You go to a lot of effort to hire just the right virtual office assistants for your team. It takes some time from the moment you place the job ad until the final interview and you invest a lot of yourself into the process. Once you have found that right person, it is very important that you hold on to him. You want the relationship to be a long and satisfying one for both you the employer and your employee. How can you achieve this?
There are four steps to ensuring that you hold onto your staff.
The first step to find a virtual assistant is to make sure that you spend sufficient time with them. You really need to get to know your staff, their particular strengths and weaknesses. By giving regular feedback, holding one on ones and providing coaching, you will prove to them that you are really interested in helping them achieve the best they possibly can. Regular communication will ensure that any small problems are nipped in the bud and a real relationship of trust and openness will be built up over time.
It will probably take about six months before you new staff member is really firing on all cylinders. During this time, you need to be providing the necessary training that they need to become a fully fledged member of your team.
Secondly, by offering small pay increases and bonuses, you will be keeping your employees interested and keen to work to their very highest standard for you. For virtual staff, if they need a new computer, you may think about paying half, for example. They will have never experienced anything like that before, and they will be keen to show their thanks through their loyalty to you.
A third way to retain staff is by identifying any with an entrepreneurial bent. Ask them if they are interested in setting up their own business. You might offer a 20% premium for example to your employee and ask her to go and find an outsourcer that she then manages. She will get the management fee, and if she hires several virtual office assistants, she will soon be earning more than if she had done the whole task herself.
A fourth good way is to promote a virtual assistant to the level of team leader. They can then organize the other virtual assistants and report back to you. Later on they can be trained to do the Start of Day calls with the other assistants; in other words they become project managers. Eventually these team leaders can begin to train the other assistants. This is the final stage in learning. Once someone has learned a skill, they are then able to pass it on to others.
Worker retention is a major challenge in any organization. If a worker stays with you long term, they become better able to complete the work in the manner you expect and your valuable training off that person is not lost. Following some of the steps outlined above can significantly help in increasing job satisfaction for your virtual office assistants, which will ultimately translate into greater staff retention.
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