How to onboard a new virtual assistant to your company

warui kiondo
Runnovate Virtual Assistants
9 min readApr 29, 2021

You decided that it’s time for you to delegate some of your tasks and you went out and looked for a virtual assistant. You finally found one that matched what you are looking for. What now? How do you onboard the virtual assistant to your company in a way that will help them work well with you to help you achieve your goals? In this article, we are going to cover what you need to do to help the new virtual assistant be conversant with the role that they will be taking in your company and be aligned with your mission, vision, and goals. If you are still in the early stages of your search for a virtual assistant, start with “How to prepare to work with a virtual assistant” to help you know what to prepare before getting a virtual assistant.

Your virtual assistant might need training on your internal processes and with the softwares and programs your team uses. This can be accomplished during your initial call with your virtual assistant or through a sequence of Zoom calls in which you share your screen and demonstrate what needs to be done.

There will always be a learning curve for any new recruit and any new work — it is unavoidable.If you and your assistant have established a structure of contact and task delegation, the work you do together will become second nature to you and your other team members. Set out a time on your schedule to prepare yourself for your first meeting by planning everything that the virtual assistant needs to know to be able to succeed in the new role. This will ensure that you and your new virtual assistant have the best possible start in your company. This is what is generally referred to as the onboarding process.

What is onboarding?

Onboarding is when new hires are provided with the training and information to help them get acclimated to their new position, new team members and the goals, mission, and vision of the company. This helps the new hires, in this case, the virtual assistant, to quickly understand their role, what is expected of them, and your company’s culture. The onboarding process does not have to be done in one meeting or even one day. It can go on for a considerable time, even weeks, depending on the complexity of the tasks and the amount of information that needs to be shared with the new hire.

Proper onboarding is very important. Research has shown that new recruits who do not go through proper onboarding end up leaving the company prematurely and this leads to extra costs and inconveniences that would have been avoided.

With a proper understanding of the inner workings of the company, the virtual assistant will be more devoted to making sure that the company achieves all its goals. The virtual assistant will be confident about what is expected of them. This in turn means that the virtual assistant will be engaged with the company and they will offer 100% of themselves in their work and this will, in turn, result in a positive outcome both for the company and the virtual assistant.

The ideal client-virtual assistant relationship is one that is based on trust. When you are thoroughly convinced that your virtual assistant knows what is expected of them, then you can comfortably delegate tasks to them and you will be confident that everything will run smoothly. There won’t be any surprises about uncertainty about critical issues, confusion, and miscommunication that is usually the norm with new hires. This will pave the way for you to even let your virtual assistant handle more crucial tasks in the future.

Proper onboarding also equips the virtual assistant with all the relevant information that they need to carry out the different tasks that are delegated to them. This will eradicate any uncertainties and confusion that may arise when there is a lack of proper prior communication. The overall effect of all this is that you do not keep on changing virtual assistants every other time and you will get someone who will be with you for a long time.

Reducing virtual assistant turnover is very important since it will reduce losses that arise from loss of time, knowledge, and costs of looking for a replacement.

Here is the virtual assistant onboarding checklist that will be of great assistance.

Company Overview.

You can create documentation or videos with an introduction to your company. You can start with the background of the company and what its mission, values, and objectives are. This is very important since it will ensure that your virtual assistant understands what your company is all about.

This is also the time to ensure that the virtual assistant is conversant with the policies of the company. Ensure that your virtual assistant agrees with the policies and clarify any points that may not be very clear. You would not want the virtual assistant to break any rules when they are working for you that could eventually lead to very costly lawsuits.

While at it, introduce them to the other colleagues and everyone else that they will be working with. Let them know who they will be reporting to and who to ask whenever they need anything.

Tools and software access

Before your virtual assistant starts working, double-check that they have the right tools for the job. You will have to grant them access to softwares and tools that you use to conduct business, whether it’s your email, social media sites, or bookkeeping apps.

This means sharing your login credentials with them. Make use of password management platforms like Lastpass that allow you to share login credentials securely with your employees. Please note that it is very unwise to create a document with all the passwords for these platforms since you never know who the document will be shared with and it can lead to very adverse effects to your company.

Also, take this opportunity to introduce them to project management platforms that you use like ClickUp, Asana or Trello. These project management platforms ensure that every project is monitored properly from the initial start date to its completion. It will ensure that everyone knows what they are working on and when the deadlines are due.

Time tracking softwares should also be introduced at this juncture if you are paying them per hour. A good time management tool is Toggl. This will allow you to track the time that the virtual assistant spends working on the tasks allocated to them. This will come in handy especially if you are paying your virtual assistant based on the time spent working on tasks. The virtual assistant can use this time to familiarize themselves with the workings of the platforms if they do not know how to use these tools already.

