Valuable article: Avoiding Virtual Assistant Performance Pitfalls
In my last article, Virtual Assistant-Hiring Pitfalls we explored the common hot water items companies face when hiring virtual assistants and how to avoid them. Now it’s time to talk about possible performance pitfalls and how we can protect ourselves and the virtual assistant when hiring.
What’s really most important when hiring a virtual assistant is doing your due-diligence before you make the hire. Just like anyone else, virtual assistants come with their own personality, life issues, and family situations. Making sure they mesh with what you need are paramount to ensuring smooth sailing after you’ve finally agreed to work with the VA.
Virtual Houdini – The Virtual Assistant Disappearing Act
Yes, it can happen. Back when you worked in the retro bricks-and-mortar world, how often did someone simply not show up for work? They quit, right? Unfortunately this can happen with virtual assistants as well. Perhaps not as often as in the bricks-and-mortar world but it does happen.
Why do virtual assistants quit, disappear, move on? The same reasons they quit, disappear, and move on in the bricks-and-mortar world. Maybe they needed more money. Maybe they became ill and could no longer work. Maybe a better offer came along. Maybe they didn’t like the work.
You can’t entirely avoid the situation itself but there are things you can do to minimize the damage if and when it does. Protecting yourself ahead of time for when it does and realizing that it could happen is your best defense.
Online files. Not only does putting your files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) online facilitate working virtually, but it also protects you if and when a virtual assistant leaves. Simply change the passwords then she’s locked out and you don’t lose any files or have to go hunting them down. Check out www.xdrive.com or speak with your web site administrator about putting your files up via ftp.
Pay withholding. Why not put something in your contract with the virtual assistant that says you reserve the right to withhold pay until work files are returned?
Passwords. As soon as a virtual worker leaves or is let go, remember to change your passwords on everything he or she had access to!
What I Say Versus What I Can Do
Would you hire someone to watch your children just because they say they’re capable of doing so? I didn’t think so. Then why would you hire a virtual assistant (or anyone for that matter) without first finding out what they can do and if they can do what they say they can do? I recommend several steps be taken to test a new virtual assistant contractor before contracting with them. These steps are modeled after our own company’s interviewing process, which has evolved over the years. It’s a lot of work on your part but very worthwhile. If you don’t want to take all of these steps then look for a good virtual staffing agency, like Team Double-Click? who does all of the work for you.
However, be absolutely sure that you send the virtual assistant a 1099 Miscellaneous Income tax form (in lieu of a W2, which employees only receive) each year.
Job posting. In your case you’ll either need to make a posting on a job board, such as CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, or Craig’s List. Or you can search those boards for virtual assistants looking for work.
Typing test. You want to know your new virtual assistant can type …accurately, right? Send him or her to www.typingtest.com and ask for the results back. Look for a high level of accuracy coupled with high speed.
Computer skills test. Again, you want to know your virtual assistant can use Word and Excel. Send her to www.expertrating.com, ask her to take the free Word and Excel (and any others you want to know about) tests and send you the scores.
First interview. Agree on a time and date for the first telephone interview. Then give the potential virtual assistant your number and have her call you. Have your questions ready. Did she show up on time? Did she answer your questions to your satisfaction? Do her skills still fit?
Work personality. You simply must know if the person you are about to contract is honest, has a high level of integrity, is a team player, and so on. We recommend www.totaltesting.com, where you can ask the potential virtual assistant to take such a test. Now this one costs a few bucks. It’s up to you whether you want to pay for it or require the virtual assistant to pay for it. Just remember – if you ask her to pay for it and you don’t hire her she’s not going to be a happy camper.
Second Interview. The cool thing about Total Testing’s work personality tests is that they give you another set of questions to ask the candidate during a second interview. Have a friend, spouse, or colleague interview this person the second time. Compare notes. How does each of you feel about this person? Will she work out?
Contract. If you’re ready to contract this person it’s time to pull out the non-compete, non-disclosure contract we discussed in the last article. Send it to the virtual assistant for review and signing. Be absolutely sure this is signed before putting him or her to work.
