It is easy to become bogged down in all the complexities that come with the virtual assistant onboarding process.
However, this can be avoided by knowing which processes are most important to ensure your company’s productivity runs smoothly.
Getting the onboarding process right when hiring a virtual assistant lets you lay the foundations to help you build a strong working relationship.
The Importance Of The VA Onboarding Process
If done correctly, the virtual assistant onboarding process is not just a quick meet-and-greet meeting with your new virtual assistant. Instead, the process must be used to help your new hire understand how your business runs.
The most important thing is to make your VA feel at ease and comfortable with their new working environment before they start work.
During the process, the VA will have to fill out standard information such as their details for payroll, the hours they will be required to work and ensure they understand their job description.
Lets get to some specific tips on how to manage this with your new virtual assistant.
6 Tips For Onboarding A Virtual Assistant
Tip 1: Technology
Using your business’s IT systems to a high standard is essential in communicating and working on projects.
Good onboarding will save time so setting up their IT login passwords before they begin working is vital when hiring new employees.
When you prepare and set up your VA’s new company email account along with their email signature details, it instantly allows them to feel a part of the team.
New virtual assistants and new team members will need a company phone number and access to task management software, video calling software, calendar apps, and login credentials to the company’s social media accounts.
The new assistant may also need access to other business areas, such as CRM for contract management, accounting software and travel planning accounts.
As the business owner, you must ensure that all new team members are set up on a password encryption tool such as LastPass, and all employee passwords should be changed regularly.
Tip 2: Prepare Standard Operating Procedures
New team members must know which task they need to perform and when.
Communicating with you in a high standard is vital as your VA will work from home in another location. Therefore they must understand what is expected from each task.
It would be best if you communicated and documented which tasks included on their task list must be completed during set working hours.
Here are examples of things that save time in a virtual assistant business.
Create Invitation Templates
How information is presented is vital to how smoothly your business runs. Your VA must understand which way you like to be delivered information. It may be via email or on your calendar.
Preferred Travel Requirements
Your company may have accounts with travel firms offering a company discount. Ensuring that your VA knows the details of these travel companies saves you time and money.
General Time Management
You need your VA to perform all the tasks given to them within a specific time scale, but they also need to know how much time they need for each meeting, such as a sales call, or a discovery call.
Knowing how much buffer time you like between each meeting is vital.
Tip 3: Set Communication Expectations
During the early stages of onboarding, you can expect communication overload, but this is needed with a new team member because they need to learn lots of information.
Remote working doesn’t allow face-to-face meetings with your virtual assistant, so you must be on the same page regarding basic information and the final details of each task.
Stress how you like to communicate daily. It may be by instant messenger, via email, phone call or even video calls. Setting a time suitable for video calls is best because these take longer.
Your VA will need to be on the ball, keep you updated with any changes to your scheduled meeting, and send you reminders at your specified timescale, such as weekly or daily.
As a company owner, you must provide constructive feedback to your VA on their performance so that they gain confidence and feel valued by you and feel part of the team.
This positive feedback can be relayed via email, phone, or video call.
Tip 4: Agree On KPIs With A New Virtual Assistant
Agreeing key performance indicators (KPIs) must be on your VA onboarding checklist.
Setting the proper KPIs from the start allows you to evaluate your VA’s performance fairly and helps to build a strong working relationship.
Setting goals and clear expectations for your VA avoids misunderstandings and helps your business grow.
Businesses find that when clearly communicating what is expected of staff and setting them performance-related goals, they perform better.
Your VA must be comfortable with all software related to tracking task progress, log time worked, requesting time off and dealing with holiday and sick leave.
Personal KPIs are essential when conducting a planned performance management meeting, where you can constructively discuss your VA’s overall job performance.
Any new KPIs must be discussed with your VA, and a time scale must be agreed upon when they are meant to hit these new goals.
Tip 5: Break Work Down Into Small Tasks
The best way to achieve performance growth in your VA is to break down their role into small manageable tasks.
For example, if you have excellent systems in place, ensure they follow the same methods in the format you like for your calendar items with different colour coding.
You will need to be clear about how and when you like to conduct phone and video calls.
Your VA must know what works best for you and how to schedule meetings with clients effectively.
You can’t expect your new VA to arrange every meeting, so ease them gently and let them build confidence in checking availability ahead of booking.
To avoid confusion, you must be on the same page with your daily tasks. In addition, you must be fully supportive of your VA, especially in the early stages.
Tip 6: Encourage Team Spirit With Other VAs
Building the right working environment means encouraging a team spirit and one for all mentality. It can be tricky to forge this spirit when your VA is working remotely, so it is vital to send your VA a welcome email and include all members of staff in the email.
The email should not be too formal, but it is vital to relay how important your VA is to the company and what tasks and responsibilities they have.
This is a perfect way to break the ice and encourage your in-house staff to send your VA a more informal email introducing themselves.
In addition, a virtual tour of your office is an excellent idea to help your VA feel a good part of the team. Also, during the tour, you can introduce each staff member if you think it is required.
More task-related video call introductions can be scheduled later during work hours.
Your VA will need to interact with clients and potential clients, so they must be introduced while shadowing other team members to familiarise them with all the information about a client’s business and the client onboarding process.
Let Us Handle The Onboarding Of Virtual Assistants
You can now appreciate that having an onboarding checklist during the process of hiring a new VA is critical.
Setting out an onboarding pathway to follow when hiring a new VA will help you navigate the early stages of employment when things can be potentially tricky.
Hiring a new member of staff, VA or otherwise, can be fraught with pitfalls and is time-consuming.
And that’s why you should let us handle the whole hiring process for you. We will identify, interview, hire, train and manage the perfect VA for your company.
You will be surprised by how simple the hiring process is, so give us a call today for a free consultation.