Working with people from other countries is now possible thanks to the internet. It is redefining the way we work and how we do business.

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Nowadays, you can hire a virtual assistant from the Philippines even if you are based in North America or Europe. Virtual assistants aim to make your day-to-day administrative or operational tasks easier so you can focus on running your business.

What are virtual assistants and remote workers?

Virtual assistants and remote teams are employees based in a different city or country. For most companies who hire a virtual staff, they are considered as full-time employees and they are crucial to the daily operations of the business.

If you run your business online or if a lot of your business processes are reliant on tasks that could be accomplished online, then hiring a virtual assistant may be suited for you. Startups and SMEs hire virtual assistants to reduce operational cost since they do not need to maintain office space and pay utilities.

There are a lot more benefits to hiring a virtual staff, but first, what kind of tasks can they do?

What are the types of job a virtual assistant can do?

There are many kinds of virtual assistant jobs. Their main goal is to do the repetitive or operational tasks so that business managers can focus on the strategy or growing their business.

Here are the most common types of virtual assistant jobs:

• Administrative Virtual Assistant – Does office management like managing emails, calls, scheduling meetings, managing contracts, making travel arrangements, organizes events details, and more.
• Digital Marketing Virtual Assistant – Manages social media pages such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn; Creates content and advertisement for these platforms and in search engines; Writes articles and other forms of content for blogs and websites.
• Online Shop Virtual Assistant – Handles email and chat sales support or answers inquiries from customers; Manages data entry and edits product images and categories; Handles shipment and return of products.
• Bookkeeping Virtual Assistant – Manages inventory and budgeting; Handles year-end bookkeeping, payroll processing, payment of credit cards, and more.
• Real Estate Virtual Assistant – Gets leads or clients for real estate properties; Answer prospect buyers’ inquiries, sets up meetings; Encodes data, files necessary paperwork, creates reports.
• Data Management Virtual Assistant – Prepares, compiles, and sorts data entry; Reviews data for accuracy, generates reports, enters data into CRM system.

What are the benefits of hiring virtual assistants?

Did you know that having virtual assistants is a win-win situation? It has many benefits to business owners, as well as members of the remote staff.

Benefits to business owners:

• Hire the best talent from any part of the world – Don’t be limited to hiring people from your country or city. You can now access talents from all over the world!
• Manage a business 24/7 – If you own an e-commerce store or a business that needs ‘round-the-clock assistance such as answering inquiries, then hiring remote administrative assistants from different time zones will be beneficial to you. They can also work in shifts best suited to their time zone.
• Access to a younger, more dynamic workforce – More and more young people are embracing the digital nomad lifestyle or remote working. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, virtual teams are transforming the workplace and the younger generation prefers this setup.
• Remote workers are more productive – According to a Harvard Business Review article, virtual assistants and remote employees are more productive because their stress levels are lower.
  Since they don’t have to stress about commuting to work, their morale also increases. In effect, they complete nearly an extra day’s worth of work every week compared to their office-mates who worked onsite.
• No overhead costs – Having a full virtual team located remotely decreases your operational costs. This means you don’t have to pay for a physical office, utility bills, even internet connection.

Benefits to virtual assistants:

• Virtual assistants can work at their own pace – Since different people have different energy levels throughout the day, people who work from home can work at their own pace and be more productive overall.
• Workers are not exposed to bad weather – They start work fresh and energized because they do not have to travel outside and be exposed to bad weather. This also keeps them healthy and safe.
• Working from home reduces costs for your virtual team – They don’t have to commute or drive to the office and the result is they don’t lose precious hours in the traffic. At the same time, they also don’t have to spend for lunch, so they get to save their money.
• Remote workers spend more time at home and with their families – One of the best benefits of working from home.

Do you think you need the help of a virtual assistant to run your business? Here at Connected Women, we use a meaningful matching algorithm that helps you find the right virtual assistant based on skills, experience, passion and working style.

Ready to hire your virtual assistant? Sign up here for a 30-day free trial and upgrade.