EIN and W9. We also discussed, in the last article, requiring the contractor to obtain a (free) EIN (employer identification number) to further protect you from possible employer/employee claims later on down the road. Now’s the time to ask for this, along with a completed W9 form.
This is the abbreviated version of our process. We throw in a few things like setting up a company email account, and we have a review process, which each virtual assistant goes through. A team of three HR pros discuss each candidate and determine if a contract will be offered. Because we’re a staffing agency, your screening process will look a little different from ours.
Give Me All You Got
Never send a virtual worker a ton of materials (letterheads, envelopes, brochures, etc.). It’s just a safeguard. While it is very rare that someone would leave and not return those materials to you, if they did, how much money would you have tied up in replacing all of those expensive printed materials? It’s just better not to do it in the first place. Send a virtual worker slightly more than what they need to perform the task at hand.
The Five Finger Discount – Identity Theft/Credit Card Number Theft
One of our clients’ biggest concerns has always been identity theft and credit card number theft. In all the years we’ve been staffing virtually, we’ve never seen this happen. It may be that the work personality profile is weeding out the people who might be tempted and our HR department is further ferreting out those who are less-than-desirable, but the other half of it is the contractor mentality of a virtual assistant as opposed to the employee mentality of an …employee!
You can minimize your risk by not giving out your credit card information to a virtual assistant. If you need to give the virtual assistant a credit card number for ordering products or services on your behalf, get a separate card that is used for nothing but items the virtual assistant orders for you. It’s much easier to check over your bill for erroneous charges this way.
Hours Availability
When hiring a virtual assistant, not only do you need to make sure their skills and abilities mesh with you and your business, but you must also be sure the virtual assistant has enough time to take care of your needs. Very simply ask the potential virtual assistant how many other clients she has, how many hours per week she is working, and how many hours she has to devote to you. Does it work with what you need? If not, move on.
The Rate
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never bought something without first knowing what it was going to cost. Important questions to ask before contracting a virtual assistant:
What is the rate per hour?
Are there different rates for different tasks?
If so what are they?
Do you round to the nearest hour or the nearest minute? To the nearest minute is the most desirable.
Is there a start up fee?
If so, how much?
Is there a termination fee?
If so, how much?
Is there a minimum usage?
If so, how much?
Can you work within my budget? In other words, if I can only afford 10 hours per week, what happens when you’ve reached 10 hours? How is that handled?
What are your future plans? How long do you intend to be a virtual assistant? Is this a career for you or a short-term venture for some extra cash?
My philosophy when hiring anyone, virtual assistants included, is to hire slowly and fire quickly. Trust your gut. If you don’t feel that a virtual assistant is working out, let her go immediately and don’t look back. Your gut is probably right. But do take your time hiring. Go through the paces to determine if he or she is the best fit for YOU; it’ll minimize the risk that he or she won’t work out for you later.
Team Double-Click? provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. Visit Team Double-Click?s Web site at http://www.teamdoubleclick.com or click on the banner:
Make Sense: Avoiding Virtual Assistant-Hiring Pitfalls
I can hear it now, ?What?? All this time you and others have been telling us about the benefits of hiring virtual assistants and now you tell us there are pitfalls?? I feel like the old Endust? commercial ?And now Pledge? says to watch for build-up?? It?s as true with hiring virtual assistants as it is with anything else – there are common pitfalls and you, as a consumer, must be aware of and you must protect yourself.
Unfortunately, as the industry grows and as more and more people ?think? they can be virtual assistants; bad apples are bound to pop up. Our company alone has seen an increase from 500 VAs in 2003 to 18,000+ currently and growing at a rate of about 200 per week. So let?s talk about the pitfalls and how you can avoid them and protect yourself.
But, But, But, I Must Be An Employee!
If you?ve only heard one thing about virtual assistants and the benefits of hiring them it is that they are supposed to be independent contractors. I recently read a blog post that claimed that ?eventually companies would be required to bring virtual assistants on as employees rather than independent contractors.? I just had to laugh! How in the world can someone who self-directs how they do the work be considered an employee? And as a business owner you don?t want employees. That?s why you hired or are considering hiring a virtual assistant in the first place. You didn?t want the employee ?I want? and ?I deserve? mentality.
