It’s commonplace for companies to hire an administrative assistant as it saves on office space and is cost-effective. However, many businesses are still wary of hiring administrative assistant employees working solely from their homes.
Administrative assistant jobs can be performed from home and offer flexible hours that suit the worker and the business. But it’s important for VAs and business owners to fully understand all the benefits and downsides.
This article explains some of the main things you must know before placing a job search advert for a remote administrative assistant.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of A Remote Administrative Assistant
Let’s examine the pros and cons of working as a remote administrative assistant.
The Benefits
When you hire people to do administrative assistant jobs remotely, you don’t have to deal with the cost of employee benefits.
When you hire a remote assistant, you pay them an hourly rate instead of a full salary. A remote administrative assistant on a short-term contract won’t be entitled to sick pay, health insurance, holiday pay and pension contributions.
Another benefit to working from home is a remote worker’s flexibility regarding the hours they can do and no wasted hours travelling to and from the office.
Remote administrative assistant jobs provide the worker with a better work-life balance which is essential.
And business owners can even hire senior leader’s executive assistants who work remotely; their job search talent pool is significantly higher.
The Downsides
There can be downsides to hiring a remote administrative assistant. For example, business owners sometimes are sceptical about hiring a remote worker because they don’t feel they will forge a good working relationship with the rest of the team.
Also, when the worker and the business owner are from different cultural backgrounds, the owner worries that it will lead to poor communication skills.
Getting distracted while working from home is also a concern many business owners express when hiring a remote administrative assistant.
Not having that physical one-to-one interaction with your remote worker can lead to mistrust. And managers often prefer to deal with a person in a permanent position working directly in the same office.
When you hire a remote worker, you should always set goals for process improvement projects. There are many time-tracking software tools available that allow you to track a worker’s daily task progress.
Finding The Right VA With The Right Skills
When conducting a job search for a virtual assistant, there are six key elements to focus on when writing your full job description.
Highly Motivated
Employers are always searching for highly motivated workers who seek further career progression. However, some business owners fear that a remote administrative assistant working alone will lack self-discipline and motivation.
Typically employee benefits join up nicely when keeping all staff motivated. For example, a business owner could offer bonus incentives to motivate their staff.
The remote administrative assistant you hire should always understand that they only get paid if they perform as required. The thought of losing their job usually provides enough motivation to complete the day-to-day activities asked of them.
English Language Skills
When hiring administrative assistants, they must have excellent English language skills, both written and verbal. Hiring a remote work-from-home admin assistant with poor English will always end badly and it can cause all kinds of problems for business and team meetings.
The person you hire may provide administrative support to human resources or perform simple data entry clerk support tasks. Both roles require excellent English.
When replying to your latest job alert, if the applicant needs to improve their English, disregard their application and move on.
You must stress that you will perform written and verbal tests during the interview. This will generally filter the people with a poor command of English from the start.
Always perform reference checks on your applicants. The last thing you want is to find that the successful candidate has excellent English but doesn’t have a positive attitude towards their work.
Creativity
If you are looking for a remote worker who can help with project management tasks, then it is vital that they can undertake self-motivation and display creativity in job performance.
Creating and solving problems without needing assistance is essential, even when you have the backing of a supportive team.
Hiring a creative remote worker increases their options for career development pathways, which can only benefit your company in the long term.
All remote workers you hire will need education assistance in the form of job training. As a business owner, you should see ongoing access to training as an investment in your staff to help them have a rewarding career with your company.
Time Management
When advertising for current and future vacancies within your company, it is essential that you attract applicants with excellent time management skills.
A competitive base salary and excellent company values will attract many applicants. Still, if most applicants need better time management skills, you should not shortlist them for an interview.
When candidates can demonstrate they can organise business appointments within a set timescale, they will likely be motivated and be able to produce materials essential to aid the smooth running of your business.
For example, a worker with excellent time management skills knows how many data entry clerk tasks they can perform in a spare 15-minute timeslot.
Always leave the necessary tasks when you have enough time to complete each task. Remember, they are essential tasks for a reason because they need longer to perform.
Attention To Details
Excellent attention to detail skills is vital when hiring a remote administrative assistant.
The person you hire will handle critical information daily while working for your business. If there are errors in their work, it will reflect well on your business.
While completing tasks on time is essential, it becomes pointless if those tasks are incorrect.
Attention to detail also applies to the questions you ask the applicant during the interview process. For example, ask them what type of office equipment, such as computers, broadband speed and anti-virus software, they have installed on their devices.
If they give a positive answer to all these queries, it shows they have all the right tools and enthusiasm for the role.
Let Us Find Your Ideal Administrative Assistant
Attracting high-quality work-from-home administrative assistant applicants takes a lot of time and effort.
Like many business owners, you may need more time to complete the process. That’s where our team can help by making sure your job alert attracts the right people by filtering only high-quality candidates to you.
Call us today, and we’ll explain how we can screen, hire, train and even manage the best administrative assistant for your company.