Why would I want to hire a VA? Surely if I need help, I should just hire an employee, right?
Well, no. Not really. In fact, we’d argue that’s quite an outdated way of looking at things. Of course if you need more experts to deliver your services to your clients you should expand your team, but for things like admin, organisation and general business support, there really is no need to hire a full time employee. The role of the PA is all but dead nowadays, and has instead been replaced by the superheroes known as VAs. But if you’re not convinced, we have a few reasons you should look into using the services of a professional VA, instead of throwing good money at an in-house PA.
What’s The Difference?
Before we can really talk about why you should consider using a VA over hiring a PA, we need to explain what the difference between the two is. After all, the acronyms share a letter, and they do sound very similar on the surface. So, to put it simply:
A PA: Is a full-time member of staff, hired by your company to do a certain job. They will have a defined job description, and you will be required to provide them with all the standard employment benefits.
A VA: Owns their own business, and works for you for contracted hours, offering support with the tasks you need, when you need them. They usually work remotely, and can work with multiple businesses at once, assisting you with tasks and generally taking on all the work you don’t want to do.
In other words, a VA is a contractor, and a PA is an employee. So now that you know the difference, why should you look at working with a VA, rather than jumping straight to hiring an employee? Well, there are a couple of reasons.
Reduce Your Costs
This is the big one – and the main reason VAs usually come out on top. Because we can do all the work of a PA (and usually more), for a fraction of the cost. Look at it this way. The very basic, minimum cost of hiring an employee in the UK is around £32,119 per year. That number covers:
- A minimum wage salary (full-time)
- Employers National Insurance contributions
- Pension contributions
We say minimum, because on top of that you will also need to think about some basic employee entitlements, like:
- Holiday pay (including Bank holidays)
- Sick pay
- Maternity/Paternity pay
Plus any of the slightly ‘woollier’ costs associated with hiring an employee, like:
- Employee benefits
- Bonuses
- Training costs
- Professional qualification costs
When you look at it like that, the costs of hiring an employee to work full time in your business can rack up pretty quickly. And for most business owners, they want to see some significant value back from that investment in terms of generated revenue. Which isn’t really what a PA is for.
But with a VA, you aren’t the one shouldering all of those costs. Instead, you pay a set hourly rate that covers exactly what you need, and not a minute more. This puts you in control of what your business is spending, and significantly reduces that amount at the same time.
Increased Productivity
Did you know that in a standard 8-hour work day, the average UK office worker does a little less than 3 hours of actual, ‘productive’ work. That non-productive time can be taken up with things like coffee, surfing the internet, talking and general lack of focus (hey, we’re all human) – along with many more distractions. This means you’re paying an awful lot for a small amount of work.
But VAs work differently. They don’t have the distractions of an office environment, which means they are able to focus on dedicating time to getting tasks done. And because they are self-employed, their number one goal is client satisfaction, and that means keeping you happy and delivering above and beyond. If they start slacking off and missing deadlines, it’s highly unlikely you will hire them for future work. So it’s safe to say that VAs are much more motivated and efficient!
They also help you be more efficient. By taking away the niggly little admin tasks and offering you support for bigger projects, they allow you to focus on what really matters and get much more done. There are lots of magical things you can achieve when you’re not doing admin, and a VA can help you unlock those.
At Your Admin Hub, we specialise in reducing your costs and increasing your productivity, along with giving you a little bit of sanity back at the same time. Our team of VAs are on hand to help support your business in any way you need, and we would love to chat and see what we could do for you. Just get in touch with the team today.