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COST COMPARISON
It's definitely worth considering a virtual assistant over an employee.
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Although a Virtual Assistant’s (VA) hourly rate is typically more than the employee’s rate, you save the cost of benefits and overhead expenses that would have to be applied to the new employee’s wage. And, because virtual assistants are usually more experienced, efficient, and better connected than the employee, equating to less time needed to achieve the same results. The details below are based on the rates of $20/hr vs $35/hr—a difference of 480 hours a year versus 2,080. Yah, that's a BIG difference! The hourly rates below are only examples, as rates can obviously vary depending upon expertise, experience, and the work to be conducted.
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Including everything from posting the job to the end of the probationary period, estimate the cost of each activity as an hourly rate of who is doing the task. This can include scoping the position, advertising, agency fees, interviews, profiling, aptitude testing, reference checking, writing letters and contracts, training and even the employee’s salary during the period they are not contributing.
Consider fringe benefits, such as health/dental/life insurance, retirement plans and vacation time, plus overhead costs such as office space, equipment and supplies, unemployment insurance, worker's compensation, overtime, and administrative costs. The real cost of employment is actually higher than the figure shown above due to Indirect Costs and Investment Risk.
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What about the Indirect Costs?
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Lost productivity due to management’s involvement in the recruitment process.
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Either missed sales opportunities or missed opportunities to contribute to the company’s profits in an indirect way.
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Lost productivity within the role one month before and three months after recruitment.
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What about the Investment Risk?
To fully understand the investment risk in a new employee you need to calculate how long it takes to pay back the total cost of recruitment to just break even. Using an average weekly profit contribution per employee, you can use this calculation: Total direct & indirect costs / Average weekly profit per person = weeks to achieve ROI or you can calculate ROI by dividing the activity return by its cost: ROI = (Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment) / (Cost of Investment) This calculation can show that it takes up to 12 to 18 months for a new employee to show a return on your investment and any time prior to that equates to a financial loss. And, how often does an employee leave right after they have been trained and the process starts all over again?!
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Remember, with a VA, you only pay for the time on tasks by the minute! No more paying for sick days or vacation time, let alone breaks, socializing, extra long lunches or frequent trips to the bathroom. Your employee’s 8 hour day can be crunched into 3-4 hours with a VA.
Simply put, you should contract with a VA because it’s more cost-effective. Plus, if you choose me, I will go above and beyond to impact your productivity. No task is too big or small—I aim to over-deliver and will become your most valued partner!
Save money and contract with Powerful Impact today.
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*Sources:
OneResource