7 Important Statistics around Virtual Personal Assistants

Virtual personal assistants are having a huge moment. And we’re here for it.

From the side of the entrepreneur or business, who wouldn’t want a totally-efficient, totally-affordable employee who self-manages from an office that doesn’t cost a thing?

Someone who’s super-skilled and keen to work, managing tasks at a lightning speed usually reserved for superheroes.

More businesses are now looking for flexible admin support, on-demand executive assistants and business support without recruitment, rather than committing to expensive full-time hires.

Then you have the personal assistant perspective. How do you like the sound of flexible working, often from home, around childcare, hobbies or just a wanderlust lifestyle?

Sometimes working remotely just makes more sense.

Which leads us to the fact that whether you’re looking to hire a virtual personal assistant, dedicated virtual assistant in the UK, or wanting to become one, it’s a market that’s ripe for the taking (and hugely beneficial to all involved).

Let’s take a look at the market so far with these statistics around hiring a virtual personal assistant.

1. Half of the UK workforce will want to work remotely by 2020. (Intuit).

It’s not all lazy days and dodging conference calls; the call for working remotely is huge.

So huge in fact, that Intuit predicts that half of the UK will want to work from home, or another location of their choice, in the next couple of years.

What can you do to fit into this trend?

If you’re an employer it may be time to consider what a distributed workforce looks like, or how you can get the most out of your employees by granting them more freedom to choose their working space.

Increasingly, this includes building teams around remote executive assistant support, digital-first EA services and flexible working models.

If you’re looking to work remotely, then this post has got some great tips on how to go about it.

2. Remote workers rate their productivity as 7.7/10, compared to office workers who only rate themselves 6.5/10. (Autotime).

If your biggest concern about a virtual personal assistant, or another remote employee, is that they won’t get much done, it’s time to reconsider.

Giving a little trust early on could help you to see how much more productive a remote PA could be.

There are also plenty of tools and processes you can use to ensure that time is being spent in the right way, especially with today’s AI-enabled executive assistant tools, automation and EA support systems, and other productivity-focused technology.

3. 90% of remote workers plan on working remotely for the rest of their careers, and 94% encourage others to give remote jobs a shot. (Buffer).

Many employers have known the pain of a well-valued employee going freelance due to a desire to work from home.

This shows that a remote working setup is often long-coveted and once someone gets it, there’s often no going back.

Rather than being scared of a future where most people want to work remotely, it’s a good opportunity to embrace new ways of working that might suit our ecosystem much more than generations past.

For businesses, that could mean exploring flexible team support services, part-time EA support without employment, or pay-as-you-go EA support instead of traditional hiring structures.

4. In 2016 personal assistants held an average of 1.27 jobs per year. (Skills for Care).

Which means that most in-house PAs are changing their job more than once every year.

High staff turnover has an effect on the company bottom line and can be bad for morale.

This is where a virtual personal assistant service is of benefit.

The CEO of Hubstaff suggests that remote employees “stay longer, work harder and offer better ROI” than in-house employees.

If you don’t want to have to consistently rehire a PA, a consistent EA support service or long-term virtual assistant could be the way to go.

Having the same assistant every time also creates stronger working relationships and more reliable support.

5. In 2017, 82% of employers either experienced some difficulties or did not find it easy to hire a PA. (Skills for Care).

This is one of the exact reasons why we created Hive Minds.

Hiring a personal assistant, remote or otherwise, should be achievable for anyone who wants to delegate and free up their time to lead a more rewarding home and work life.

If it’s this difficult for employers to hire, then we really need to be looking towards options outside of traditional recruitment.

That’s why more businesses are searching for:

• Alternative solutions to hiring an assistant

• Outsourced admin support

• No contract virtual assistant services

• Premium virtual assistant UK providers

rather than relying solely on recruitment agencies.

6. There was an estimated 3.9 million secretaries and admin assistants in the US in 2016. (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Showing that this is an industry that isn’t going anywhere.

It’s difficult to find verified statistics for just how many remote personal assistants there are compared to non-remote, however there are more than 5000 virtual assistants listed on sites such as Upwork, and even more on general sites such as People Per Hour and Guru.

Suggesting that the only difficult part may be finding the right one.

This is where a curated assistant service or managed EA support provider can make all the difference, helping businesses avoid the inconsistency often associated with freelancer marketplaces.

(See how we can help.)

7. 61% of Americans check email while on vacation (eROI) and 53% of employees would opt for a personal assistant rather than a personal trainer (Circles).

We’re still in a huge deficit where we’re working longer and harder than ever, including while on holiday.

If we’re to redress the balance, without losing our productivity, then outsourcing to remote personal assistants and other virtual staff members is only going to become more useful.

Whether that’s help with business admin in the UK, executive support for entrepreneurs, or simply someone to take repetitive tasks off your plate, the value of flexible support is becoming harder to ignore.

The future of work is flexible

The way we work is changing fast.

More businesses want:

• Scalable admin support

• Outcome-based admin support

• Project-based EA support

• Flexible business support that grows with them

without the cost and complexity of permanent hiring.

At the same time, more professionals are looking for remote, flexible careers that fit around real life.

Virtual assistants sit right at the centre of both trends.

To harness the right remote personal assistant for you, take a look at what Hive Minds can offer.