How to Seamlessly Combine Your Offshore Team with Your Local Team
Virtual assistants make work easier – and all over the world tens of thousands of companies and organisations are outsourcing jobs to highly skilled VAs working overseas.
There are many great advantages. You can clear away difficult or time consuming tasks like spreadsheets or bookkeeping from your in-tray and create space to concentrate on the truly important things.
But when you have a local team and a virtual assistant, it can sometimes be hard to combine them – with one set of workers in the room with you while the other is on the other side of the world!
So how can you best assimilate them?
At Virtual Coworker, we specialise in outsourcing to the Philippines and over the years we’ve seen time and again that the best way forward is all about communication…
Get your local team on board
First of all, when using any form of virtual assistant, it definitely pays to thoroughly inform your local team about them – about what the VA is doing, responsible for, and can help them with.
Essentially, a virtual assistant is business tool, one that adds value, flexibility and speed to your organisation. They are there for you and your local team to benefit from, so tell your workers about the good things a VA can do for the business.
This way, your local team will get behind using a virtual assistant and could even come up with some more ways to work together, creating better outcomes for your business.
Clearly communicate your values and goals
With your local team’s support in place; it’s vital that you make the virtual assistant fully aware of your organisation’s goals.
Many businesses and groups have key values, aims and attitudes, and your VA will be able to help you achieve these if they are brought into the fold. This way, the work they do will hit the mark every time and show the local team their true value, bringing both sides closer together.
A virtual assistant can be so much more than someone who simply does a series of tasks – arm them with knowledge and passion for your goals and they will exceed your expectations!
Make them part of the family
The best businesses are like happy families – everyone is focused on the same goals and supporting each other to achieve them.
When you hire a virtual assistant, you can achieve the best results by making them a part of your business’s family.
You can hold regular phone calls with them, Skype sessions or Google hangouts. Talk about business and life at the same time and grow a stronger bond that will reap great dividends.
You could even nominate a person from your local team to act as the liaison for their needs, with you keeping tabs through a direct report.
Successfully assimilating your local team with a virtual assistant is an important step in getting the best results from outsourcing. So remember, it’s all about communication – bring everyone onto the same page and the sky is the limit.