I disagree 100% with the opinion of the blog post that claimed virtual assistants will need to be employees. There?s no need for them to be employees. Here are some of the items that you and I, as consumers, need to do to ensure that we set virtual assistants up so we are NOT ever required to set them up as employees.
W9. When you contract a virtual assistant, always ask that they complete a W9 (tax reporting form) and send it to your company BEFORE he or she begins working. This form will give you the virtual assistant?s social security number or EIN number and information for tax reporting purposes.
EIN a.k.a. Employee Identification Number a.k.a. Federal ID number. As an added line of defense, you should ask every virtual assistant or contractor you hire to obtain an EIN from the government. This number alone shows that they are operating as their own entity and not as an employee of your company. They may be Jane Doe d.b.a. Jane Doe Virtual Assistants but it strengthens the argument that they are not employees but rather entities in and of themselves and will keep you out of hot water with the state?s departments for employee relations. The virtual assistant can obtain an EIN online in about 5 minutes and it?s free.
Contract. Anyone and everyone who hires a virtual assistant must have a contract executed between your company and the VA. The contract should spell out the relationship (that of a contractor and not an employee), the duties (what will she be doing for you and what will you do for her), the rate of pay (what are you going to pay him), where are any arising court battles fought, and so on.
Oh Tax Man!
Because a virtual assistant is set up as an independent contractor, you do not need to withhold state or federal taxes, 401(k), Medicare, FICA, or any other employee-related acronym. As an independent contractor, a business entity of their own, it is up to the virtual assistant to obtain his or her own retirement plan, medical insurance, file quarterly and yearly taxes, etc.
However, be absolutely sure that you send the virtual assistant a 1099 Miscellaneous Income tax form (in lieu of a W2, which employees only receive) each year.
Shhhhh?Don?t Tell!
The last thing you want to happen is for a virtual assistant to walk away with your company?s important information if the relationship turns south. It is absolutely imperative that you have your attorney design a non-compete/non-disclosure agreement and then make sure your virtual assistant signs and returns the agreement before beginning any work for your company.
In my next article, Avoiding Virtual Assistant Performance Pitfalls, we?ll go over the things you need to be aware of and look for in the virtual assistant while hiring ? the non-regulatory things.
About the author:
Note: Please look for another article in this series titled ?Avoiding Virtual Assistant Performance Pitfalls?.
Gayle Buske is the founder, president and CEO of Team Double-Click?, the country?s foremost virtual staffing agency. As the head of a virtual staffing agency with over 18,000 virtual professionals in its pool, Ms. Buske is uniquely qualified to aid clients? growth through virtual outsourcing as well as speak to the ins and outs of the industry. Gayle enjoys spending her free time with her husband, business and life partner, Jim, their daughter Madison, practicing Yoga, reading, off-roading, hiking, flower gardening, and playing with the family?s three dogs and two cats.
Team Double-Click? provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. Visit Team Double-Click?s Web site at http://www.teamdoubleclick.com or click on the banner:
Setting up Your Virtual Office
At Team Double-Click?, our clients often ask just how to go about setting up a virtual office – in other words – how does a small but growing business owner avoid renting bricks-and-mortar office space – and with good reason. Even the tiniest of offices ?in town? can run several hundred dollars a month. Add to that the cost of the commute (not cheap these days with the cost of gasoline well over $3.00 per gallon in most places), the furniture and computers to furnish that same office, and a full-time assistant (whom you still have to pay even when you don?t have work to keep them busy).
Setting up a virtual office can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but once you embrace the idea and get a feel for the logistics, it?s really quite easy. With today?s technologies and the use of a virtual staffing agency, such as Team Double-Click?, there really are no boundaries. And just think – with a virtual office you can spend more time with your family, work from almost anywhere, and your clients never need know you don?t have an office downtown, if you prefer them not to know. We know many small business owners who proudly tout the fact they are 100% virtual – it?s a bragging right after all. How many people do you know who have that kind of flexibility and low overheads? The numbers are growing, but we?re still an envied few in the grand scheme of the workplace.
