out that she already worked beyond her hours, which is four hours per day. It is also added that Claire informed Imogen that she will be starting her work at 9:00 A.M. PST, but the client is complaining of not having a response by night time at 10:00 P.M. PST.

After further investigation, Imogen has been used to sending messages to Claire almost the whole day from Monday to Thursday, while the virtual assistant has no complaint in attending to it. In other words, the client got used to getting replies and at one time, she did not receive one, she already panicked.

If you will analyze the situation above, it is apparent that lack of schedule could result in unnecessary complaints and unfair treatment to the virtual assistant (though this is not the intention of the client). There must be a boundary all the time, and the best solution is a strict schedule to follow. In such way, the client will be aware that the virtual assistant is obligated to respond during her working hours. On the other hand, he or she has the freedom not to respond to client’s inquiries not until her next shift.

Clients should be aware that a virtual assistant is not a round-the-clock employee. They may work in a flexible manner, but they also have the right to obtain some hours of personal privacy away from work.

Of course, virtual assistants, most of the time, should initiate setting up a schedule. It is one way of protecting one’s self from the aforementioned issue. One cannot blame the clients all the time, for once you get them adapt to a certain routine, they will definitely anticipate it to occur going forward.

Communication: A Key to Effective Virtual Work (Client’s Perspective)

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Previously, we have discussed how important communication is when you are a virtual worker. Apparently, without it, you will not be able to survive the online industry at all, for you will not just waste a lot of job opportunities. In truth, you will also fail to build a reputation for yourself as a reliable home-based employee.

Now, it is not just about the virtual worker itself, or even if we are talking about a virtual assistant. Take note that communication requires a two-way relationship. Thus, even the employer or a virtual worker’s client has the obligation to maintain good communication.

There are so many instances that a client-employee relationship ends due to failure in effective communication. However, one should not deduce that it is only about the worker. Remember, as mentioned above, it is a two-way requirement. Thus, there are certainly cases that communication fails on the part of the client.

To give you proofs, given below are common situations:

Client fails to provide a complete picture of what he or she wants to be done. This is common during the hiring process of virtual workers. There are times that clients do not provide a complete list of requirements. As a result, they are incapable of finding a good talent for their operations or a simple project.

Although they may find someone despite the vague job description, in the end, this will cause a loophole to develop. It is either the employee will give up for he or she is being blamed for an incorrect output despite the fact it has been the wrongdoing of the client in the first place – not explaining things enough.

Be reminded that if you are a client, you should be as specific as possible in elaborating your needs for a virtual worker. You cannot just say, “I need a good web developer.” There are various programming languages and platforms that such a person could be proficient in. Also, for certain, you are in need of a specific web development skill.

One good example is, you actually need a WordPress expert. If you do not indicate this, you may end up with an inexperienced web developer, who will be going through a lot of practice first before knowing every nook of WordPress.

Client does not even consider to touch base with his or her virtual worker. Take note that work is not all about sending a task and expecting it to be carried out. You should also develop a good relationship with your employee by maintaining a regular communication with him or her.

You are not obligated to actually connect with them every now and then.  The only thing is, you should at least check if he or she is doing well with his or her work, or confirm if there are no issues on their end.

This is not all about being compassionate about your people. Instead, it is about ensuring that everything is on track.

There are times that virtual workers tend to assume (which is entirely wrong, but you cannot blame them all the time), especially when their clients are not reachable at all times or they do not even give the hint that their employees could get their assistance. This is regardless if they will respond or not right away.

Client does not provide a straightforward feedback. You should know that virtual workers are aware that their work could be criticized for their own benefit. It is not solely about telling that something is done incorrectly and your employee should find the mishap himself or herself.

As much as possible, use communication to explain everything that has gone wrong with the output. Provide constructive criticism. This is not a complete waste of time, for it will provide you advantages in the long run. The more you give clearer feedback, the more your virtual workers would be able to identify your style, needs, and wants.

Client provides limited communication leeway for his or her virtual worker. This may be trivial for some, but it is totally helpful. As a client, you should not only provide your virtual worker one communication platform to speak with one another. You should at least provide two. A good example is providing them tasks via e-mail so that you could write everything down effectively and assisting them via a messaging platform of your choice.

Some make a mistake by relying on e-mail alone. As a result, their virtual workers do not get immediate responses or just replies to their inquiries, delaying whatever has to be carried out. Furthermore, e-mails could stack with one another, and admit it or not, clients are mostly not frequent visitors of their inboxes.

Thus, if you really aim to assist your virtual worker to make things work, agree on another communication platform. Well, you got a lot of options around. You got Skype, Messenger, Viber, WhatsApp, Zoom, Slack, etc.

The aforementioned situations are only a few of many instances that could prove communication does fail on the client’s end, too.

Once you have established a good communication with your virtual workers, there is no doubt that you could maximize their abilities for your own benefit or your business’.