Virtual assistants have been instrumental in ensuring that companies stayed in business during the coronavirus pandemic. The best virtual assistant services managed to help companies stay afloat, transition to remote work settings, prepare contingency plans, and formulate exit strategies for when the different lockdowns finally end.
However, even after virtual assistants proved their value during COVID, some businesses might still have reservations about hiring VAs once the pandemic is over. A few such businesses are even looking to end the pandemic-related flexibility of remote work and fire any regular employees who won’t work on-site. If businesses aren’t open to letting their employees remotely, there’s a chance that they also won’t want a virtual assistant, especially if they had a negative experience before.
Despite several businesses’ reservations on hiring a virtual assistant, many entrepreneurs swear by the effectiveness of having VAs in their ranks. Some entrepreneurs, like Jake Jorgovan of Lead Cookie and Content Allies, even treat them as the backbone of their operations.
However, remote employees, including virtual assistants, are among the top-performing workers that companies can have. Such workers can outperform their on-site co-workers in different ways.
Flexibility
Remote workers are more flexible than office-based workers, which means they can work outside the usual nine-to-five, especially if some clients have urgent requests made after work hours. Flexible schedules can increase productivity by minimizing the negative effects of distractions by allowing the workers to compensate by coming back another time to work and finish their work.
Even if the remote employees and virtual assistants need to work for eight hours a day, they can pick what time they want to work on to minimize any distractions and maximize their time. It’s also possible for them to work outside working hours and in the evening to complement their office-based counterparts, especially for virtual assistants handling back-office work and potential backlogs due to any sudden increases in workloads.
Diverse Workers
If entrepreneurs hire a virtual assistant, they can potentially extend their operating hours when they hire a VA from the other side of the world. Businesses in the US can hire a Filipino virtual assistant and have staff operating in different time zones.
Besides having employees from a different time zone, businesses can also save money when hiring a virtual assistant from the Philippines due to the cheap labor in the country. Hiring a full-time employee is more expensive than hiring a Filipino VA because of the regular employee’s auxiliary fees.
Hiring Filipino virtual assistants has more advantages listed here.
Better Communication
Virtual assistants need to be good communicators since they can’t simply tap their co-workers’ arms or go to their workstations to ask questions. Remote workers surprisingly end up being better at communicating since it is one of the basic requirements for remote employees to work efficiently since they aren’t as connected to their co-workers as their office-based counterparts.
What’s more is that on-site employees may seem to be well-connected with each other, only to find out that some personal issues are present that hinder communications. Remote workers won’t likely get involved with such issues. They will be more focused on their jobs, allowing them to be more connected in work-related matters and disconnected from trivial matters.
Increased Productivity
It’s already mentioned above that virtual assistants, and remote workers will enjoy increased productivity thanks to the flexible hours. Another reason why virtual assistants are more productive than office-based workers is that they aren’t micromanaged, unlike the latter.
Virtual assistants enjoy more freedom when producing output, allowing them to work at their own pace and not feel rushed or pressured to accomplish their tasks. A survey showed that 65% of workers said that working remotely will be more productive, while another 86 percent said they could hit maximum productivity when working alone.
Remote workers can thank the lack of office distractions, the flexibility, and the freedom to work on more tasks for their increased productivity.
Presence
Many office workers usually end up absent for various reasons, usually because they or a close family member are sick. Because their schedules aren’t flexible and they need to be present at the office to work, they’re usually forced to pick whether to stay at home to rest or take care of a relative or to work in the office. Other reasons for absences are doctor’s appointments and special events that the employees need to go to. The bottom line is, if many people are absent, businesses usually end up being short-staffed.
However, virtual assistants with flexible schedules aren’t heavily affected by sudden illnesses, important appointments, and other reasons for absences since they can go back to work whenever they’re available. Even if the VA needs to travel, they can always work on the go using either a laptop or a tablet PC and deliver results.
Entrepreneurs will surely feel that a VA is more present than some regular employees, as long as they hire a reliable virtual assistant or one from a reputable VA company.
Conclusion
Virtual assistants have proven to be invaluable assets in the company, as long as the entrepreneurs hire them from trustworthy virtual assistant companies in the Philippines. Relying solely on largely unknown VAs, especially those who aren’t affiliated with reputable VA companies, can prove problematic since there’s no assurance that businesses will have great service from them.
Hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines through OVA Virtual today to benefit from the quality virtual assistant services that our exceptional VAs can offer.