Do not forget the softwares that you use for communication. Do you prefer email, Slack or WhatsApp? This is the time for you to agree on the most convenient apps to use for communication and the most convenient times for these meetings. This will eradicate any inconveniences that arise from a lack of proper communication and will also set you up for a seamless workflow.

Documentations.

Documentations are a great way to streamline the onboarding process. If all the processes are well documented, then the virtual assistant will just have to read through the documents and this will ease the work that you would have done in video calling them and guiding them through all the processes.

If you do not have documentation ready, then do not worry since virtual assistants are very efficient with documentation. This is the prime time to create them. Alternatively, you can make use of past recorded meetings. You do not have to start from the ground up every time you get a new virtual assistant. A more efficient way would be to have pre-recorded instructions that you can share with new virtual assistants whenever needed. You can use tools like Loom or Screencast O’Matic to record your screen and show how you go about different processes. This might seem like a lot of work in the beginning but once you are done with it, it will be a life-saver even when you hire new employees.

Share your standard operating procedures

Standard operating procedures (S.O.Ps) are normally a series of instructions about how to accomplish a particular task and determine how each and every task should be performed. When you add more tasks to your virtual assistant’s workload, make sure you have enough S.O.P.s in place to ensure that the virtual assistant knows how to go about the tasks. Simple SOPs can be created by writing a numbered list of steps to complete a particular task in a Word or Google document, such as the SOP for “How to publish a blog post on our website.”

This will save a lot of time that is usually used by the virtual assistants while researching and trying out new ways that you probably might not even like. This energy and time will instead be channeled into doing productive tasks which is a win-win situation for everyone.

Start delegating tasks.

Begin with a few tasks that both your virtual assistant and you are comfortable starting with. The most important thing to build at the start is confidence, so make sure you give your virtual assistant opportunities to gain your trust. You’ll feel more comfortable delegating more complicated or sensitive tasks to them once they have shown that they can do simple tasks well.

Clearly set the deadlines for the work due so that you can avoid future conflicts. These deadlines could be daily or weekly, the important thing is to make sure that the virtual assistant clearly understands what is expected of them and when they should deliver.

Also, make sure to put measures in place to ensure that the work delivered is of high quality and that no one delivers substandard work. This would be easily accomplished if you have regular updates and check-ins with your virtual assistants. During the check-ins, make sure to provide consistent feedback so that the virtual assistants are sure of what to improve on and what not to do in the future.

Reiterate your expectations

Effectively communicate which tasks your virtual assistant should complete and how much time you expect them to take. If you don’t know how long a task will take, ask your virtual assistant to estimate how long they think it will take and have them log their work tasks on a system like Hubstaff, Toggl or ClickUp so that you can quickly go back and see how much time your virtual assistant spent on each task.

During the onboarding process, you can also have a discussion about your key performance indicators and how you measure them. This will ensure that your virtual assistant does not spend time on tasks that do not directly lead to the growth of the company.

They will also have a very clear picture of what is expected of them and the quality of work to be delivered. This will save you a lot of frustrations and stress. This is also the best time to let virtual assistants know who they are collaborating with during the process.

Please provide feedback.

Feedback is particularly valuable for the first few tasks because it tells your virtual assistant what they’re doing well and what needs to be changed. Provide reviews at least once a week, if not more often. To begin, we suggest scheduling a brief video call at the end of each week to go over all of the tasks your virtual assistant completed and to answer any questions that your virtual assistant might have. It’s also a good time to talk about the projects you’d like them to focus on in the coming weeks, assuming you’ll be working with them for another week.

Decide what else you want to delegate.

If you decide to keep your virtual assistant on for a long-term relationship, look over the skills you’ve seen so far, as well as your existing workload and task list, to see what else you can assign. Delegating duties to others is the secret to gaining more time at work and, ultimately, achieving more in your business. While doing that, consider increasing their pay as you add more tasks. If the relationship is great, the virtual assistant will be happy to help at a larger capacity.

Conclusion.

First impressions matter even in the virtual assistant industry. After getting a good virtual assistant, make sure that the onboarding process is perfect to create a fruitful working relationship. The rewards that you will reap from doing this will be beyond your wildest dreams. Your virtual assistant will make your life much easier, help you save time, achieve more, increase your revenue and even grow your business.

Runnovate virtual assistants are highly skilled and they always deliver high-quality work. The onboarding process with a virtual assistant from Runnovate will be easy and within no time, your tasks will be done with a high degree of competence. Get a virtual assistant today by filling out this get ‘started form’ or email info@runnovate.com for inquiries.

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