Hiring a virtual assistant is one of the smartest moves a busy business owner can make. If you have never done it before, it can also feel daunting.
What can a VA actually do? How do you train someone who works remotely? Will it really save time, or just create more work for you?
If you are asking those questions, you are in the right place. This article covers the part that comes before the hiring itself: working out whether a VA is right for you, deciding what to hand over, and getting your business ready so the first few weeks go smoothly.
When you are ready to run the hire, our step-by-step guide to hiring a virtual assistant in Australia takes it from there.
Why hire a virtual assistant in the first place?
If your to-do list never ends and your day fills up with admin, email, scheduling, data entry and repetitive tasks, you are a good candidate for a VA.
A virtual assistant takes care of the jobs that do not need to be done by you, so you can focus on strategy, growth and delivery.
Business owners who make this work well tend to see the same things: fewer hours lost to admin, faster responses to customers, and the capacity to take on more work without the cost and overhead of another local hire. Solo operators, NDIS providers, trades and agencies all use VAs for exactly this.
How much time you get back depends on the role, the hours and how well the handover is set up. That last part is what this article is about.
What can you outsource to a VA?
It depends on your business, but these are the tasks our clients most commonly hand over:
- Admin. Email and calendar management, inbox clean-up, scheduling, data entry.
- Marketing. Social media posting, blog formatting, basic website tasks, newsletter preparation.
- Customer service. Responding to enquiries, live chat support, sending quotes.
- Operations. CRM updates, following up overdue invoices, formatting documents.
Assistants can also be recruited for industry-specific work. Our guide to virtual assistant services in Australia breaks that down by industry, and covers what a VA can and cannot reasonably take on.
How to work out what to hand over
If you are not sure where to start, track your time for a week. Write down what you do and roughly how long it takes.
At the end of the week, look for three things:
- Tasks you repeat, in the same way, every week
- Tasks that take time but do not need your judgement
- Tasks someone else could do with clear instructions
That list is the beginning of a role. It is also what a good provider will ask you for first.
How to prepare before your first VA starts
Hiring a VA is a partnership, and a little preparation goes a long way. Before anyone starts:
- Define what you want to outsource. Turn your list into tasks with clear outcomes, not just categories.
- Document your processes. Screen recordings, written procedures or step-by-step screenshots all work. The recording you make at your desk in five minutes is usually more useful than the document you never get around to writing.
- Choose the right tools. Email, task or project management, file sharing and a communication platform. Decide these before day one rather than during it.
- Sort out access properly. Work out what the assistant will need, and use a password manager rather than sharing logins by email. Our article on working securely with virtual assistants covers this in practical terms.
If you work with our team at Digitek Outsourcing, we help guide you through this so you are not doing it alone.
What happens after that
Once you know what you want to hand over and you have it documented, the next decisions are how you engage a VA and how you run the hire.
One question first-time hirers rarely think to ask is who legally employs the person. If you pay someone overseas directly, that responsibility sits with you, and it matters more the longer the arrangement runs. Our Employer of Record service is the option where we become the legal employer and handle the contract, payroll and statutory contributions, while you still direct the work day to day. It is worth understanding before you make the first hire rather than after.
Our guide to virtual assistant services in Australia explains the engagement models, including who legally employs the assistant under each one, and what the options cost.
Our step-by-step hiring guide covers writing the role, screening, interviewing, trial tasks and onboarding.
How Digitek Outsourcing helps
We have helped business owners across a range of industries make their first VA hire, and their second and third.
We can:
- Help you write the role description
- Source and shortlist candidates who fit your systems and the way you work
- Assist with onboarding and documentation
- Support the technical setup, alongside our sister company Digitek IT where secure access needs arranging properly
And we do not disappear once your VA starts. We are here as your needs change.
Are you ready to hire a virtual assistant?
Hiring a virtual assistant does not need to be complicated. With the right preparation, it is one of the fastest ways to get time back and grow without adding overhead.
Bring us the task list from your week of time tracking and we will tell you what sort of role it adds up to.
