How to Hire Online Assistants and Where to Find Them

Business is doing good. You are where you want to be, and your expansion keeps getting bigger and bigger. This means it’s time to expand your headcount as well to accommodate the incoming tasks you may have to face soon. However, with a full-time employee, you would have to spend on equipment, office space, and employee benefits. Don’t fret! The good news is, no matter the size of your business, you can now hire online assistants and work with them without spending too much on unnecessary expenses.

Is It Better to Hire Online Assistants Than In-house Employees?

As someone who is not used with the idea of working with a remote team, things might seem uncontrollable. Working with a virtual assistant may cause things to get out of hand, but with the right tools and process, you can make your work a lot easier and more cost-efficient. Here are some steps to get you started.

Choose Which Tasks to Outsource

Before you do anything, you need to identify first which tasks you would assign to your online personal assistant. To do this, you must first list the tasks you usually do daily and categorize them into groups.

Tasks you should do

This list should compose of the items that a business decision maker should do. Tasks such as business strategies, planning, and researching what your competitors are doing are the things that should make up your day. List them down under this column.

Tasks you shouldn’t do

These are the repetitive tasks that take up most of your time but produce low value to your productivity. Yes, they are essential in keeping your company afloat, but spending your time on them will slow down the progress of your growth in the long run.

Tasks you can’t do

Some jobs require special skills to accomplish. For example, some tasks like website development, social media marketing, content writing, and others. This is an automatic call to hire online assistants to do the smart work for you.

Craft a Job Description

Once you have identified which tasks require attention, it will be easier for you to create a job description that will hone the functions of your virtual assistant. When you hire a virtual assistant, you need to be clear on the scope of work so the prospect candidates can assess themselves if they are fit for the job as well. In your job description, you may want to include the following:

Job Title

When naming a job title, you should be specific but not too jargony. The title should immediately say what the task should be to avoid confusion.

Summary

The job summary would be the first thing the prospects will look into. This part should be eye-catching and should highlight the best things about your company.

Responsibilities

Remember the categorization you did earlier? This section is where you would put the things written on it. Now that you have segregated the tasks that you should do from the tasks you shouldn’t be doing, you can start listing important items in here from the tasks you shouldn’t and can’t do.

Minimum qualifications and key competencies

This part should support the previous section. For the candidate to accomplish the tasks stated above, you should list down here the skillset they should have. Do you prefer a specific degree they have finished? Do you require certification or experience in particular software? List them down in here.

Look For a Trusted Agency

There are options to look for candidates in freelance job portals that host remote jobs. However, if you are someone who has not yet had any experience in hiring a remote employee. It is best that you pick an agency instead. Although freelancers are cheaper, they can sometimes be unreliable and cannot be held accountable for some mishaps. Partnering with an agency that provides virtual assistant services can give our assurance on the expertise and quality of work produced.

Set a Meeting and Lay Down Expectations

Once you have chosen a trusted partner that understands your needs, it’s time to set up a meeting and establish an agreement that is suitable for your needs and aiming for your goals. During a client meeting, you would need to list down the things you need, and how you want them done. It also helps that you tell them a little bit about your company, your projects’ current status for further assessment. Doing this will align their objective with yours to make sure everything is in place for your expansion.

Expanding your business is not an easy task. Choosing to hire online assistants to do your administrative tasks is vital in determining the cost-effectivity of your outsourcing decision. HOPLA specializes in working with small to medium enterprises who need a hand in taking significant steps like this to be able to compete with business owners in their chosen field. Thinking of expanding your business? Talk to us today, and let’s discuss your growth.

Blog source: https://hopla.online/blog/how-to-hire-online-assistants-and-where-to-find-them/

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How To Become a Content Moderator

The content moderator does make a judgment call every time he reports to work and starts viewing each and every one of those thousands of videos and posts streaming on his newsfeed. But he cannot be simply reactive and delete or accept any on a knee-jerk basis.

Know more: https://hopla.online/blog/how-to-become-a-content-moderator/

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How to become a Virtual Personal Assistant?

To become a virtual personal assistant means to help a business owner achieve success. Virtual personal assistants are real-life angels who make the daily business process a bliss by offering support and assistance. But in a fast-paced world, the competition is tight and it’s necessary to upgrade your skills. Make yourself an indispensable virtual personal assistant by investing in new learnings and keeping your knowledge always up to date.

