Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Virtual Assistants

virtual assistantThe decision of hiring a virtual assistant is really important because not only will you be saving time and money, but it will also improve the productivity of your business. Hiring a virtual assistant is easy, but some startups tend to make mistakes that affect the pace at which they are growing.

Avoid the following pitfalls to be able to make the most of your decision to hire a virtual assistant.

Hiring Them for the Wrong Reasons

Don’t hire a virtual assistant just because someone says that you need one. You need to know why you are hiring them and what kind of work they will be doing for you.

Not Having a Clear Job Description

As a businessperson, you need to know why you are hiring a virtual assistant and you will use their time and services. For example, if the virtual assistant is working for 10 hours every week, you need to give them tasks that you were earlier doing, and not the tasks that you especially made up for them because that would end up costing you more. This is the reason why it is important to have a clear job description.

Not Instructing Them Properly

If you want to be successful businessperson, you need to make sure that all your employees are doing their job the right way. The first thing that you need to do is make a list of the daily, weekly, and monthly activities and then see the tasks that are left out. Make sure that you hire the virtual assistant to do those jobs and that you clearly instruct them.

By clearly instructing the VA before they start working for you has the following advantages:

virtual assistant• It gives way to effective communication
• It sets up expectations
• It helps the VA in learning about you
• It gives way to higher productivity

Skipping on the Training Period

This is a common problem that a lot of entrepreneurs make. They think virtual assistants know how to get started, so they don’t brief them, but the truth is that virtual assistants are not mind readers and even for them, every contract and employer is different. The training that you will give them is actually an investment, so make sure that you don’t skimp on this aspect.

Micromanaging Them

You hire a virtual assistant to save time, so do not undo that by micro managing them. It is understandable that you will be apprehensive about someone who is not working in front of you, but in order to make sure that they are working at the expected pace, you should ask for daily progress reports and avoid micromanaging.

Expecting Too Much
The virtual assistant is there to help you out with certain tasks and not manage the entire business. You need to know their area of expertise and give the work accordingly so that there is higher productivity and more profit.

Not Communicating With Them

You need to communicate with them on a frequent basis so that you can learn about their limitations and don’t force them in expanding their skills into an area that they are not familiar with.