Why Hire Remote Personal Assistants?
Jan 30, 2023 • 4 min read
There are many benefits to hiring remote personal assistants. They’re affordable and flexible. And they’re skilled professionals who can help accelerate your productivity. Let’s look at the cost factors of hiring an in-house personal assistant VS a remote personal assistant.
You’ll learn:
- Personal assistant cost
- Hiring A Remote Assistant – Virtual Assistant Costs
- Why hire through managed virtual assistant service providers
Ready to build your remote team?
Use the DigiWorks platform to hire, manage, and pay remote talent from all over the world.
Personal assistant cost
Hiring an in-person assistant would cost you a higher amount than hiring remotely, depending on the geographic location that you choose to hire from. The cost of a personal assistant also depends on your needs. Will the personal assistant be a part-time assistant with a flexible schedule, earning an hourly rate, or will get be a full-time employee being paid a monthly rate or according to their hours per week?
Will your personal assistant be covering just personal tasks or will they have a wide range of tasks to handle as an executive assistant/virtual assistant? For example:
- Business-related tasks and specialized tasks
- Calendar management and handling daily schedules
- Email management
- Social media management
- Project management, handling content management systems
- Common tasks and Generalist Tasks
- Helping out on operational tasks of your business and recurring tasks
- Personal and miscellaneous tasks like scheduling dry cleaning
Full-time assistants or part-time remote assistants covering a more wide variety of tasks will have a higher average cost. But having a dedicated assistant helping out can save you much valuable time. They can help lower your 50-hour working week by taking on some of your mundane, repetitive tasks. The cost also depends on the assistant salary also includes benefits like health insurance/life insurance and whether you are paying a competitive rate.
The actual cost of a virtual assistant usually ranges between $15 to $30 per hour.
Hiring A Remote Assistant - Virtual Assistant Costs
When you factor in cost, hiring a virtual assistant is generally cheaper than hiring in-person assistants, and you can always cancel them without penalty. Plus, you can scale them up or down depending on your needs.
But VAs aren’t perfect either. Some people prefer working directly with a person, especially if they’re looking for something very specific. Others don’t want to work remotely.
When deciding which option is best for you, think about:
1. What type of task does your VA perform?
2. How many hours per week do you typically spend doing administrative tasks like scheduling meetings, managing emails, etc.?
In case they leave: expenses related to lost productivity
Personal assistants are becoming increasingly popular among businesses. They help employees do things like schedule meetings, send emails, book travel arrangements, and even pay bills.
But what happens if the assistant decides she wants to move on? What if she gets sick? And what about the cost of replacing her?
There’s no easy answer to those questions. But it turns out that many personal assistant companies don’t want to deal with the costs associated with losing an employee. Instead, they simply assume that the employee will continue to work for the company indefinitely. If he or she quits, however, the company takes over the task of handling the employee’s responsibilities.
The problem with this approach is that it creates a huge financial burden for employers. In fact, according to a recent study conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, the average annual salary for a personal assistant ranges from $20,000 to $30,000. This means that even though the employer might save some money by outsourcing certain duties, the overall expense could still end up being quite high.
Ready to build your remote team?
Use the DigiWorks platform to hire, manage, and pay remote talent from all over the world.
Why hire through managed virtual assistant service providers
Virtual assistants are a great way for businesses to save time and money. But what do you really know about how they work? And why should you consider hiring one?
Hiring a part-time or full-time assistant from a talent marketplace or platform like DigiWorks allows business owners to be connected with ideal candidates that have gone through an in-depth vetting process. These platforms have set processes for vetting candidates that allows them to source the perfect candidate from the global talent pool.
This can be a major help in the hiring process during the search process for an administrative assistant, generalist assistant, digital marketing assistant or personal assistant.
It is super important to determine the level of competency of candidates early on in the entire vetting process to avoid spending time on a poor quality assistant and unsuitable types of assistants.
Hiring VAs through a platform like DigiWorks or Upwork also helps you see a smoother onboarding process.
Some platforms also have trial periods on a candidate by candidate basis, where you can move on if you aren’t happy with your VA before the first 2-3 weeks are over. These are key factors to consider in the hiring process.
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About DigiWorks
DigiWorks is an easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and start ups hire amazing remote talent from around the world. DigiWorks offers a way for you to hire, manage and pay people from all countries. If you find an amazing virtual assistant from Philippines, a content writer from Nigeria, or operations manager from South Africa – manage and pay your entire team from one platform with no hassle.
If you’re looking for a more affordable and sustainable option you might consider making use of a hiring platform like DigiWorks. Virtual assistant companies or platforms like DigiWorks are amazing as they not only match you with pre-vetted and assessed remote workers that can take care of all your business needs but they will also handle all onboarding and payroll needs as well.