What Influences A Virtual Assistant Hourly Rate

 

What Influences A Virtual Assistant Hourly Rate

 

Companies hire virtual assistants to help them save time and money. The virtual assistant will often make phone calls, research, data entry, and other necessary administrative work.

Hiring a virtual assistant and paying them an hourly rate to perform daily admin tasks allows you to deal with more technical aspects of your business.

The amount you pay your virtual assistant depends on their level of experience, the number of hours they work, and also the location they live.

In this article, we look at all the costs and help you understand how much it will cost to hire a virtual assistant.

How Much Does A Typical Virtual Assistant Cost?

Virtual assistants with average experience in Australia typically cost between $7.5 to $40 per hour.

These virtual assistants will have some experience working as a VA performing administrative tasks and have experience in data entry within your business sector.

The amount per hour virtual assistants charge will increase with the level of experience and skill they have. For example, experienced virtual assistants with ten years of experience can command a much higher hourly rate.

These virtual assistants will have in-depth knowledge of your industry and will be able to assist in other areas of your business. The virtual assistant rates of pay per hour for these workers will be over $20, but this can still be a fraction of what you’d pay to hire a new employee.

What Influences The Cost Of A Virtual Assistant?

1 – Education

Like with any profession, specific qualifications are needed for different job roles. All virtual assistants will need to be able to speak and write English to a high standard.

However, unlike other professions, you do not require specific qualifications to work as a VA.

Like with all jobs, training is provided to a certain extent, and as they progress and have new career goals, their experience will increase.

A professional qualification will always be an advantage over a candidate without the same qualifications. However, experience and good references from working as a VA should be considered highly beneficial over other factors.

If a remote worker is applying for a job with your business, being an excellent touch typist will put them ahead of other candidates. However, companies expect someone working within the VA business to also have excellent general IT skills.

If a VA wants to progress in their job, they will be required to undertake training to gain expertise in an area that will help your business.

For example, they may want to train for website maintenance or a marketing qualification.

An excellent attitude to how they do their job and their ability to perform tasks on time and interact with other staff members and clients are just as crucial as any educational qualification.

2 – Experience

Experience is often viewed as being invaluable when applying for any job. Therefore, it will prove helpful if a candidate has experience as a VA within your business sector.

For example, you may run a business that relies heavily on marketing and needs a VA to help run a specific marketing campaign. If they have experience working as a VA in marketing support or social media marketing, this will help your company.

An experienced VA will add monetary value to your company given the amount of money they will save you compared to the cost of employing a full-time staff member to do the job a VA will do for an hourly pay rate.

Hiring a VA to conduct data research for reports for a particular project could prove invaluable when attracting new customers and clients to your company.

All the marketing tasks your VA undertakes will also save you on the overall cost you pay in hiring them as they start taking care of lead generation for your company.

3 – Full-Time Or Part-Time Hours

The advantage of hiring a VA is that you can afford to be flexible. Hiring on a trial or part-time basis is always a good start. If you hire on a part-time basis, the total cost isn’t so high, and you always have the option of increasing the workers’ hours to full-time if required.

Remember you are hiring the VA to save on the staffing cost you pay; therefore, the price you incur paying a VA on an hourly rate is nowhere near what you pay a fully employed staff member.

However, a VA based in the Philippines may prefer to work full-time, giving their family more financial security if they have a stable long-term job.

When a VA has regular longer hours working for your company, it helps to create a healthy relationship between the VA and the employer.

Working full-time hours means the VA will feel a valued member of your team and will likely take more pride in their work.

In addition, the more hours they work for your business, the more committed they are, and they are likely to stay with you long term.

If a worker is only working part-time hours, they will need another part-time job, meaning their focus will be divided between the two clients or, in some cases, even more clients.

4 – Technical Expertise

Sometimes, you may need to hire a VA with technical expertise in a specific area. For example, the person you hire may need to be proficient in using specific software tools that help you create data to analyse in a particular project.

Social media also plays a big part in all businesses; therefore, the VA you hire will need some knowledge in dealing with different social media platforms. The job you want them to do may involve creating content for your social media campaigns, which will mean looking after your social media accounts and integration with the company website.

A VA using several different software tools will be invaluable to your business’ online presence. In addition to this, a specific project may need the VA to have extensive knowledge in IT server management.

Each project may require a different skill set; therefore, using the services of a VA agency will help you hire the right person for the job at the correct cost.

5 – Location

Virtual assistants often work from their homes, and their homes could be located anywhere in the world. As long as the person you hire has excellent communication skills and the skills required to do the job, it doesn’t matter where they are.

Due to advanced technology, the virtual assistant you hire can be located worldwide and the location will often determine the rate you pay them per hour.

For example, if the virtual assistant is located in the Philippines, their hourly rate will be far less than those in Australia.

It is very tempting for a new business to hire someone to do VA work from a country like the Philippines, based on the lower hourly rate they charge. However, it would help if you considered the person’s skill set and the time difference due to different time zones.

Working over different time zones can harm your business. For example, the jobs you set for your virtual assistant may take longer to do because they are unable to have live interaction with you at certain times.

On the plus side, hiring a virtual assistant in a different time zone will mean they can work on admin jobs outside your standard office hours.

The Time Investment Of A Virtual Assistant

Hiring virtual assistants is the way forward for most businesses. However, hiring an assistant on an ongoing basis will take a lot of time and effort.

There are several factors to consider when hiring a virtual assistant. First, business owners are often shocked by the number of hours spent searching for the perfect VA.

You have to search for the right person who has the skills and experience level you require to do the entire job.

Then you have to spend time interviewing each candidate to establish which one is the best fit and verify their references.

There is always a worry when hiring remote workers because you are unlikely ever to meet them in person.

Business owners often worry about whether the remote worker will work diligently if they are trustworthy and have all the skills they say they have.

These worries can be solved by searching for candidates from reputed freelance websites and agencies. It is also advisable to hire on a trial period and use time tracking software like Time Doctor to judge their performance.

Hiring the best person based on their trial period performance will help your business pick the right person for the tasks and services you require them to perform.

Using A Virtual Assistant Service

Most business owners are starting to use virtual assistant services to help recruit virtual assistants for their companies.

Hiring from a freelance website is sufficient if you require your virtual assistant to perform basic data entry and clerical work.

However, using a hiring service is advisable if you want to hire a virtual assistant with advanced skills.

After telling the service provider your requirements, they will search their pool of highly skilled and varied workers and match a VA with the needs of your business.

Using a VA agency saves you the time and hassle of searching through applications, and the agency has already verified them.

Using the services of a VA provider means you won’t pay the virtual assistant themselves, but you will pay for a VA service package.

The company will provide you with a registered virtual assistant, and the VA rates are often based on a time-based package ranging from 10 hours upwards.

These service providers are very flexible towards your ongoing business needs, and they can provide you with a VA with expertise in the critical areas needed for the job you require.

Another advantage of using an agency is that they are responsible for dealing with any disputes regarding time management or quality of work.

Contact Us For Help With Finding The Best Value For Money

The money you can save when hiring a VA can make a real difference in how you run your company. But, as you have read, there are advantages and disadvantages to the VA you hire, especially if they aren’t in the same time zone.

What is not in doubt is that it is far easier to use a VA agency when hiring the right remote worker for your company. With that in mind, call us today for a free consultation and discuss how we can help you hire a suitable VA to help with your business needs.

We will select a VA with great communication skills for you, do all the training, and deal with any issues you may encounter. So give us a call today to get the ball rolling.

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