You’ve heard of virtual assistants helping businesses increase productivity and efficiency without the extra overhead costs. But have you heard of virtual executive assistants?
Virtual executive assistants (aka VEAs) have been growing in popularity lately due to business leaders becoming more comfortable with remote employees. These VEAs play a crucial role in helping busy executives/business leaders make the most of their time and move their businesses forward by minimizing tedious, repetitive tasks.
In this blog post, we will explain everything you need to know about virtual executive assistants. If you’re an executive/business leader looking to increase productivity yourself, this blog post serves as your guide.
What is a Virtual Executive Assistant?
A virtual executive assistant (VEA) is a remote administrative assistant who is dedicated to a specific executive or team. Given the name, a virtual executive assistant plays a similar role as an in-house executive assistant/secretary, except that a VEA works remotely.
While a VEA’s tasks may overlap with those of traditional virtual assistants, the difference is very clear – Virtual Assistants provide support to entire businesses whereas Virtual Executive Assistants provide support to executives only.
On that note, VEAs oftentimes become the “right hand” of CEOs or VPs. Virtual executive assistants are able to make independent decisions to improve productivity for the executive. Because of this, executives can make their hands free of tedious administrative, non-business-critical tasks that oftentimes become distractions. Virtual executive assistants can handle such tasks, helping executives enhance their productivity and efficiency while granting them more time to grow their businesses.
Signs that you Need a Virtual Executive Assistant
Are your email and voicemail boxes overflowing with messages? Is business slowing down because you’re distracted with non-business-critical tasks? Is your work-life balance NOT balanced? Are your subordinates complaining? Is your significant other complaining?
If your answer is YES to one or more of these questions, then it’s definitely time to hire a virtual executive assistant for yourself.
Why Should You Hire a Virtual Executive Assistant?
In today’s world, everything is fast-paced and there isn’t enough time in a day. While an in-house executive assistant/secretary can grant you more time by doing tedious administrative tasks, technology has made it possible to delegate and outsource such tasks to remote employees. A virtual executive assistant grants you more time, increases your productivity, and helps you grow and drive the business.
A virtual executive assistant can also effectively represent you to others inside and outside your organization. When you work with a VEA, they are authorized to schedule meetings (internal and external), prioritize all communications via email or phone, and delegate requests for your time to more appropriate contacts.
Furthermore, having a virtual executive assistant is like having a personal assistant doing important, non-business-critical tasks for you such as preparing presentations, planning events, arranging travels, and so much more. The end goal of working with a VEA is to have more time for yourself so you can focus more on business growth.
What Tasks Can Virtual Executive Assistants Do?
As an executive, here is one thing to keep in mind when working with a virtual executive assistant – a VEA can work as your PERSONAL ASSISTANT. They can perform administrative and personal tasks for you such as:
1. Calendar Management
2. Email Management
3. Phone Screening
4. Online Research
5. Document-Related Tasks
6. Professional Networking
7. Relationship Building
8. Travel Arrangement
9. Event Planning
10. Other Personal Tasks
We discussed each task in a separate blog post. If you want to be updated with all new posts in the blog, subscribe to our newsletter.
How to Hire and Manage a Virtual Executive Assistants?
There are 3 easy ways to hire a virtual executive assistant – (1) Directly hire a part-time employee or freelancer; (2) Hire through a contract virtual executive assistant agency; and (3) Partner with a managed virtual executive assistant service provider/company. But since we are also talking about managing your virtual executive assistant, we will only focus on the 3rd way which is working with a managed service provider/company.
A managed virtual executive assistant service provider is an established BPO company with team leaders, trainers, a hiring/HR staff, and of course, agents who work as virtual assistants or virtual executive assistants. The advantage of hiring through a VEA service provider is that the company handles the entire hiring process. You simply tell them your needs, and the provider will pick the most qualified assistants for the job.
What’s great about this is that the VEAs are equivalent employees of the service provider/company and that the provider must comply with all labor, tax, payroll, and HR requirements. Moreover, the VEAs are well-trained by the company’s in-house trainers, managed and supervised by team leaders, and get paid by the company. You, as the executive, should still be involved in the training process since you will give specifics as to what you want your VEA to do and what you would like to achieve. Nevertheless, you can still save time since it is the company that will handle everything else. All you need to do is expedite.
How to Get Started?
If you’re a busy executive who is looking to save time and increase productivity, hiring a virtual executive assistant can be a game-changer and life-saver for you. There is a lot to consider when hiring a VEA and it’s important to not only do it smart but also to do it right. Synergist Corporate Solutions has a troop of professional, well-trained, and well-managed virtual assistants that helped executives save time and overhead costs while improving productivity by up to 30%. Get in touch with us to find out more about working with a Syncorp Virtual Executive Assistant.
