Hiring Onsite Employee vs Virtual Remote Assistants: Which Is Better?

With your business growing, getting extra hands to manage various business processes may be the right thing. You may have two options: hire a full-time onsite employee or a remote virtual assistant. While both can carry out almost the same tasks, you may be confused about which is better. Making a wrong decision can cost you a lot of time, money, and energy that you and your business cannot afford.

The onsite employee vs. remote virtual assistants debate has been around for years now. The trend of hiring remote virtual assistants has recently risen for several reasons. Let’s compare both options to determine what can be the best for your business.  

What Is an Onsite Employee?

An onsite employee is someone you hire under a contract to work for your business full-time or part-time. The individual will be a permanent member of your team and will have a particular set of duties to perform. Usually, an employee works for your business while being physically present at your office premises. They may also work remotely but are still a permanent member of your team. The employer is liable to pay them a salary, either fixed or hourly payment as agreed, along with other employee benefits.

What Are Remote Virtual Assistants?

Remote virtual assistants are individual contractors who work remotely to provide their services to a business. Business is only liable to pay them a fee according to work performed. The company is not responsible for paying them any employee benefits. Moreover, the best virtual assistant service providers also have access to the tools and equipment required to perform various tasks. Some tasks a remote virtual assistant can perform for your business are:

• Administrative tasks
• Content creation
• Social media management
• Image and video editing
• SEO
• Customer service
• Tech support
• Lead generation
• Personal assistance

Let’s compare the pros and cons of employees and remote virtual assistants to find which of the two options can be best for your business.

Onsite Employee: Pros and Cons

Pros:

1. Better communication

Since an onsite employee will be working within your office premises, the chances of a communication gap will be minimal. Whether you want to assign them a new task, have a conversation, address mistakes and misunderstandings smoothly, or need their help, you can do it right away as they will be working in your office and probably at the same time as your team.

2. Human relations

Unlike remote virtual assistants, an onsite employee will work with your team. They will develop strong human relations with other employees in your group, which will help them be happier and more productive in their work. You can also see how they interact and work with other team members while working in your office.

3. Easy to assess their capabilities

This will be beneficial when you are hiring an employee. You can better assess their skills, capabilities, work ethics, and character while meeting with your prospective employees.

Cons:

1. Costly

Hiring an onsite employee is a considerable investment for your business. The cost of hiring an in-house employee will include infrastructure, equipment, payroll taxes, and various employee benefits. A company needs to consider employee benefits: performance bonuses, paid sick leaves, healthcare, parental leaves, life insurance, worker’s compensation, etc.

2. High replacement cost

Hiring an onsite employee is costly, and when you have to replace one, you will have to bear the recruitment cost again. Moreover, your business will also suffer from financial loss during the replacement process due to lost productivity and training of new hires.

3. Fixed salary

When you hire an onsite employee, you will have to pay them a fixed monthly salary, irrespective of the work they perform. Moreover, you will have to pay the total compensation even if you don’t have enough work.

4.  Training cost

You may have to invest in training your employees to help them gain new skills and knowledge that can benefit your business. In addition to the training cost, this will also add to the loss of work hours during the training process.

Remote Virtual Assistants: Pros and Cons

Pros:

1. Cost saving

This is the most crucial reason businesses opt for professional remote virtual assistant services. Remote virtual assistants are affordable as companies don’t have to invest in infrastructure, hardware, tools, and employee-related taxes. Remote virtual assistants are pre-equipped with the tools and equipment they need to perform their tasks, and they only charge for the work they perform for your business.

2. Access to the global talent pool

As you can hire remote virtual assistants from anywhere across the world, you get access to the global talent pool. This will mean that you can find the best-suited individual with the skills you are looking for.

3. Flexible schedule

When you hire remote virtual assistants through a professional virtual assistant outsourcing company, you only pay for the hours the virtual assistant worked for your business or the project completed. You can hire the best virtual assistant services on an as-needed basis.

4. Diverse skill set

Most remote virtual assistants are equipped with a wide range of skill sets. Apart from performing administrative tasks for your business, remote virtual assistants can perform other tasks, such as content writing, graphics designing, SEO, social media management, tech support, lead generation, cold calling, and tech support for your business.

Cons:

1. Communication gaps

As remote virtual assistants will work remotely, there may be a communication gap between you and your remote assistant. This can be a problem if you have an urgent task and your VA doesn’t have a fixed working hour.

2.  Lack of relationship with your onsite team

When you hire remote virtual assistants, they will not have any communication with your onsite team, and it will be challenging to establish this relationship among them. This can affect your business, especially when they need to work together on a particular task.

3. Difficulty tracking their productivity and working hours

When your remote virtual assistants work remotely, it can be challenging to track their working hours, especially when you don’t use the right tool to track their work. However, investing in a good productivity management tool can help you track their performance efficiently.  

Final Verdict

Suppose you are a business owner and are in a dilemma about choosing an onsite employee or virtual assistant outsourcing company. In that case, you can weigh the pros and cons of each option. While both options have pros and cons, hiring remote virtual assistants for your business will be cost-effective and flexible.

A remote virtual assistant will also bring additional skills and add extra value to your business. Moreover, you can eliminate the disadvantages of a remote employee by using the right tools to ensure better communication and product management to give you better control over your new hire’s performance.

Hence, we can conclude that choosing the best remote virtual assistant services for your business can be a better option than recruiting an in-house employee.