How to Hire, Train and Communicate With Your VA
You are having a lot of repetitive tasks to get done and after investigating a little you have decided to hire a VA, but it’s the first time you’re doing this and you don’t really know where to start.
No worries, we are here for you!
We’re going to share some tips to take into account in order to hire, train, and communicate with your virtual assistant.
How to hire a Virtual Assistant?
When hiring staff for your company, you must take into account some details:
#1 It is important to have a resume in order to check some basic data such as studies and previous work experience.
#2 Interviews are another important step in the process of hiring a virtual assistant.
In this step it’s essential to establish a conversation with the candidate to know a little more about the way she sees life and if she shares a similar vision to yours.
You want to work with people who have a similar mindset to promote fluidity in work and tasks in general.
#3 Consider the resources you have and think about the benefits of hiring a skilled person at a lower cost.
#4 Get help from an outsourcing services company that fits the needs of their clients like There is Talent.
If you want to know more tips, make sure to check our list of do’s and don’ts when hiring a virtual assistant.
How to train them?
Now that you have hired the perfect VA for your business, it’s necessary to provide induction and training.
Induction: is very important that when you hire new staff in your company, you dedicate time to welcome them and explain in detail the functions and conditions that are required in their position, in this way, your new employee, will be able to have clarity and you will facilitate their work as well as yours.
Training: although induction is a very important step to build a solid foundation in this new working relationship, training is no less important, because it also serves as a reservoir for what will be built.
When you work with remote teams, is substantial to organize the tasks and define them in detail; never assume that your team knows exactly how you want things done in your company, is your job to explain them and make sure your message is understood. In addition, your team must know what tools they will use, as well as work with specific deadlines and preferably with tools to supervise the work and create together such as Asana or Trello, among others.
For training, you can have meetings in Zoom, Teams, Hangouts, Skype, etc.
How to communicate with your VA?
Well, since you have been able to hire and train your virtual assistant, is essential to maintain good communication, but what is really good communication?
Maybe we could use another word to explain it better: assertiveness.
We have believed that communication is a two-way process when in fact it is a cycle if done properly.
Communicating with your VA is not just interacting through emails or management tools.
Society is built on relationships and it takes much more than sporadic or task-oriented messages to create successful relationships in a work environment.
It has been proven that the more you focus on the well-being of your employees, the better managed your company will be, and this is easy to understand: a happy employee is an efficient employee.
So, what is the best way to keep effective communication with your VA?
Try to have one or two weekly meetings with your VA where you can talk about the tasks, strategies, results they are achieving, and also make sure you take advantage of these face-to-face moments to get to know your virtual assistant a little bit better. Remember, she is a person, with whom you are developing a working relationship.
It is likely that at the beginning you will find yourself in a period of adjustment where not everything goes exactly as you expect. Get ready for it, compare expectations vs. results, and build a plan together. Your virtual assistant can be a very valuable person on your team when she or he finds a sense of belonging.
Learn to give constructive criticism. This is a way you can deliver your message and provide a solution to the issue.
In this way, you are delivering an important message for the well-being of your company and you do so in a way that is understood as constructive criticism rather than a complaint about your VAs behavior.
Last but not least, try your best to work with people in the same time zone.
It’s common that entrepreneurs will hire VAs from the Philippines or even India, but then, they are struggling with the time zone limitations.
So, there you go!
You can have a wonderful team if you’re able to take into account at least this little tips.
We can help you find a perfect match for your business!
Book a strategic call with our director and prepare to have a great virtual assistant in your team!
