To make their client\’s life a lot easier so they can focus on more important things is the raison d\’être of every virtual assistant. VAs sure are useful in this regard, and they have helped many an entrepreneur grow their business and save on the costs of hiring extra personnel.
VAs sure are useful and cost-effective, especially for growing businesses and startups. Not all VAs are created equally, however, so you should learn to determine whether or not it is still worth keeping your online assistant around. To help you in this matter, here are some signs that will tell you that you really need to hire a new VA.
- Minimal or lack of activity during work hours. Given the right tools, you can easily track your VA\’s activity to make sure that they are doing what they need to do at work. If, at the end of the day, your monitoring software show little to no activity from your VA\’s side, you can say that something\’s wrong in that end. This is a sign that they may not be working, and if your VA can\’t prove that they actually are doing what you ask them to do during those hours, maybe you should consider terminating the contract.
- Unresponsiveness. You will need to check up on your VA from time to time. At times, your VA may fail to respond to you; maybe they went to the toilet and find it too late to give a response when they got back, or maybe they\’re simply having trouble with their Internet connection. These are excusable, but if your VA is consistently unresponsive whenever you check up on them, it\’s a telltale sign that they may not be interested in communicating with you. This can prove detrimental when you will need to coordinate with them on certain projects, and you will need someone else at that point.
- Late submission of required outputs. Deadlines are deadlines, and you specifically ask for the task to be done by a certain time because you will be needing their outputs by then. Your productivity and rapport may suffer if your VA cannot consistently meet your deadlines, so you might want to consider hiring someone else.
- Not reporting for a period of time without valid reason. Being absent for a certain period of time without any legitimate reason is a sign that your VA may not be interested in working for you. Furthermore, VAs who aren\’t around when you need them are not people that you should rely on with your business, so better have them pack up and have someone else take their place.
- They lack the skill needed in your project. Your VA may be hardworking and effective with the things they do, but if they can\’t help you at all in your current project given the limits of their skill set, you should lay them off for now and find a more suitable assistant.
Virtual assistants should help make your workload a lot lighter so you can focus on actually running your business or spend more time with yourself. If your VA ends up adding to your stresses or are hurting your productivity, take the courage to end their contract and get someone more suitable for the job.
