Virtual Assistant Vs Executive Assistant: What’s The Best Approach For Business Owners?

 

Virtual Assistant Vs Executive Assistant

 

All business owners are faced with difficult decisions from time to time. But, unfortunately, it comes with the territory when running your own company.

Making the right choices that benefit your company is the key to maintaining long-term success. Hiring someone can prove tricky; this has never been more true when deciding to hire a virtual assistant or executive assistant.

There are many reasons you may decide to hire one as opposed to the other, and it always comes down to what tasks you need the person you hire to perform and, of course, the cost.

In this article, we will help you understand the critical differences between both roles and how to determine which assistant best suits your company.

What’s The Difference Between An Executive Assistant And a Virtual Assistant?

When it comes to virtual assistants vs executive assistants, the main factor is cost. Yes, money talks, and companies will pay a considerable amount more to hire virtual administrative assistants than a virtual assistant.

However, there is a big reason why you pay more.

An executive assistant will be responsible for project management, looking after complex tasks, scheduling meetings, email management, and being a personal assistant to high-level executives.

A remote executive assistant will look at ways in which they can improve the time management within your company to ensure they add value and get your company running as efficiently as possible.

Generally speaking, remote executive assistants could be responsible for sensitive tasks such as tracking the expenses of other staff members and so on.

Meanwhile, virtual assistants are responsible for more mundane tasks such as data entry, answering phones, and all other general administrative tasks.

Virtual assistants will be paid a lower hourly rate and are often hired to complete individual tasks from a set task list.

A business owner could hire a part-time virtual assistant, which will still prove more cost-effective than someone offering the same in-person support.

Why Do People Hire A Remote Executive Assistant?

Hiring a remote executive assistant proves more cost-effective than employing an in-house executive assistant while they perform the same job.

Executive and virtual assistants are worth their gold weight to a company. Still, executive assistants will be responsible for the strategic planning of a management project and will report to company leaders about schedules and work processes.

Many businesses may have reservations about hiring executive assistants. Still, if you do the proper due diligence and hire the right person for your company, you will soon see the value they add to your company.

An excellent executive assistant will have the required skill set you need.

However, they may also have additional skills in other areas, such as web development and marketing activities that benefit your company.

Hiring can be stressful at the best of times, so it may be worth hiring a remote executive assistant part-time to start. Then, if you find you need additional support, you can always increase their hours to become a full-time position.

How To Determine What Kind Of Assistant Is Best For You

1 – Do You Need A Dedicated Person Or A Team?

In business, we all need an administrative assistant to help us take care of the day-to-day tasks, but more companies realise that they need both virtual and executive assistants.

As a business owner, you must establish your business’s requirements to help it run smoothly on a daily basis.

Most large companies will employ a large team of staff with employee status and not worry too much about staffing costs.

However, small start-ups will find it far more beneficial to hire a virtual assistant as they pay them hourly to do a set number of tasks.

As a business grows, you may consider hiring more virtual administrative assistants to suit your company’s needs.

The long-term aim of any business is to grow, both in terms of production/service levels and profit levels. Therefore, it is essential not to waste money on staff you don’t need. Hiring virtual assistants on a part-time contract will help you evaluate the company’s needs more efficiently.

2 – How Complex Are The Tasks?

Before hiring a virtual or executive assistant, you must determine what tasks you require the person to do.

For example, answering customer inquiries and sending friendly reminders to customers regarding promotional offers. Then you need to hire a remote administrative assistant or several remote assistants.

However, suppose the tasks are more complex such as project management, sending invoices, scheduling meetings, calendar management, etc. In that case, you need to hire an executive assistant.

When you employ an in-house administrative assistant, you may get them to run errands in person for you, but another team member could do this.

Therefore you have to consider whether hiring a virtual or executive assistant for more relevant business tasks would be better.

3 – What Budget Do You Have?

When considering hiring a potential assistant, you must know how much budget you have to spend on virtual assistants or executive assistants.

All good companies should examine their revenue closely and set aside funds for additional unexpected costs.

The unexpected costs could come in the shape of energy bill increases, which means you need to spend more cash on heating your office to the required legal requirements. In this case, hiring a virtual assistant is a far more sensible option given the cost-effective, competitive pay structure.

If you find your budget is still tight, you may consider assistant sharing between each different department instead of having a dedicated assistant for each department of your company.

Many VAs work part-time, so this could still be a viable option if money is tight.

4 – How Fast Do Tasks Need To Be Done?

In every business, time is money. Therefore, the more time you spend doing a task, the more money it costs you, which means your turnover is less and your profits are not as high as they could be.

Your clients expect you to deliver on your promised time scale for the product or service you provide. Therefore, it is paramount that your turnaround times are on target.

Each job you take on must have a set time scale, and communications between all staff must be open and transparent. This includes those who do remote work.

The last thing you need is your remote workers working to their schedules with other clients and not making you their priority. Such a situation will prove very harmful to your business.

It is vital that you work out how long each task should take to meet the required deadline this way, you will know exactly how many virtual assistants you need for each project.

5 – Are You Looking For Short Or Long-Term Support?

Every business has times during the year when service or production peaks to levels where they may need to employ additional staff to cope with increased demand.

A good business owner will plan for these peak times regarding budget and the extra staff they need.

Having remote workers you can hire during these peak times is highly beneficial to your company. For example, you may employ a virtual assistant part-time for ten months of the year, but you agree to double their hours to full-time for the two-month peak period.

Doing this is advantageous to both the remote worker and your company as you have a person who already knows what they are doing, so there is no lost time in training new workers.

Let Us Help You With Your Outsourcing Needs

We have established that hiring a virtual assistant, executive assistant, or even a team of both could greatly benefit your business.

You have also learned that it is imperative to carefully plan what tasks you need each remote worker to do and the budget you have before you hire them.

However, the task of hiring can still be overwhelming.

We can identify, hire, train, and manage the perfect virtual assistants or executive assistants to suit your company’s needs.

Give us a call today and allow us to relieve you of all the stress of employing a new staff member.

Take your business to the next level today! ENQUIRE NOW

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