In-demand skills to become a virtual personal assistant

These days, companies consider more than just the ability to do menial tasks. A can-do attitude is a no-brainer. Excellent communication skill is more than necessary. But in the present time, they also prefer someone who has a wide set of skills to help a business scale faster and generate better sales.

Here are some of the most in-demand skills that you may consider for self-learning.

WordPress Management

Most websites run in WordPress and having basic knowledge on this blogging platform gives you a badge of honor when you want to become a virtual personal assistant.

File management

File management can go beyond just sorting files on a server. File management also demands the know-how of cloud software that is commonly used for file storage especially for work from home companies and remote teams.

Email Marketing

Businesses need to consistently remind customers that they exist. The easiest way to do this is via email marketing. Equally important, those who want to become a virtual personal assistant can offer services such as copywriting for newsletters and promotional materials, template design, editorial calendars, email marketing automation, and A/B testing.

Social media management

Who would have thought that social media will make it this far? Become a virtual personal assistant who can offer social media management services that cover tasks between social media content writing to campaigns and reporting.

Reports

Some people just hate numbers. Take advantage of it by learning Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Twitter Insights, and other important metrics valuable for business strategy.

Webinar creation

Webinars are a huge commodity in the virtual atmosphere. In fact, its money worth reflects the lots of work that comes with it. You can extend help to a client by helping them plan and execute a webinar. This may start by choosing the best webinar platform, creating slides, transcribing, troubleshooting technical glitches, and creating a replay for viewers.

Take advantage of free learning materials

Experience is not necessary to become a virtual personal assistant. However, high-paying clients often prefer to work with an experienced virtual personal assistant who has been trusted by previous clients. When you’re just starting out, we highly encourage you to invest in free learnings that are all available online.

Many digital marketing institutes and gurus offer digital marketing e-books for FREE. Sometimes, they give it in exchange for your email address. While endless newsletters may pile up your inbox, there’s nothing to lose when you subscribe to their e-books and free online courses.

Additionally, you can join online remote work communities. Majority of their members are experts in digital marketing and the virtual work in the general. Some of them are even online courses creators and if you’re lucky enough, they will give you a discount (or even FREE access) to their classes.

Furthermore, all the information you need to feed your knowledge to become a virtual personal assistant is all up online. Use them wisely to train and enhance your aptitude to become a desirable virtual assistant high-paying companies would want to hire.

Become a virtual personal assistant who is trusted

HOPLA.online is an around-the-clock work-from-home company that hires online virtual assistants from across the world. We pride ourselves in establishing a well-managed virtual workspace for remote workers.

Finally, being a virtual personal assistant allows you to work from home anywhere in the world. As long as you have a strong and fast internet connection, you’re good to go! Our team is composed of professionals with years of experience who will train you to be an expert in this field. Start your virtual personal assistant career with us!

Blog source: https://hopla.online/blog/how-to-become-a-virtual-personal-assistant/

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Remote Team Management Challenges and How to Combat Them

Hiring people from different parts of the world serves a great purpose in keeping your expenses at a minimum. However, all great things must come at a price. In this case, the price may be your sanity! Remote team management is not an easy task and as an entrepreneur with already so much on your plate, managing your team should be the least of your troubles.

Here are some of the most common issues faced by businesses with remote employees. In this article, we will provide you some tips on how you can effectively diminish these ongoing problems and develop a more sustainable process for the long term.

Problem # 1: Time Zone Difference

When you have an employee from the other side of the world, communication will be tougher. You may not get immediate response for when you have to clarify something. Computing the hours, your project’s progress will be slower than when you are working with an in house team. But, with all the amazing benefits of having a virtual team,  a little adjustment combined with the right tools, this would all be worth it. So how do you take action when faced with this issue?

Solution:

Make use of collaboration apps for easier communication

Apps like Viber and Slack provide you easier communication through your phone. If you think sending requests or sending revisions through email is enough, think again. Yes, it is true that these mailbox apps are now accessible through mobiles as well but it does get lost in tons of other emails you employees are receiving. And besides, who checks their emails while they are on vacation or their days off? Clinging on to messenger apps like these keeps your urgent messages short and easy to digest for your remote team to check up on even if they are not on duty that day.

