You may be thinking about outsourcing some or all of your business’s administrative services. But before you do so, there are several things you should know.
In the beginning, handling small businesses may not be that much of a hassle but as time goes by and more customers start coming in is when things start to get complicated and you need more heads to help run the business smoothly, especially the administrative section. At the beginning stage, you may not have much problem with handling all these by yourself or with the help of your employees but as the business grows this work gives more and more and even more. Slowly you and your employees start getting overwhelmed by these works but you can abandon them either and you begin to realize you need more heads to handle all these administrative works. But……………………. There’s a but here, what most small and mid-sized businesses fail to realize or realize later is that hiring people in-house to handle all the administrative work costs a lot and if they hire just one in-house staff to handle all the administrative work. That employee may just die out of the workload.
But there’s another but. There’s good news too. Now you can hire virtual assistants at less cost to hire the right people for the operations at the right time. VAs can work remotely so you need to spend money on real estate and workstations and other utilities so your costs already get reduced other than VAs will also charge you less than getting a full-time in-house staff.
Another good reason you should outsource your administrative functions is the flexibility. You don’t have a set time for them like working 9-5 to work. They can work and accomplish at their own pace and time. What really matters here is that do they meet deadlines.
Things to consider
Hiring a couple of VAs to handle all the administrative work sounds quite good. As reading this you may have already decided to hire remote administrative Clarks handle, but what need to do right now is hold horses.
Before you actually start working on outsourcing these tasks comprehensive planning needs to be done.
The first thing you need to do is look around your office, think and ask yourself these questions
- What tasks are being done?
- Who’s doing it?
- Is this possible to get some of these tasks done remotely?
- Which tasks must be done in-house?
- Which tasks can be outsourced?
Once you can answer these questions and finally identify the functions that you can outsource. Write them down and list them and elaborately describe them. Also write when what should be done, how it’ll be done, and how it’ll be delivered.
Once you’ve finally prepared the road map for your project, you’ve just finished the first step of outsourcing administrative support.
Things to consider
Hiring a couple of VAs to handle all the administrative work sounds quite good. As reading this you may have already decided to hire remote administrative Clarks handle, but what need to do right now is hold horses.
Before you actually start working on outsourcing these tasks comprehensive planning needs to be done.
The first thing you need to do is look around your office, think and ask yourself these questions
- What tasks are being done?
- Who’s doing it?
- Is this possible to get some of these tasks done remotely?
- Which tasks must be done in-house?
- Which tasks can be outsourced?
Once you can answer these questions and finally identify the functions that you can outsource. Write them down and list them and elaborately describe them. Also write when what should be done, how it’ll be done, and how it’ll be delivered.
Once you’ve finally prepared the road map for your project, you’ve just finished the first step of outsourcing administrative support.
Project Management
There are 3 essential things that are a must, especially in the case of outsourcing administrative functions Project plan, project management, and great communication. You must ensure that your project management is successful. Since you’ve already figured out the project plan that’ll work as a road map for the project, it’s about time you need to determine how you’re gonna manage the project.
Your outsourced administrative support provider might be from a different time zone, so you need to keep in mind whether that’s ok or not. Is it possible to maintain the work from a different timezone? Ask yourself questions like do you wanna in-shore, or offshore.
You must I repeat, you must ensure effective communication. You may prefer email as a communication channel which is great at the beginning stage but in the full-on operation stage just using email service may not be enough. Choose your desired communication channel, and collaboration software, so that you and the outsourced team should stay on the same page all the time. Make sure your service provider and your the team or individual who’ll be working with you has a good command of the English Language and are Tech-Savvy.
Define the volume of your need
The next step is defining your needs. At this stage, you gotta ask yourself questions like, In which volume do I need this work done? Do need an individual or a team? Do I need a dedicated assistant or an on-demand service provider?
After defining the volume your exactly know what you’re looking for. Usually, there are two options and they’re the followings:
Hire Virtual Assistants
Almost all business generates a huge amount of administrative work. Because of that in recent years, the virtual assistant service has grown considerably around the world. Particularly in developed countries Owners, corporate executives started hiring Virtual Assistants to do Administrative or Clerical jobs for them.
This option works best when you’re thinking of hiring a full-time dedicated individual or a team and if you offshore it’ll reduce labor costs, other than that these service providers already have their own work step and place to work from so you don’t need to invest on extra real estate or work station accessories.
You can hire VAs who can work from home or you can VAs from agencies that provides Virtual Assistant Service.
Hire On-demand Service
Another option is getting service on-demand. If you don’t need dedicated people then this option will be best for you. You can hire people for short-term work when you need them. No long-term commitment or anything. They’re several companies that provide these sorts of on-demand
Define your budget
Now you know your project plan, how you’re managing the project, and who you’re gonna hire. It’s about time you fix a budget for the project. The first thing to do at this stage is to do some market research. Look for services on market and get to know how much they’ll cost you. Decide how much you’re willing to pay for the work and compare, then select the option that works best.
Now that you have your project plan in hand, you know how the project gonna be managed, and you know who to hire, you fixed your budget, and now finally it’s about time you wanna start hiring and executing.