A new option for covering Materity Leave

What do you do when your Administrator announces she's pregnant? Once the congratulations are over, you'll need to plan how best to cover her absence - this could be 6 weeks or anywhere up to 12 months.

If you have a large team, it may be possible to cover her work for a short period. You may consider hiring a full time Temp, but this can be expensive. Alternatively, you could hire a Virtual Assistant to cover maternity leave.

Virtual Assistants can cover most aspects of admin work remotely, and do just as good a job, if not better. There may be a few tasks that require a physical presence on-site, but that should be easily covered by others. People who have used VAs in this way have been pleasantly surprised - and in some cases, shocked - at how well it works.

The VA rate is slightly higher than a temp, but you only pay for their productive hours, making it cheaper overall. More revealing, is that using a VA tends to highlight just how much real and valuable work is actually being done and how much time this should take. For example, one client budgeted for £800 per month to cover 80% of their Administrator's tasks, with some local tasks being shared by co-workers. After 2 months they were surprised to learn that her work was being completed in less than half the time, and their retainer was adjusted to £350 per month to reflect that. They were also pleased that they "only had to ask once" and tasks were just completed without any hassle.

This shows just how much easily and cheaper it can be to hire an experienced VA - £350 per month for the work of a full time Administrator is exceptional value for money and begs a few questions too. If you are interested in the maths, I have prepared a VA Cost Comparison which is on our website.


For more ways to help you save time, money and hassle visit www.office-lifeline.co.uk