 

Get everyone together regularly

When you have a major project coming up, it is important that you keep updates from everyone involved in the project. This will also help to keep everyone on the same page. Team collaboration through video calling apps like Skype or GoToMeeting will help the team get a grasp of what the client wants to achieve instead of everyone going on their own separate ways of executing the project. This could save you a lot of time and leave a small room for errors.

Problem # 2: Difficulty in tracking performance

Remote team management is very different from in-house project management, as you well know. If you are working alongside your team, it is just easy to go across the hall and check up on their progress. Big thanks to cloud software and the project management systems, everyone now can better keep track of everything if they do things digitally. The key is finding the right tool that suits your team.

Solutions:

Install a Project Management Tool

Project management tools are not only efficient for remote teams. Truth be told, even in-house teams could get a hand in installing these apps on their computers. Options like Asana and Trello lets you create a project timeline for all your upcoming projects, assign tasks to specific employees, and set deadlines for each one.

Set goals and expectations during the start of projects

Just like when you are onboarding a new employee, you need to set objectives for your employees. Set up a one-on-one meeting with your team or freelancer for them to know what you expect by the end of their project. This will help them create their own system of how to get things done. Do not forget to list these items down as you need to revisit these regularly to keep track of the progress.

Problem # 3: Resolving team conflict

This is probably one of the most underrated problems being faced by businesses with remote working culture. Remote team management could be twice as hard because of the lack of intimacy and conflict may arise because of cultural differences and whatnot. However, these things should not hinder your business from flourishing. Keeping your employees valued is as important as keeping your business afloat.

Solutions:

Set up a meeting

Let everyone know that you are not trivializing this problem. You could set up a meeting to discuss the matters at hand. Setting an agenda also helps in keeping you on track during the meeting. Of course, when you set up a meeting, make sure you should be able to create a solution at the end where everyone agrees with. To resolve this, you must have everyone on board and give considerations for the employees involved in the issue.

Don’t forget to revisit the issue and check for improvements

If you want to keep your employees, it is important that you make them feel heard. This will foster loyalty. Give your solution a couple of days or weeks to play out and revisit the issue. Check if there are still similar problems arising. If yes, then it’s time to strategize your whole plan.

The workplace is evolving. You do not need expensive overheads to accommodate in house employees anymore. All you need is the right tools and a fast Internet connection to keep your business running. What a time to be alive!

Need Help with Remote Team Management?

Remote team management is not everyone’s forte. HOPLA understands your need to spend time with your business and family without feeling drained. Our team of experts will help you grow your business with the best talent and appropriate tools. Interested? Talk to us today and let’s discuss how you can save money by hiring your remote team.

Original source: https://hopla.online/blog/remote-team-management-challenges-and-how-to-combat-them/

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Personal Virtual Assistant Services - A Better Solution for Business Management

Virtual assistant services are an important thing to unlock the potential for your business. You need to get ready first to unload all the tasks that you need to do such as booking as well as setting up an appointment, booking the flight tickets, managing the social media websites. All these things are quite essential you should be capable of doing it.

Hiring a Virtual Personal Assistant

Having Personal Virtual Assistant Services will help you in taking the right decision for your business. There are a lot of websites that deal with a virtual assistant. You need to distinguish them in various ways. It is quite natural for any virtual assistant company to assign multiple clients. You can directly talk to your project manager instead of talking to the virtual assistant.

Calendar Management

In a day if you want to do maximum work, calendar management is one of the effective ways to do it. Hiring Personal Virtual Assistant Services to schedule an appointment, sending the reminders on time and also keep you notified about the necessary details are quite important.

Email Management

You must be having an email inbox that has all kinds of messages in it. They can be differentiated from important to more important to most important with the spam messages as well. It is quite a time consuming while sorting with these emails. The virtual personal assistant will handle all your emails so that you can focus on the important things for the business. The virtual assistant is also capable of building email marketing lists and also removes and adds people, etc.

