While hiring a Virtual Employee (VE) is a major decision, training your virtual employee is the key to having success. It will completely change the shape of your business in better ways. Once you train them, you will have a seamless workforce.
Having a VE is not an overnight process; you need to deal with the changes one day at a time. Training a Virtual Employee can be a challenge for many reasons. The biggest is lack of free time. Which is why you need one in the first place – right? The second challenge is you don’t know where & how to start.
Before you hire, you need to set your virtual employee's duties and responsibilities as part of your team. On the first month you may want to have a daily chat with your VE to make sure you are on the same page and to establish a bond as well as to provide feedback of what is working well and what your VE needs to do to improve.
Guide your virtual employee with the tools you need to get the job done. Before you hire, you should make sure that they familiar with most of the standard ones realizing that you will need to provide training on those that are specific to your business. We recommend that you set a time of the week to do a training session for your VE via screen sharing or a recorded video of you working on the task with the same tool.
Here are some tips to effectively train your Virtual Employees.
1. Write detailed instructions
Send your VE detailed instructions of his or her roles & responsibilities and provide any instructions your VE will need to fulfill those roles. Also, send a list of the tools that your VE needs to get the job done. An effective email instruction is with the use of the following:
Here’s an email sample you can use:
Hi VE,
I need your help with a new task of researching real estate agents in Peachtree Corners. We need their email address and phone number so we can set up a meeting with them for a possible partnership.
To get this done, you need to
If you can accomplish this task this week, that would be great. Otherwise let me know if you have any questions.
Speak soon,
Client
2. Video recordings
This is one of the most effective ways of training. It’s a combination of audio and visual training which makes it much easier for your virtual employee to pick up the training.
When you give your VE a task, all you need to do is record your voice explaining what you are doing and why while you capture your screen doing the task. As you go through each step, explain to your VE why it’s done and the result of doing it. Upload your video recording in YouTube or Vimeo and provide your VE access whenever they need to in case they encounter a roadblock while doing that task.
We keep a video library of tasks so that training any of our staff is easy.
3. Voice recordings
While not as effective as the video training, this may be easier for you to do as it doesn’t require screen capture software.
Simply record your voice as if talking to your VE and share it to him or her via Google drive, Dropbox or some other sharing platform that you have set up.
4.Hire a company to train your VE
The most stress-free option is to find a company that will train your VE for you. These companies are experienced in training VEs for specific roles. You can be sure that their training materials are expertly done and tested.
At HireSmart Virtual Employees we provide a wide variety of training to help our clients. While we have a lot of industry-specific training, we also offer training on cultural differences, customer service, and sales support.
Even if a 3rd party is training your VE, don’t forget, you still have to assess his or her progress as well as train on the specific tasks to your business, but this shortens the learning curve in most instances.
5. Make use of online sharing tools
Google Drive, Dropbox are just some of the tools you can use to train your VE. You can upload previous files and let your VE study them Set a time at the end of the week or every 2 days and have a question and answer session with your VE.
You will be surprised how a VE can work independently. There are so many other options you can consider in training your VE. You just need to find what’s convenient for you and effective for your VE.
If you are interested in any of our training – feel free to look at our training products or contact us.
Getting a Virtual Employee to help your every need in your growing business is just the tip of the iceberg. Making the relationship work is the most daunting task. As for every relationship to work, you, as the business owner should prepare the essential tools for your virtual employee.
You may be asking, what do you need to do this? Put simply, no matter how much of a rock star your virtual employee is if the process is not managed carefully, it will cost you time, money and at some point exhaust you. Here is the list of tools you may want to consider:
Communication:
These tools are commonly used to communicate with your virtual employee since you are working half way across the world.
Project (task) Management Tools
To ensure everything is on track, you need one or two of these tools to make sure that the team is managing their tasks from start to finish.
File Sharing Tools
These are used to share files and documents to the entire team locally and remotely.
Email Tools
You may be using one of the communication tools; you also might want to look into an application that will let you have a written correspondence.
Editing Tools (Photo and Video)
If one of the tasks you require is to create something creative. You can use one of these.
These tools are general tools to ensure an effective day-to day operation at the “office” (remotely and locally). Moreover, these will bridge the gap between your in-house and virtual employee.
If you need training in any of these tools, or if you need a more specific tool for a more specific task, HireSmartVirtualEmployees.com can help you with that just contact us.
Don’t Try Hire a Virtual Employee Without Reading This First
We are serious. Don’t try hire a Virtual Employee without reading this first…
With the growing numbers of available Virtual Employees (VEs) in the market, you can now easily say goodbye to the tasks that eat up most of your time because you can finally assign them to an individual who can work remotely and still deliver results.
Aside from the below average operational cost in hiring a Virtual Employee, the Philippines have a huge talent pool to find the best candidate for your position.
However, not all Virtual Employees have the same personalities and skills that you need so we have outlined 5 criteria to help you choose the right Virtual Employee for you.
1. Attitude
You will have the opportunity to interview your Virtual Employee so you can assess if the Virtual Employee has the right “attitude” and “mindset” that would help you grow your business. Based on his/her answers, does this virtual employee share the same passion with you when it comes to nurturing your company? If the answer is yes, then he/she might be a good candidate for you. If no, then there is no reason for you to waste additional time interviewing that person.
2. Skill set
Does this person possess the skills that you need in order to assist you with your daily tasks or does he/she needs more time to learn them? As we have previously discussed, you need someone who can readily do the things that you need to be done on a daily basis – so choose a Virtual Employee with the most skill set that you need to lessen the training time.
3. Experience
This is what most clients look for in a Virtual Employee – if they already have experience working from home and working the graveyard shift (which is daytime in the US). It is important to determine how long the Virtual Employee has been doing this type of work from home. While there are many competent & skilled people, it takes the right mindset and discipline to work from home. This is something that we evaluate heavily. In addition to the basic skills of the job, this is something to keep in mind. Remember, there will always be learning curves as your Virtual Employee learns your business but you should not be paying for him/her to learn new skills unless they are unique to you and your business.
4. Availability, Flexibility & Technology
Is this Virtual Employee available to start work immediately? Is he or she okay with working graveyard shifts? Having a Virtual Employee who has made the investment in their technology, internet access, computer, back-up power, etc. is a huge advantage. Assuming you want someone for a career and not just a job, these things make the difference. One of the things we do at HireSmartVirtualEmployees.com is vet the Virtual Employee and determine their readiness to work. This saves our clients a lot of wasted time and energy.
5. Tech Savvy
Nowadays, there are new and promising software that you can use to nurture your business and your Virtual Employee should be up for the challenge of navigating through those software or programs. Being able to keep pace with the basic office software is a requirement for an effective Virtual Employee. They should have the basic software already set up and be ready to work. If there is specific software knowledge that you need, make sure that you have that as part of your job description.
We hope that you have found these 5 things useful and that you will be better prepared to hire your Virtual Employee. If you are looking for some help and the easy button – feel free to connect with us.