Are you ready to start the onboarding process with your new virtual assistant? Let’s make sure you get the most out of your experience.
If you’ve read the first and second articles in this series (NOTE: If you haven’t read them yet, I encourage you to!), you know what you must do. You have given some thought to who you want to hire and what they need to do, as well as set yourself up to provide them with what they need.
Now let’s talk about three more areas to focus on that will help you work well together: developing your onboarding process, creating SOPs (standard operating procedures), and giving feedback.
Onboarding Process for Your VA
Onboarding is not just for corporate roles. I mentioned in the previous article that while your virtual assistant may have experience, you are a brand-new entity to them. While VAs may seem to be magicians with your systems and software, we are not mind readers (yet!). Therefore, you must give them time to adjust to your operations and learn your business and working style.
Your VA will not automatically know what you want and how you want it done. Therefore, you’ll want to make sure your instructions are clear and again, don’t assume that your VA can do everything you want right away. Take the time to ensure that the VA you’ve partnered with is clear on what you’re asking them to do and how you’d like it done, as well as being available for any follow-up questions.
Of course, make sure you include providing access to any tools, accounts, and documents as part of your onboarding process. If you have any instructions written down, you’ll also want to provide those.
If you don’t have standard operating procedures yet, you can easily fix that.
Creating Standard Operating Procedures
One of the most important things you can do to onboard your virtual assistant quickly and efficiently is to create standard operating procedures.
These operational documents should outline every process, procedure, and task you want your VA to do. They should include clear instructions and screenshots or videos so that your VA knows exactly what is expected of them from the start.
If you don’t have these, this can be an excellent project for your VA to start. As you assign tasks, they can document the procedures and make them easier for you to reference in the future.
This is vital to your business’s long-term success because your business should never depend on you and you alone. What if you get sick, want to take an extended vacation, or need to onboard a new VA? With standard operating procedures, you won’t have to worry.
Giving Feedback
Providing feedback on something that you’re not happy about can be one of the hardest things to do, yet it’s also one of the most important. It may be new for you, and it can be tricky. However, your virtual assistant doesn’t know what they don’t know, and the problem likely will not correct itself.
This is why it is so important to find someone you feel comfortable with because you will need to have these sorts of conversations. However, approaching it by focusing on the solution is the best way to go, and it will help ensure the relationship is healthy.
When you provide feedback, ensure you’re honest and kind. This can be hard to do when you are frustrated, but it must happen. A frank, professional conversation can minimize issues before they fester and get worse. It is always worth giving feedback.
Get Ready to Start Delegating!
These are just a few tips to help you start on the right foot with your new virtual assistant. You can maximize their potential and get more done with realistic expectations, clear communication, and training! Get ready to start delegating tasks today!
Please book a call here to discuss how Online-EA can help you! We’d be happy to meet with you.