The global market is getting more competitive by the hour and the ferocious competition has companies scrambling to find an edge. The cost of in-house on-premise employees has been rising continuously and making it impractical to maintain a brick-and-mortar office-based workforce. Here’s what you need to know about the costs of hiring a virtual employee and why it’s a more attractive option.
The High Cost of On-Premise Employees
While many business owners pride themselves on keeping their staffing in-house and maintaining their own office-based workforce. While noble to an extent, the added costs of maintaining a traditional workforce often outweigh the benefits.
Think about it, each and every employee that requires insurance, benefits, and a salary represents a significant expense. When comparing the costs of in-house workers and virtual employees the latter wins hands down every time.
Below you will find some of the most significant factors to consider when comparing the cost of a traditional workforce and virtual employees.
Hiring Costs
When looking at the costs between hiring an in-house employee and a virtual one, there are both differences and similarities. Most routine hiring costs will apply to both such as placing ads for the jobs etc.
One thing to keep in mind is that there’s been an increase in companies using staffing automation. Considering the average cost of training, virtual employees still tend to beat their traditional counterparts in cost.
Duration of the Work
One of the first things to think about when weighing these costs is how long you will be needing any particular type of work done. If you have projects that are sporadic and won’t sustain full-time or part-time work, hiring virtual employees will be the most cost-effective option.
When you hire virtual employees, you can do so on a per-project basis rather than having to take someone on and then lay them off.
The Costs of Communication Systems
One cost that you may incur when hiring virtual employees is what you’ll spend on communications systems. However, when you compare the cost of insurance on an office-based workforce, virtual employees win again in terms of cost-efficiency.
When examining other costs, any expense on communications systems seems trivial in comparison. Also remember, in most cases, you won’t need a particularly expensive communication system. There are plenty of great free or otherwise inexpensive options for effective communication with virtual teams.
For example, Zoom, Skype, and Google Hangouts are all great options for businesses to use when communicating with their virtual employees.
Which One Offers Lower Operating Costs
Operating costs are one of the most important expenses to consider when comparing the potential of virtual and office-based employees.
Virtual Employees Don’t Lose Time on Commutes
Another great advantage that virtual employees have over traditional workers is that they can’t lose any time commuting. When you have office-based workers that have to be at the office at a certain time, the commute is a loss in terms of time that could have been spent more productively.
All a virtual employee has to do is wake up and log in. That means they can work longer and start earlier, covering more ground for less money.
Cost Comparison of Skills and Experience
If there’s one area where virtual workers have office-based workers totally beat is on the cost comparison in terms of skills and experience.
You can hire a foreigner with software engineering experience for markedly less than most in the United States or Western Europe. Someone with the exact same skills s someone based in India, for example, costs remarkably less than someone of equal skill in the U.S.
While there are strong interests in the U.S. vying to persuade the business community that the skills of an American worker are worth more than those of anyone based overseas. The accuracy of their claims is greatly varied as there are many positions that can be filled virtually with little or no detriment in terms of quality of service.
Skilled Virtual Workers Offer More Productivity
Skilled employees can be found both in-person and remotely, however, a skilled virtual worker is often more productive than one that’s office-based. Even if the latter is also skilled, the former still beats them on cost-efficiency and productivity.
Many virtual workers are willing to work longer hours for less pay while delivering similar or superior levels of productivity as any office-based worker.
Deliver Effective 24/7 Service with Virtual Employees
Virtual workers in different time zones are key assets in that they can perform customer service duties when office-based workers onshore won’t be working. Getting someone in the U.S. to fill a 4:00 am shift can be difficult. With so many virtual employees working from different time zones you can easily patch together a network that can provide 24/7 customer service.
Better yet, as long as you partner with skilled virtual workers that you can rely on, your 24/7 customer service will be effective. One of the biggest challenges for businesses trying to provide 24/7 customer service has been having employees that cannot communicate effectively or relate with customers.
By offering effective 24/7 customer service enabled by your network of virtual workers, you will have a significant advantage over your less progressive competitors.
The Cost of Quality
The single most important factor to consider is the cost of quality or rather the lack thereof. Whether you’re hiring an office-based or virtual worker, you can’t afford to compromise on quality.
Evaluating the potential quality a candidate has to offer requires considering several factors together including their, rate, skills, and experience.
For the most part, virtual workers have a higher chance of winning in all three categories. That’s because so many of them are highly qualified and capable of beating their counterparts on price several times over.
Most cost-effective Way to Select Virtual Workers
Posting ads and searching through the vast seas of virtual workers on your own costs significantly more time and money than when you work with a company like Myworkers.
One of the strongest advantages of working with companies like Myworkers is that they have brought the most talented virtual workers under one roof making them easy to access. We offer real-time tracking hour tracking and the best virtual assistance for the cost.
Another competitive advantage is how simple we make the entire process of hiring virtual workers. The entire process from start to finish consists of hiring a worker, coaching them, and ultimately growing your business.
Some of our clients have seen their revenues grow tenfold in as little as a single month of sourcing virtual talent with Myworkers.
We offer U.S. based customer support and rates starting at $7.95 an hour. Simply tell us your needs and we’ll produce the most suitable and talented virtual professionals for your business needs.
Why Choose myworkers
Myworkers has been giving virtual workers a good name for years by offering only the best for employment. Businesses who want to cut costs and boost productivity get the best of both when they choose Myworkers. Quality, Expertise, and competitive pricing, we have it all, see for yourself. We have the talent you need for the price you’ll love.
Get started today and start revolutionizing your workforce and enjoying more for less!