When the pandemic hit, Karen Zachary decided she no longer wanted to be in an office or crowded into a commuter train. Instead, the project manager and event planner with more than two decades of experience under her belt set up shop at home – opening Anchor Virtual Assistants.

And, she adds, she wasn’t the only one to have the same revelation, after so many office jobs went remote last year.

“A lot of experienced admins have had it with a boring view and a long commute,” Zachary says. “There are really talented admins saying, ‘I can do this same work at home with a cat on my lap and actually make more money.’”

Worldwide, there are 1 million people who work as virtual assistants, and experts predict that the figure will grow to 2.3 million over the next few years, according to MyOutDesk, a virtual assistant company.

For businesses, many of which are struggling to fill open positions, the prospect of taking on one or many virtual assistants to complete work on an as-needed basis has become very attractive. Hiring a virtual assistant rather than a full-time employee can save a company up to 78% in operating costs a year, according to Entrepreneur.com. Many companies choose virtual assistants from overseas where labor costs are lower, but even stateside VAs can bring savings, since they’re not adding to in-office overhead.

“It’s a cost-effective way to get help without being on the hook for payroll taxes and workman’s comp,” says Kim Bulinsky, owner/founder of KB Virtual Assistant Services. “We’re independent contractors. We do our own thing.”

Bulinsky opened her virtual assistant firm in 2019, after spending more than a decade in the promo products industry, working at Top 40 firms like Vantage Apparel (asi/93390) and Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125). “September 2019 is when I really started, and it’s been exploding ever since,” Bulinsky says.

Though there are benefits to contracting out various tasks to virtual employees like Bulinsky and Zachary, there are many things to consider before taking that step. Try these strategies to ensure a smooth, mutually beneficial experience.

1. Clean up and formalize your business processes. “You have to have processes in place so that someone can follow them,” says Amanda Corey, president/owner of From the Desktop, a company that provides virtual assistance, bookkeeping and consulting for the promotional products industry. “You have to get control of your own house before you can invite someone into the chaos.” Ideally, that means writing clear and thorough standard operating procedures that will be easy for an outsider to follow.

“Make a checklist and idiot-proof it,” Corey adds. “When you’re virtual, the process has to be good, and it has to be online. It can’t be a checklist in your head.”

2. Figure out what kind of help you need. Certain workers, like employees stocking the warehouse or running a screen-printing press, need to be physically present. For just about every other position, whether it’s administrative work, sales and lead generation, or marketing and social media, a virtual assistant is worth considering, according to Laith Masarweh, CEO of Assistantly. Masarweh’s company has also found a niche sourcing what he calls “unicorns” – virtual assistants with an uncommon or highly targeted skillset – whether that’s an experienced research analyst, a game-tester or even a fluent Mandarin speaker.

Bulinsky suggests making a list of the tasks that take the most time and “suck all your energy out” and seeking a virtual assistant to take over. For instance, a distributor might come up with a presentation for a golf tournament, but outsource “the tedious part,” like checking stock, lead times and pricing, to Bulinsky. “Some people love coming up with the ideas, but all the other stuff they don’t want to do,” she adds.

3. Look for specialists, not generalists. When it comes to hiring virtual assistants, it’s better to look for ones who are skilled in a certain area, even if that means you have to hire multiple VAs for various tasks at your company, according to Sam Kabert, owner of SwagWorx, a distributorship in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Clone Yourself, a consultancy that helps companies figure out how to scale their business with VAs. “You don’t want someone who’s a jack-of-all-trades,” Kabert says. “The reason employees become jacks-of-all-trades is to justify the hours of their salary. With a VA, you don’t need to commit to any specific amount of hours per day or week.”

4. Vet your virtual assistants. “I’ve heard some horror stories of people hiring overseas and it doesn’t work out,” Corey says. “That’s the risk you run into when you hire people you don’t know. The easiest thing is to hire someone local that you know and they could be virtual.” Barring that, it’s best to treat bringing on a VA the same way you would hire a new employee, by checking references and resumes and doing other legwork to make sure they can deliver what they offer. Bulinsky will set up a 30-minute discovery call before signing with a client to make sure it’s a good fit. Assistantly offers prospective clients a free week of VA services to test the waters before committing, according to Masarweh.

5. Manage your expectations. “A lot of people think of virtual assistants as if they’re magical elves that are just going to get work done,” Kabert says. But that’s not the way it works. Businesses need to be clear about what they’re looking for in a VA and take the time to train them properly, just as they would (or should) be doing with a traditional employee. Kabert recommends giving VAs “bite-size chunks” of bigger projects at first so as not to overwhelm them. Start with objective tasks with no room for interpretation. “Make it easy on them and you,” he adds.