The Benefits of Working with a Virtual Assistant over a Temp

In this present state of economy, many firms have had to make the hard choice of laying off key employees in order to keep costs in line with their profit margins. With eliminating employees, companies also save on health care costs, no 401K contributions to be made, and no vacation, holiday or sick pay to administer. But just as the savings may outweigh the benefits, the work is still there and still needs to get done so they pass it along to other overwhelmed staff or decide to contact a temporary agency.

Many businesses are not aware of an alternative to hiring a temp and that would be to hire a Virtual Assistant. You will find many well-qualified virtual assistant professionals, who in most cases come from the corporate arena, and are very well qualified for the tasks needed to tackled.

The benefits to working with a virtual assistant over a temp are:

1. If you hire a temp, you may have one temp one week and another temp the next week which means overwhelmed staff will need to take more time away from completing tasks in order to retrain the new temp. Working with a virtual assistant, they can be your “permanent temp”, there when you need them, with the client always receiving work from highly skilled professionals.

2. Virtual Assistants charge their clients for the amount of time it takes them to complete the task. With a temp, they are paid for the time they spend in the office either working sitting there with nothing to do.

3. Virtual Assistants are small business owners who are highly skilled and educated. They regularly attend software webinars learning new tools and resources to make the client / virtual assistant relationship run even better. No need to have an office equipped with all the latest equipment and software – this is something that the virtual assistant already has in place.

4. Working with a Virtual Assistant will result in you receiving the best job possible from highly skilled professionals. They are small business owners who want to make their clients happy and can be an integral part in helping that client build and grow their business. A temp usually looks at the job assignment as a paycheck and another company to add to their resume.

5. If there is a project that the Virtual Assistant is not familiar with, the Virtual Assistant can tap into their resource network and find the right Virtual Assistant for the client rather than having a temp attempt the project with not so great results which have then cost the client time and money and possibly a client.

Temporary agencies have been used by many firms, both Fortune 100 and small business companies, for many years now but they are not the only solution in handling administrative overflow in the workplace. Virtual Assistants are proving to be a cost saving option.