How Hiring a Virtual Assistant Can Reduce Employee Turnover?
A virtual assistant, commonly as a VA, is a person working remotely and hired by companies to render services that are really crucial but time-consuming to be carried out by in house employees, or the individual themselves. Their duties include content creation, administrative work, customer service, research, social media management, and finance management. Quite a number of companies are now opting for virtual assistants compared to in house employees. There are myriad benefits to a business that come along as a result of using virtual assistants. In this article, we will focus on the benefits of hiring virtual assistants and the impact of hiring virtual assistants to reduce employee turnover.
Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
Businesses are now focusing on being effective and efficient in rendering services. To achieve this, virtual assistants have become quite sought after as they help deal with work that may seem complex to be dealt with by permanent staff. Hiring a virtual assistant benefits a company in ways that are as discussed below.
- Reduced Labor Costs
Compared to permanent employees, the cost of hiring a virtual assistant is relatively low.
A company decides to pay virtual assistants an hourly rate. Also, they can choose to make payments depending on the duties they can successfully carry out within a specific period of time. Virtual assistants are not entitled to a basic salary, insurance benefits, and leave days that a permanent employee would be. Since the virtual assistants work remotely, the company cuts on office expenses such as internet and phone charges, extra working space and general office equipment. The fact that virtual assistants can be hired for a certain amount of hours depending on the workload enhances profit maximization.
Virtual assistants have vast experience and are qualified to carry out tasks and deliver impressively. Many companies end up bearing the extra cost on finances and time consumed while training their employees even after they have hired them. Virtual assistants do not require any training as they already are proficient in their respective fields. The company does not have to spend finances on training, and this is an extra benefit of hiring a virtual assistant.
- Increased Productivity
This is an impact of a virtual assistant to a business that cannot be overlooked. Virtual assistants work remotely and do not require a specific physical location. All they need to work in a flexible manner is a reliable internet connection and a computer or smartphone. Their work being online-based enables them to concentrate without any distractions that would arise had they been working in a busy office set up. They can also plan their schedules and carry out tasks effectively as no time is consumed on movement to and from the office. Research carried out by Harvard Business Review on a call centre, showed that staff who worked from home completed 13.5 per cent more calls than what that their counterparts in the office managed.
Hiring a virtual assistant allows employees to focus on more important tasks. The company ends up benefiting from increased productivity as the employees are able to focus on business building responsibilities. Due to their highly qualified nature, they carry out their tasks with utmost perfection. This results in a high degree in efficiency and effectiveness of how tasks are carried out, thus more productivity.
How to Reduce Employee Turnover with Virtual Assistants?
Employee turnover refers to the process through which an employee stops working in a company or leaves a business. Turnover is arrived at through a voluntary decision where the employee decides to leave, citing personal reasons like a better job offer or an involuntary decision where the employee’s contract is terminated by the employer. A high employee turnover rate negatively affects a company’s productivity.
With the idea of identifying and hiring virtual assistants gaining popularity in many companies, there has been a notable decline in their turnover rate. It is, therefore, important to discuss the impact hiring virtual assistants has on employee turnover.
- Provision of A Conducive Working Environment For The Employees
When companies hire virtual assistants, permanent employees are provided with an environment that lets them use their time effectively and in an efficient manner. They concentrate more on their professional work as they are relieved of low-level tasks that consume time and end up draining their energy and morale.
Virtual assistants helping with much smaller tasks is a great strategy applied to ensure employees are able to achieve both personal career and organizational goals. Employees are satisfied, and it’s a positive impact of hiring virtual assistants to employee turnover.
- Promotes a Balance Between Work and Personal Life
Managing workflow may be hectic, especially in growing companies. There is a need for employees and those in managerial positions to focus more on growing the business. Having employees concentrate on shorter time-consuming tasks leads to them be overwhelmed, and eventually, they will fail to meet crucial work and personal goals. The workload also becomes a lot and employees end up working extra hours. They barely have personal time. This leads to stress and eventually, the pressure to perform mounts, and they end up resigning or being terminated due to poor performance.
Hiring a virtual assistant skilled in carrying out the necessary tasks enables smooth flow of work, improving the employees’ ability to achieve set goals. When goals are met, there is no performance pressure on employees. Since both the employee and employer are satisfied, the impact of virtual assistants to a business is generally positive.
Conclusion
The practice of hiring virtual assistants has gained popularity in companies. It is important to consider the operating capacity of a business and how the in-house staff works when choosing a virtual assistant. Such an assistant should meet and exceed expectations, and they offer benefits necessary for the growth of the business. It is also important that the virtual assistant carries out smaller duties that will leave room for the employees to concentrate fully on achieving their targets, therefore, reducing turnover chances.