Are you stuck deciding how you should scale your growing business? Our crystal ball tells us you’re having problems weighing the pros and cons of hiring a virtual assistant over a full-time employee. Lucky for you, we’ve decided to help you get the ball rolling.
We’ll be tackling one of the most hotly debated issues that business owners and entrepreneurs have these days: whether to hire an independent contractor—such as a virtual assistant—or go the traditional route and hire a full-time employee. With the current pandemic still looming over a lot of businesses, we’re aware that many of you need someone who can work effectively and productively on a remote setup.
Spoiler alert: that’s the clear-cut definition of a virtual assistant.
Location
This is probably the main differentiator between a virtual assistant and a full-time employee. An employee works in-house alongside you and the rest of your team within your office's premises. While this is great for building an employer-employee relationship, they need to be physically present to work. So when they’re not around, that means no work is getting done.
Meanwhile, a virtual assistant works for you, well, virtually. You communicate and delegate tasks online. This means you can assign any work to a VA and they’ll get it done no matter what time it is, even while you’re sleeping.
Cost
You’ll be surprised to know the significant difference in the cost of hiring a virtual assistant vs. a full-time employee. A full-time employee requires space at your office, which means you need to provide them with equipment. Aside from that, you need to cover their mandatory benefits as part of their salary package, including holiday pay, sick leaves, taxes, and other government-mandated compensation. And when it’s a slow workday, you’ll still have to pay them to stay at your office even if they’re (mostly) unproductive for the day.
Meanwhile, hiring a Virtual Assistant costs you a lot less because you’ll only have to pay for what you need to get done when you need it. You won’t have to worry about compensation, equipment, or even water cooler conversations during work.
Skillset
When you’re hiring a full-time employee, you look for a certain skillset that they can bring to the table. However, this means that you must provide additional training when you need them to do something beyond their current skill level.
A Virtual Assistant is a jack-of-all-trades, but a master of some. They act as your executive assistant, social media marketing strategist, copywriter, video and photo editor, accountant, and more! And they make sure to level up their skills and knowledge to be more competitive.
So, who won?
We think it’s pretty clear who brings the most benefit to a scaling business. Hands down, it's a virtual assistant. Hiring a VA is more convenient and cost-efficient.
If this helped to convince you to hire the services of a virtual assistant, connect with us at TopVA. We have a wide pool of experienced virtual assistants who are more than happy to support your growing business. Let’s get you the help that you need!