Professional development is important for everyone. A Virtual Assistant should be continually updating their knowledge. It’s important that they stay on top of the latest developments in software and processed relating to the services they provide. They should also be continually learning new programs and processes that will allow them to provide new services. As is the case with all freelancer, these costs are borne by the Virtual Assistant.
As an aside, professional development costs are a part of the reason for the fees we charge. Our fees also have to cover:
- Education and other professional development
- Office costs (phone, electricity, consumables)
- Hardware updates
- Software updates
- Industry groups
- Insurance
- Leave
I’m sure there’s other things that I haven’t thought of, but that gives you an idea. Basically, the same costs you have in your business, we have in ours.
Back on track… I’m really just talking about professional development here. There are many ways your Virtual Assistant can be educating themselves including:
- a degree course
- private learning
- short courses
- industry courses
- online courses
- networking
- trade shows
- reading
- internet research
These are all things that a Virtual Assistant should be doing regularly. Although they may not be doing all of them, they will probably be doing most at some time or other. It’s a good idea not to get too caught up in one type of study, but it’s also important not to get too broad a focus that you never learn anything in depth. All that means that your Virtual Assistant is continually learning and researching in order to keep their services at the highest possible level.
However, if you use any industry specific software, it may be worth your while to pay your Virtual Assistant to spend some time familiarising themselves with it. If possible, consider sending them to a training course to get the most out of the software. If you would organise training for an internal staff member doing the same work to training – you should do the same for your Virtual Assistant.