Overcoming Commonly-Perceived Hurdles
There are several tasks and items most often viewed as hurdles to working virtually, utilizing a virtual assistant, and maintaining a virtual office. Let?s explore those hurdles and how to overcome them, and have you on your way to setting up a 100% virtual office. Fortunately, all of the commonly-perceived hurdles to working virtually and working with a virtual assistant (VA) can be overcome with relative ease.
Getting the Phones Answered (By Someone Who Is Not You!)
Your VA can answer and direct calls for you quite simply. We recommend a system called Freedom Voice . It?s a virtual phone system that allows your callers? calls to be answered by your VA regardless of where she is in the country. Through the phone system, she can answer in your company name (it alerts her that the call is coming from your business), handle those calls that she?s able to handle, and transfer calls to you or other staff members as necessary.
Team Double-Click? employs this very phone system with great success, as have many of our clients. Even though we are located in places such as Wisconsin, California, North Carolina, California, Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Oregon, and Florida, the Freedom Voice system makes it all seem like we?re sitting in the same central office.
And just as important – your assistant can set the system up so that it only rings to your (or her) office during the hours you choose. So if your office hours are 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, you don?t have to hear the phone ringing during off hours – those calls will go to voice mail where your assistant can retrieve them in the morning. The system can also ?hunt? for you if you?re on the road a lot. Again, your assistant simply programs in all of the phone numbers you want to be located at. The system will first try, for example, your home office number; if it doesn?t find you there, it will try your cell phone, and so on until it runs out of numbers. If it does run out of numbers to try, it will transfer the caller into voice mail so you never miss a call.
Faxing – Most Importantly Having Your Assistant Fax For You
A virtual fax is essential so you don?t have to be the only one who can send and receive faxes. There are two companies we recommend using simultaneously for faxing to and from your virtual office.
The?company we recommend is eFax . With eFax you can SEND X number of faxed pages per month for a flat fee (starting at $19.95/month).
You should set up your letterhead and signatures, etc. so that your published fax number is the Packetel number because of the unlimited inbound capability. Packetel, though, doesn?t allow for outgoing faxes. That?s why we recommend eFax. Because both fax systems are virtual, your VA can fax anything you need. And you can fax files to her for processing very easily since they come in electronically. Just hang on to your hard-line fax machine and you can fax to your Packetel fax number and your VA will receive that information as a picture file in an email. She can process this paperwork or send it on to someone else just as if you simply passed the paperwork across your desk to her.
Order Fulfillment
Order fulfillment is perhaps one of the most often commonly-encountered perceived hurdles to working virtually, yet one of the easiest to overcome. A real estate mentor client of Team Double-Click? handles his order fulfillment for mentoring materials, workbooks, manuals, and CD?s by having his virtual assistant handle them for him.
His virtual assistant orders his printed and audio materials for him from his print shop and CD duplication company. When the VA orders, the VA has all of the finished products shipped to his/her own home office, where the VA assembles them into the appropriate packets. As orders come in, the VA boxes them up and sends them off to the mentor?s students via UPS.
Through UPS online your company can maintain an account, which the virtual assistant can use to have your orders shipped to your clients. If you haven?t checked out UPS online lately, please do. Their rates are very reasonable. They will come right to your virtual assistant?s door to pick up those packages (thus saving you the cost of having your VA run to the post office), all your ship-to addresses are stored in the system for future retrieval, and best of all, your assistant can print shipping labels right from the web site. She can even choose to have the receiver notified via email when the package is shipped, and choose to receive notification them self when the package is delivered. This makes for great tracking ability!
Order fulfillment for your company may also mean sending out paper-packets of information to clients or potential clients. This is actually simpler than sending packages of books and CD?s. All you need to do is forward your electronic copies of those documents to your virtual assistant. Your VA can print them off, put them in an envelope, and mail them to whomever you wish. The VA will ask you for reimbursement for the supplies, and of course, charge you for the time, but it?s done and you didn?t have to handle a single piece of paperwork.
