R
emote assistance trend started several years ago and this trend continues to accelerate throughout the world. The demand for freelancers, contractors and remote employees has increased manifold during the last decade and is expected to continue to grow in the future also.
History of Virtual Assistants
Today’s world Virtual Assistant’s were earlier known as secretaries and the secretarial services industry started in the 1940s. When the typewriter was invented in 1970, secretarial work became much easier. With the advent of the internet in 1980 and it’s growing popularity in the 90’s brought the concept of Virtual Assistance into existence. The term “virtual assistance” had another name also at that time, which was “work-at-home secretaries”. Virtual Assistants were able to provide their services remotely. In the year 1999, the International Virtual Assistants Association (IVSA) was founded to create the codes of responsibility for VA’s. In 2003, the Virtual Assistants Networking Association was established.
Why surge in virtual assistance?
The US administration imposed tougher immigration laws leading to a high level of decrease in employment-based visas. This lead to seaking the services of virtual assistants remotely. This helped US businesses access to a global pool of talent.
There is also a global rise in the hiring trend for virtual assistantsbecause of the following reasons:
- Higher productivity
- No training
- Lesser costs
- Saves time
- Efficient services
- Maintain work-life balance
- Business growth
- Shared workload
- Confidentiality
It is rightly said,
You can do Anything, but not Everything.
A VA can help you in your work related to different departments of your organization while maintaining confidentiality. VA’s can handle different things at the same time. They can efficiently handle a variety of tasks as they are well trained and experienced in their field of expertise.
Virtual assistance industry statistics
- Remote employees are almost 13-15% more productive than full-time employees
- Maximum number of virtual assistants take this job as their full-time job
- On an average, there is 20% less stress among virtual employees
- Operating costs are reduced by 70-80%
- Remote employees prefer to work remotely for their whole career
- India is among the top 2 countries for hiring Virtual Assistants
- 24% of virtual assistants work around 30-40 hours in a week.
Virtual Assistants – Future Workforce
Business should hire virtual assistants because:
- Virtual assistants can take care of things that you hate to do
- Virtual assistabts can take care of things which you can’t do on your own
- Virtual assistants can take care of things that you should not be doing.
Virtual Assistant industry will continue to play an important role in the development of businesses as it provides a 360 degree solution to entrepreneurs.
