On-site Employee vs Virtual Assistant
As your business grows and flourish, you will soon need help handling or performing tasks and responsibilities. But which one, a full-time employee or a virtual assistant, should you hire? Costs, time flexibility and practicality are the key factors often discussed. But depending on your short- and long-term objectives, one must thoroughly examine the risks and benefits of both sides before making the final decision on which to recruit.
The Risks and Benefits of Having Virtual Assistants
Business owners prefer virtual assistants due to convenience and/or budget consideration. What other benefits will hiring a virtual assistant have?
• You may get the services of virtual assistants when you need it, such as when business is reaching peak season or when a certain responsibility needs to be prioritized.
• Employers have more options and better chances of finding what suits their agenda, given that it is possible to recruit virtual assistants from anywhere in the world.
• Besides being able to perform routine tasks, majority of virtual assistants have extra skills such as content writing, video editing, graphic designs and more.
• Virtual assistants don’t have extra expenses attached. Other than their salary based on the time they spent or the number of tasks they performed, they cost less.
The advantages of choosing a virtual assistant may be astonishing. However, one must consider the risks that come along the decision.
• Technical problems are still possible and can impact a virtual assistant’s productivity, and the employer can’t do much to fix this problem.
• Virtual assistants could have misleading behaviors and actions. These involve tracking hours being inaccurate and actual completed tasks especially if working on a flexible schedule.
• If a certain responsibility requires urgent attention, quick contact with the virtual assistant isn’t always guaranteed since they work remotely. Hence, daily or immediate contact could be a huge problem.
The Risks and Benefits of Full-Time Employees
It may be difficult to see the perks of hiring full-time employees. But search deeper and there you’ll see why full-time employees never go out of style.
• It’s still best to interview the possible recruits face to face. This way you get to evaluate their skills, personality and work ethics.
• The employer can better track the worker’s productivity and improvements because all are physically present at work.
• Efficient communication is always guaranteed. Technical difficulties or customer-related situations are resolved faster, along with other misunderstandings and errors.
• Working and interacting with other employees is a better atmosphere for establishing a successful business relationship, also enhancing productivity, work flow and success in the company.
Full-time employees don’t have a vast number of disadvantages other than in the field of budget and flexibility of time.
• Employees are regularly paid regardless of their workload. Also, they come with a lot of extra expenses including training, equipment, taxes, paid leaves and more.
• Having fixed schedules, working additional hours can cost the company extra. While tasks can be shifted around if priorities change, often employees aren’t flexible with last-minute adjustments which could lead to poor work quality.
The Choice is Up to You!
After knowing the pros and cons of both sides, what should your next step be? Well, that would be to weigh it all out and compare. First, figure out what services your company needs. Next, lay out your budgetary concerns. Look at your budget and possible expenses if you get a full-time employee or if you hire a virtual assistant. Consider how the outcome be after a short and long period of time.