If you want to take order fulfillment one step further and eliminate the need for you to personally touch any of the orders, have your ordering system notify your virtual assistant when the order comes in. Your VA will take care of the entire process and you don?t have to manage or touch any of it.
Your virtual assistant can also send these items via fax to your clients, if needed.
Transferring Large Files
Have a file that you need your VA to work on, but it?s too big to send through email? Piece of cake. There are two services we recommend for very easy file upload and subsequent download by your virtual assistant or a business associate. Both offer free accounts and both work very well. They are:
Filing
Oh yes, now your virtual assistant really can do your filing for you! It?s all a matter of remaining paperless. If you keep everything as an electronic file or picture file you can easily be 100% paperless – no more papers piling up on your desk, no more buying case upon case of copy paper!
Now, for your virtual assistant to actually do the filing, you will need an online or virtual filing system. The one Team Double-Click? recommends is through Xdrive. For just $10 per month you can store up to 5GB of files! You and your virtual assistant can both access your files similar to accessing a common file cabinet in the office or a shared hard drive.
You can simply forward your electronic files to her as needed, and she can file them away into the appropriate folders on Xdrive. Viola – your filing is virtually done.
This also accomplishes off-site storage and provides for easy retrieval in the event of a fire, computer crash, or natural disaster.
Sending Gifts and Cards
How often do you send cards and gifts to clients for special occasions – birthdays, holidays, births, get well wishes, etc.?
There are lots of new and innovative services out there these days that make sending gifts and cards to clients and potential clients a breeze.
One of our favorites for sending flowers is Flowers Across America. You can go to the web site, look over the options and instruct your VA to send XYZ arrangement to Jane Client – quick and easy.
To send greeting cards to clients we like Send Out Cards (use id number 9482 to receive any special promotions). The cards look fabulous and very professional. Here?s how it works: you ask your VA to send a get well card to John Client, your VA goes to Send Out Cards, chooses an appropriate card, enters the receiver?s address, types in the message you want to see on the card, and completes the order. The folks at Send Out Cards print and personalize the card, put it in an envelope, address it, stamp it, and send it off to the receiver. Cards can be purchased for as little as about $1 a piece – a third of the cost of picking up a greeting card at the card shop. And again – you didn?t have to take the time to go to the store, write on the card, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and walk it to the mailbox – it?s all done for you!
There is no limit to the kinds of gifts you can buy online and have shipped to your desired recipient. Just a few of our favorites:
Vermont Teddy Bear Company
Longaberger Baskets
Yankee Candles
Ghirardelli Chocolates
California Wine Country Gift Baskets
Gift Tree
Bed Bath and Beyond
Pier 1 Imports
Gift Certificates
A Southern Season
With any of these services you can either opt to maintain an account of your own and ask your VA to login with your account info or you can ask your VA to set up their own account, do the ordering, and charge you back for the costs.
File Collaboration
Again, technology comes to the rescue. It?s very easy, these days, to work on the same document along with your virtual assistant. For smaller documents simply emailing the document to the virtual assistant so they can make updates and such works well. Be sure to use MS Word?s ?track changes? function (?tools?, ?track changes?) so each of you knows what changes the other has made.
For larger documents or those in which you need more than two people collaborating, there are two great services we recommend.
LapLink ShareDirect is a great tool for going paperless. It allows instant sharing of any folder on your PC with one or thousands of users, without ever having to change or manage your Internet, firewall, or router configurations. And it is 256-bit encrypted!
Groove Networks (also note that Groove will be available with MS Office 2007).
Calendar and Outlook Contact Sharing
There?s a great company who has designed a software program which allows you to share your Outlook contacts and calendar with your virtual assistant and vice versa. The program plugs right into your Outlook so when your VA adds a new contact for you, you will automatically receive that contact?s info. Your VA can make changes to your calendar and schedule appointments and they will appear in your calendar. Check out www.4Team.biz.
