Admin VAs are the easiest ones to hire for your business. You can even hire someone who doesn’t have prior experience. This is because Admin VA tasks vary based on the client’s nature of business, as well as the help they need. However, it can be a double-edged sword since it can be tricky and risky to hire someone completely new to the Admin VA role, or the Virtual Assistant ecosystem in general.
What you have to think as a business owner and manager is that the success of your Virtual Assistants depend on YOU! Whether your new team member is an experienced or inexperienced VA, your training will be their foundation. How you train your team members will dictate how you will empower them to be the best at what they will do within your organisation.
Having said all of these, within this article we will discuss how you can train and empower your Admin Virtual Assistant. This is to guide you and ensure that you are providing the best possible training experience to your new team member. Also, if you’re on the lookout for hiring a new or additional superstar VA within your team, and are needing help in doing it, then check out Global VA Solutions.
Global VA Solutions, or GVAS for short, will source, hire, onboard, and train your new team member. We make sure a VA has the right foundation before we deploy them to you. They currently offer a totally free consultation call to anyone who's interested in hiring a VA, but has a lot of questions.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business.
For starters, create an Excel sheet or a Google sheet, and name columns A, B, C, D, and E as Tasks, Status, Duration, Location, and Materials respectively.
Specify the Tasks
This is the most important step in training your Admin VA.
Why?
Primarily because your training plan will and should revolve around this. Your training plan should be purposeful, in the sense that it should already reflect the actual tasks that your VA will take over - maybe not all, but at least the relevant ones. On the sheet, under the column where it says “Tasks”, jot down specific tasks you think your Admin VA will be doing.
Consider this as your brain dump where you can just dump everything and anything you might think your VA will do in your business. After which, look at your brain dump sheet and decide which ones are the tasks you will be delegating once your VA comes onboard. Under the column which says “Status”, put “Yes” for the ones that you’ve decided to delegate, “Pending” if you’re planning to delegate the said tasks in the future, or “No” for those you will not be delegating at all.
Task Duration
Next, under the column which says “Duration”, decide how long it takes for the said task to be accomplished. Note that the duration you’ll be putting here should be based on how long they will be doing it when they’re already used to the task. We suggest you base it on how long you do it but add a few extra minutes, because pretty sure you do it way faster!
Task Location
Now under the “Location” column, here is where you enter which application or software your VA needs to use to do the task. It can be on a project management software like Asana, on Google Workspace, etc.
Training Materials
Finally, under the “Materials” column, indicate all the links to the materials needed to train your VA for that specific task. It can be a training video you’ve created for internal purposes, a YouTube video from another creator relating to that task or software, or it can also be a reading material you’ve written such as an Operations Manual.
It’s important to note though that when creating a training reading material, you have to put yourself inside the shoes of someone who doesn’t have an idea about that certain task. Use words and instructions that are easy to understand. It would be good to have an unlearned pair of eyes who can look at your document, and tell you if what you’ve written is easy to understand or otherwise. This way, you’ll be able to make the necessary amendments before you implement the said reading material as part of your training plan.
Training Plan
Once you have finalised and collated all the necessary training materials and data, it’s now time to create your training plan. Your training plan should indicate all the above information, as well as the training timeline.
You have to specify which topics will be learnt on which day or week. Moreover, you have to indicate how long the training will be, and if needed, how many weeks can the Admin VA extend their training period. Some employers implement a month-long training, and have a 2-week extension if needed. If the Admin VA is still not up to speed, or you’re still not satisfied with their performance despite the extension, then it’s your prerogative to either replace the VA or just extend the training again.
An assessment must also be included in your training plan. Your VA should take an assessment after each topic. This way you’ll be able to check your VA’s understanding. Here is where you’ll be able to gauge which parts they excel in, and which parts they struggle with.
The bottom line is that your training plan should include everything relevant with your Admin VA’s training phase. If somewhere along the way, you notice that you are missing a component in your training plan, or a step in your training plan is not effective or unnecessary, then you can make the changes accordingly.
Live Training
When conducting your VA’s training, you have to remember that everyone has their own learning styles. Some people are auditory, some are visual, some are kinesthetic, etc. With that said, no matter what your VA’s learning style is, it will be helpful if you could squeeze at least an hour or two per day to provide an actual live training.
Discuss everything you can discuss within that time. To make it efficient, we suggest that prior to your live training, you ask your VA to watch the video or read a document relating to the topic you will discuss. This way, once you go live, you can just ask your VA what they have learned from the materials, and if they have questions they need clarifications. You can also provide a live demo if the topic involves the usage of a certain application or software.
Feedback
Lastly, you can set a feedback meeting every end of the week. Here is where you can provide feedback with your VA’s performance thus far. Let them know if they've done a good job at a certain topic, and provide them constructive feedback for topics they struggled with.
At the same time, they can also provide feedback on what they thought about the training they underwent. Prepare yourself as their feedback might range from how the topics were presented, to how challenging they thought the topics were.
As mentioned previously, here at Global VA Solutions, we make sure to implement the aforementioned steps when training your new team member. Book your free consultation call now and take that first step in hiring your superstar VA.
Here Are Some Additional Resources
Get Expert Virtual Assistants: Want to build your team of transformational VAs and free your time? Learn more here.
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