Travel Management

Are you wasting time searching for the cheapest flight tickets or the hotels when you are travelling to a certain place? You don’t need to waste a single time now. The Virtual assistant is here to help you out. You just need to provide the basic instructions such as the dates when you are travelling and the budget and also date when you are looking for accommodation. They will ensure that you have a business meeting out of the town easily.

Booking Appointments

Are you someone who has not visited the doctor for a long time? Then your virtual assistant will book an appointment on your behalf. They will manage all your appointments and will also update this on the calendar. They will do it so that you do not mess up having another appointment at the same time.

Getting the things in order

All the information and the documents need to be stored properly and safely at a place. The virtual assistant will help in storing all the details so that they are not lost. They will also be maintaining the spreadsheet which will help in many ways.

Handling the queries of the clients

They have good communication skills and are well trained. Once they understand the working structure of the company they will be able to handle all sorts of things of a business.

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4 Signs You Need to Start Outsourcing Online Administrative Jobs

Big business decision-makers often find themselves burned out. Managing different teams at once, huge decision-making and project approvals can wear out your wit and energy. You surely want to be as productive as you can be. There’s nothing wrong with that. But asking for help, especially when your business is a critical state, is a smart solution that will benefit your company in the long run. Delegating repetitive tasks and outsourcing online administrative jobs can seriously save you and your company from falling apart.

Here are five signs that you need to start outsourcing online administrative jobs to lighten your workload.

Loss in Profit

Losing profit is a bad omen for any companies aspiring to be big. Money matters in business and without it, it’s hard to keep a business up and running. That’s why some companies resort to cost-cutting, freeze-hiring, and even employee termination. However, that’s not the only solution. With proper delegation, you can rely on an online administrative assistant to carry out certain tasks. Tech giants are proof that outsourcing monotonous jobs to another remote company helps smoothen the internal process and maximizes the potential of a business.

Outsourcing administrative assistants is in no way different. Aside from saving on overhead costs, you also save on employee benefits that usually take most of your assets. Working admin assistant job experts boosts efficiency not only in administrative tasks but also in your company as a whole.

Overlapping Projects & Schedules

Overlapping projects is okay. Schedule lapses are not okay. When you are too baffled with all that’s going on in your company, hiring an online administrative assistant could come in handy. They can manage your schedule in a breeze and make sure nothing is amiss. An administrative assistant can recommend any possible adjustments in case of conflicting schedules. Above all, admin assistants have mastered the art of prioritizing, so all you have to do is show up when you are needed.

Outdated Business Model

Innovation is the most used word in the present business-scape. Any business model is obsolete. You yourself can determine if your existing business model is still hitting a valuable amount of targetted revenue. And in case of negative findings, it’s time to jump on a new life-saving stint. Working with an outsourced administrative assistant on strategic planning can help you materialize your anticipated results in no time.

Cashflow Management Problems

Businesses of any size can suffer from cash flow management problem. Spending too much money is never healthy. You need an alternative solution. Of course, you need to closely monitor your revenue and maintain a healthy bank account.

Next, you should start to consider outsourcing over hiring in-house employees. Paying for a monthly salary plus benefits such as health insurance and paid leaves can cost your company a hefty amount of money. Assess the positions needed to be filled with full-time employees. On the other hand, project-based and seasonal operations can be entrusted to a reliable outsourcing service provider. That way, you get to pay only for the work done.

Online Administrative Jobs Expert

These days, looking for a solid solution at an affordable rate is never impossible. You just have to look in the right direction. Looking for administrative job experts to join your team immediately? HOPLA offers managed outsourcing services to businesses across all industries. The objective is to promote efficiency in the workplace and produce nothing but quality output every day. We carefully screen administrative assistants candidates to ensure their skills match every client’s need. Call us today and get to work with our admin rockstars with a bliss.

Blog source: https://hopla.online/blog/4-signs-you-need-to-outsource-online-administrative-jobs/

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Can Managed Live Chat Agents Help Your Cleaning Service?

Today’s consumers are spontaneous. When they want something, they want it NOW. Customers also expect you to give it to them how they want it delivered. If not, these customers easily find another and forget about your brand in an instant. If they enter your website and find something that interests them, they expect a comprehensive knowledge base for FAQs or managed live chat agents to instantly provide solutions.

Know more: https://hopla.online/blog/can-managed-live-chat-agents-help-your-cleaning-service/

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