As
discussed on the Our Process page, Virtual Assistant Inc places a great deal of
importance in the competency and personal accountability of our virtual
assistants. Although we have one of the most stringent pre-employment
screening processes, competency and personal accountability is difficult to
verify without an effective system of checks and balances in place. This
is not about a lack of trust in our VAs, it’s about assuring the high standard
of job performance.
Extensive Pre-Screening
Our
extensive pre-hire screening process includes pre-hire training, personal interviews, and background
checks that include verification of educational achievements and references. Even with all of these
safeguards, it may still be possible for a less-than-ideal individual to “slip
through the cracks”. At Virtual Assistant Inc, our constant management oversight coupled with
the use of highly sophisticated and efficient computer monitoring/reporting
software helps us to identify potential personnel issues long before they
impact your business.
What Has Happened in the Past Without Monitoring Software?
One of
the reasons we use this tool is because numerous studies and company surveys
have revealed how extensive the problems of lost productivity and theft of
intellectual property is. Some examples:
A 2005 joint survey conducted by AOL and Salary.com revealed that
employers waste nearly $760 billion a year paying employees who surf the
web on company time.
Another 2005 study by Advertising Age magazine reported that U.S.
workers spent the equivalent of 551,000 years reading non-work related
blogs. Yes, you read that correctly,
551,000 years of wasted time just on blogs!
A recent gathering of European Chief Information Security Officers
report that one of their primary IT concerns in 2008 is the large number of
employees visiting social networking sites for non-work related reasons. They estimate that between 15% and 20% of
company bandwidth is being taken up by social networking websites.
In 2004, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that two thirds of British
professionals admitted to stealing commercially sensitive documents and data
when they left a company.
It’s not hard to imagine how many more millions of hours of company time are
wasted when employees shop online for DVDs, airfare deals, clothing and eBay
merchandise. All of this has led employers to take action to protect
themselves. According to a 2005 survey from the American Management
Association and the ePolicy Institute, over three quarters of companies monitor
employees' Internet use. Security issues can be just as important as
wasting time; Internet surfing on inappropriate websites can infect company
documents and emails with viruses, Trojans, etc.
Left unmonitored, many employees feel free to
engage in such unproductive activities such as using the Internet for personal
use (including email), conducting personal business (phone calls, banking,
applying for jobs), socializing with co-workers and daydreaming.
How We Deliver Productivity
At Virtual Assistant Inc, we take several proactive steps to ensure our VAs
never step out of bounds:
All of our
VAs must complete a rigorous pre-hire process that includes testing
All of our
VAs must read and sign a Confidentially Agreement for each client
All of our
VAs must read, comprehend and sign an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)
We conduct
Customer Satisfaction Surveys to ensure our standards and yours are being
met
We use the finest monitoring software available. This software is a
useful tool to help enforce our policies. Company policies are just mere
words without effective tools to enforce them. It also allows us to
monitor our VAs' progress to make sure you’re getting the quality services
you’re paying for. This highly effective monitoring software protects our
clients from paying for unproductive VAs, the leaking of confidential
information and any other inappropriate activities. We also practice
on-site physical security to protect your work by using security guards,
webcams and finger print entry at our offices. We protect your
intellectual property as if it were our own.
We Are Accountable
This
cutting edge software lets our managers monitor and record:
Websites visited
Keystrokes typed
Applications run
Documents printed
Files transferred
Emails sent and received
Instant messaging/chats
Again,
this is not about spying or a lack of trust in our virtual assistants.
It’s about eliminating doubt for our clients through an effective and reliable
system of accountability. You are using virtual assistants to save you money,
not waste it. Because we have American management, we have the experience
and technical resources that most emerging countries don’t have. We put
these systems into place to protect both the client and our virtual
assistants. Monitoring software eliminates arguments and confusion
because there is documentation of evidence available, not he said/she said
situations. Our goal is not just to earn your trust; it’s to put in an
effective system of checks and balances to maintain your trust and give you a
comfort level second to none.
How It Works 
As
discussed on the Our Process page, Virtual Assistant Inc places a great deal of
importance in the competency and personal accountability of our virtual
assistants. Although we have one of the most stringent pre-employment
screening processes, competency and personal accountability is difficult to
verify without an effective system of checks and balances in place. This
is not about a lack of trust in our VAs, it’s about assuring the high standard
of job performance.