Meeting With Clients and Virtual Staff
In some cases, of course, you?ll need to visit the client or a business prospect in person to seal a deal. But for the most part, many of your meetings with both staff and clients can easily be handled from a distance. Try these services:
Conference calls: www.freeconferencecall.com. With FreeConferenceCall you can have as many as 99 people on the line at once. Everyone dials into the main conference call line where you can hold meetings, conduct teleseminars, coach, train, or teach.
Online meetings: www.gotomeeting.com. For a few dollars a month you can make use of Go To Meeting, which allows you to simultaneously ?meet? with clients or associates via the web. When you set up a meeting you will be given a conference call line for all attendees to dial in and hear you speak, along with being able to allow them to see your computer screen while you talk. This lets you demonstrate or train on software or show a PowerPoint presentation from the comfort of your own desk and without the travel costs.
Contact Relationship Management (CRM)
Of course, if you wish to have your virtual assistant enter leads into your database, or help with contact relationship management, you?ll need something that?s accessible to both of you. We recommend:
Sales Force
cBiz (this system is designed for staffing but is fully customizable and has many possible applications)
SalesNexus (fee is one year at a time but it works out to about $40 per month per user)
Top Producer (for real estate)
Constant Contact
Bookkeeping, Paying Bills
So many people don?t know exactly how to have someone work virtually on their bookkeeping. There are a couple of options that make this task so much easier than it ever used to be.
The first option we recommend is keeping your QuickBooks program on your own desktop. Then allow your virtual bookkeeper to dial in and view your desktop and perform the bookkeeping remotely. For this we recommend LapLink Everywhere which includes remote desktop search from any Web-enabled device (powered by Google Desktop Search) LapLink Everywhere lets you choose how you want to work and which device with internet access you want to use to access your PC. It?s easy and fast to set up and simple to use.
QuickBooks also offers an online bookkeeping package which works wonderfully. See what they have to offer at http://quickbooks.intuit.com.
You can use your virtual fax, email, or snail mail to send receipts and such to your virtual bookkeeper for processing. If you choose fax or e-mail, your VA will simply destroy those copies after processing. If you mail them to your VA, they will mail them back for safe keeping after being processed.
Transaction Management (For Real Estate)
Team Double-Click? recently partnered with a fantastic company. They are an online transaction management system called RELAY?. Team Double-Click? has a partnership with the company and as long as you?re using Team Double-Click?s VA services, we can give you free access to the platform. If you?d like to learn more in-depth about RELAY?, please visit www.rebt.com or any of our sales associates would be happy to give you a private demo.
In a nutshell, RELAY? was designed for real estate agents but works equally well for real estate investors. It?s a secure, online area where all documents involved in the transaction (so all of your purchase papers, inspections, literally everything) are stored. You and your VA would have access, via secure login, to view, manipulate, and send those documents to whomever necessary.
What we?d suggest to make your life easier is to have your VA be the person to whom all documents are always sent. Your VA receives them via fax and uploads them to your RELAY? system. You can go in at any time and view those documents, print them, etc. When the time comes to send those docs somewhere (to a lender, broker, etc.) the VA can send them directly from the RELAY? system either via fax or email – eliminating the need for you to ever touch them.
The one time you may need to touch the documents would be to print something to sign it. But again, you can simply fax it to your assistant (via your Packetel account) and they?ll upload it. Through RELAY? you can (or the VA can) pick and choose who is able to view what. So let?s say you have a loan application that you want only the lender and not the broker to see. That?s no problem – the VA marks that person as allowed to see the document (you and your VA can see everything by default). Your VA also sets up a temporary user account (also free) for the lender. Lender receives their own unique login, able to view only that particular transaction and only the documents the VA has given access to. Lender can then print their own documents if need be.
Keeping track of every transaction is exactly the kind of thing RELAY? is built to handle. One thing we like is its ability to keep track of multiple revisions to documents. Let?s say you have a document called Offer to Purchase that is connected to one property. That document later gets revised to modify contingencies, etc. The VA uploads the document again and RELAY? automatically assigns it a version number so you always know which version is the most recent. Plus, you can still look back at earlier versions as reference, if needed.
