Is hiring a virtual assistant right for your business? Most businesses have been hit hard by the global pandemic and are looking at cutting costs. Not only to ensure the survival of their business but also to aid in its growth. There are various ways of doing this but one of the most cost-effective is by hiring a virtual assistant or freelancer. If you run a business then you’re most likely concerned with the bottom line, that all important figure that makes any business decision crystal clear by saving you money.
The Average Salary
UK Government put the average annual salary at around £27,600 and Indeed calculate the average annual wage of a Personal Assistant at £26,048. So, using the Government’s figure, that’s an hourly rate of £15.16 per hour. That’s not too bad you’re thinking, I can budget for that? We hate to bore you with the numbers but when running a business this isn’t the true cost and we explain why below. We will also go on to explain why hiring a Virtual Assistant is something you should to be considering to give your business that boost it needs.
The true cost of an Employee
Using the hourly rate of £15.16 that we mentioned earlier as a starting point you’ll need to add on:
Recruitment costs either by using a recruitment agency or doing it yourself on social media, job sites or local advertising. Either way the estimated average cost could be as much as £3,000.
Statutory costs such as National Insurance and Pension Contributions. The standard rate of an employer’s Class 1 NI is 13.8% of the total pay. Since 2017 employees are automatically signed up to a basic company pension scheme. This means employers have to pay a minimum of 3% of workers’ monthly salary towards a pension. The cost of both of these figures combined is £4,865. But that’s not all….
Variable costs which will change from business to business but they need to be considered nevertheless. Holiday cover, maternity or paternity cover, sick days, software licenses, insurance and HR costs involved with a new starter. These combined can be an eye watering £8,000.
So, when we take these other costs into account what’s the hourly rate looking like? Let’s do some quick number crunching:
£,3000 + £4,865 + £8,000 = £15,865 add this to the average annual salary of £27,600 and the total is £43,465. Is that starting to look a bit scarier? Well, we’re not finished yet, have you thought about office space and equipment costs? The IPD Blue Chip Office Index puts the total property cost per occupant at £4,800.
In reality your budget is therefore something closer to £50,000 in the first year and a little less in the years following. If you prefer to work on hourly rates, like we do, then this equates to £27.47 per hour.
Some other costs to also note are tea breaks, toilet breaks, conversations with other members of staff the list goes on. An employee, on average, works 6 of the 7 hours you pay them per day. This increases the hourly rate to an estimated £32 per hour. Yes, you read that correctly £32 PER HOUR!
Advantages of hiring a Virtual Assistant
Now let’s consider the advantages of hiring virtual. We’ll start with that all-important bottom line, the number you’ll remember! Depending on the level of knowledge and experience you require on average a virtual assistant will cost you between £20 – £25 per hour. We’re sure you’ve already realised that those last costs we mentioned such as tea breaks etc. will be non-existent if you hire virtual. When we work for you, we start the clock as soon as we start working on a task and stop the clock the minute we decide to finish and move away from our desk.
We won’t bore you with how the other cost advantages of hiring a VA stack up against the costs of an employee because we think the above explanations speak for themselves. But, have you considered that you could run a business successfully and cost effectively by only hiring freelancers?
How hiring a Virtual Assistant can work for your Business
Let’s look at the core areas of any business: marketing, operations, human resources and finance. Consider hiring a virtual assistant to assist you with these core areas of your business, but for only a fraction of the cost of having a full time, or even a part-time employee. Many have a niche; a particular area they specialise in and are an expert in this field. No matter how good an Entrepreneur you are, there’s no way you can excel in all these fields. Nor have the time to do so whilst growing your business so you’re going to need some help.
The Stats for Hiring Virtual
If you’re still not convinced here’s some stats to convince you that hiring a virtual assistant is right for you:
Remote workers are more productive than office workers by 12%. In data gathered by the Canada Life Group, the productivity ranking of home-based workers reached 7.7/10 while office workers reached only 6.5/10.
A virtual assistant can save you up to 78% on operating costs each year (for the reasons already explained).
In a book written by Tim Ferriss, the “4 Hour Workweek”, he mentions that having Virtual Assistants is what brought success to his business in gaining more by doing less. Lesser job for a single employee but at the same time more accomplishments for the whole team. In other words, Virtual Assistants are the ‘ninjas‘ of the most successful businesses of today.
Hiring virtual can and does work for many businesses. Considering the global pandemic we have all experienced it seems that this may be the way forward to ensure your business survives what may lie ahead.
If you want more information about how hiring virtual can work for you then get in touch and in the meantime take a look at some of the services we offer.