Armed And Ready To Be Virtual
These are our most commonly-encountered perceived-hurdles to working virtually. Now that you?re armed with how to overcome these, most anything else is certainly possible.
Of course, there are a few added monthly expenses ($19.95 for eFax, $3.95 for Packetel, $19.99 for FreedomVoice, etc.). But add those up and weigh them against renting an office space and you?ve just saved hundreds of dollars a month! And don?t forget…hire your virtual assistant and they can help you get all of these virtual office components set up!
Team Double-Click? provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. Visit Team Double-Click?s Web site at http://www.teamdoubleclick.com or click on the banner:
Soaring Gas Prices! Makes Even More Sense To Hire Virtual Assistant
What happens when gas prices soar to all-time highs of $3.00 and $3.50 per gallon – more in some areas? Recent tragedies, such as Hurricane Katrina, and alleged oil shortages have driven gas prices to an all-time high. Most of us can ride out high gas prices in the short term but what happens when the high prices stick around?
The impact on workers, with gas prices like we’re seeing now, can make working unaffordable. Consider an $8.50 per hour convenience store attendant or fast food worker that must drive a short 20 miles to work and back. With a vehicle that gets even 30 miles per gallon, it costs him or her $3.99 to $4.65 to work. And that doesn’t include a wardrobe, or daycare. If the worker is working 5 days a week, it costs him or her $19.95 – $23.25 for the week. That’s almost 7% of that worker’s pre-tax income in gasoline.
One visitor on an Internet forum says, “Today was a shocker, $41 to fill my Honda Accord. Something’s gotta give somewhere. Unfortunately to make a decent wage I have to drive 50 miles round trip to work and back. Carpooling has not been an option that worked easily for me, but I’m beginning to think I’m going to have to find a way or start discussions about working from home 1 or 2 days a week.”
Another Internet forum poster says, “Honestly the prices of gas already forced me to quit one job due to the distance traveled to go to it.”
This article isn’t meant to be a rant on gas prices. It’s all supply and demand and that’s the beauty of living in America where we enjoy a free enterprise system. The figures and quotes above are meant only for illustration purposes and to show what can happen to workers and their employers when the price of just one commonly-consumed product is jacked up.
So, it becomes unaffordable for workers to work. What does that do to the business owner who hires the workers? If a worker can’t afford to work, he or she might just decide not to work at all, as one person mentioned above. The business owner then has no staff or a reduced staff. The business owner could give the worker a raise to compensate for the higher cost of working. But that would mean passing on higher costs to his clients and so on.
Doesn’t it make more sense then to work and hire virtually? If you omit the need for the worker to commute, you omit the need to increase his or her pay. You omit the worker shortage. By working and hiring virtually, you can now seek workers in any part of the country, without regard to how much that commute is going to cost the worker.
As an added bonus, by hiring a virtual assistant, you now don’t need to raise the price to your customers. And remember, you don’t need to buy your assistant a desk and a computer nor do you need to provide her with heat and electricity. Isn’t that a great way to beat out your competition, by having lower labor costs?
With fuel costs at an all time high, and the trickle down effect this creates, like increased clothing prices, increased food costs, etc. (all of these items are shipped on the back of an 18-wheeler, which also consumes fuel), there’s no better time to look at hiring a virtual assistant. It’s probably even a good time for you to look at how you may be able to work virtually too!
About the author:
Gayle Buske is the founder, president and CEO of Team Double-Click?, the country?s foremost virtual staffing agency. As the head of a virtual staffing agency with over 18,000 virtual professionals in its pool, Ms. Buske is uniquely qualified to aid clients? growth through virtual outsourcing as well as speak to the ins and outs of the industry. Gayle enjoys spending her free time with her husband, business and life partner, Jim, their daughter Madison, Yoga, reading, hiking, flower gardening, and playing with the family?s three dogs and two cats.
