Overseeing a company’s finances, operations, and general direction isn’t easy.
As an executive, your day-to-day will involve spinning several plates simultaneously, which can result in feeling overwhelmed and have a knock-on effect on productivity and job satisfaction.
According to a Deloitte survey, 40% of executives said they feel overwhelmed at their jobs, causing many executives to experience burnout.
A way to manage this is to hire help, which is where a virtual executive assistant comes in.
In short, a virtual executive assistant supports and works with high-level executives, business owners, or managers.
They’re highly organised, experienced, and ‘virtual’ as they work remotely instead of in an office. This means you can hire a virtual assistant from anywhere worldwide, including bustling business hubs such as London.
Now that you understand virtual executive assistants better, let’s break down what they do.
A virtual executive assistant is responsible for many tasks in their support of executives, business owners, and more.
They include, but are not limited to:
A task that virtual executive assistants take care of is inbox management.
Considering that ‘88% of people check emails daily, with 39% of people checking their inboxes three to five times a day’, emails can cause significant disruption to a busy executive’s day.
A virtual executive assistant will manage your inbox and learn your contacts and priorities, so you only need to deal with the messages that require your attention.
They can also forward emails to more appropriate contacts, organise emails for you to review later, and reply to ambiguous email inquiries on your behalf.
This frees up your work schedule and makes managing your inbox much easier.
A virtual executive assistant can also assist with event planning.
Corporate events, conferences, and networking events involve numerous logistics that virtual executive assistants can plan and oversee depending on your needs.
In the event planning process, an executive assistant’s role might include:
Once a virtual executive assistant is tasked with event planning or any other task, they are responsible for it from start to finish, providing you with the peace of mind that it is taken care of.
Meeting scheduling and management are among the main tasks of a virtual executive assistant.
Considering executives spend ‘nearly 23 hours a week in meetings’, scheduling them in addition to this costs them dearly, quickly eating into valuable time they could otherwise spend growing their businesses.
A virtual executive assistant can manage this by:
Having a virtual executive assistant organise and coordinate meetings smoothly allows executives to maximise their time in other areas that require their skills and attention more urgently.
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Virtual executive assistants will also take on organising travel arrangements in their role.
No matter the industry you work in, planning business trips is a time consuming process that executives simply do not have enough time for. This is where a virtual executive assistant steps in.
A virtual executive assistant will consider several details, from flight times to hotels to rental car agencies and plan your trip seamlessly and professionally.
Virtual executive assistants can also help you prepare for travel in several other ways, including completing documents for visa applications, researching currency exchanges, and arranging travel SIMs/roaming plans so you can easily use and work from your phone when abroad.
Even small mistakes can be costly in time and money, so having someone professional organise your travel arrangements is a significant help.
Lastly, virtual executive assistants can assist executives with personal tasks.
Life as an executive is busy, and personal tasks can quickly build up and contribute to the stress an executive feels daily.
Virtual executive assistants can handle online shopping, booking personal appointments such as haircuts, and household management tasks.
With this support, executives can better manage their children, homes, and even gardens.
In turn, virtual executive assistants help executives focus on what really matters in their lives during work hours and at home.
If you’re struggling to stay organised and on top of your role as an executive, a virtual executive assistant can be life-changing.
Virtual executive assistants are critical in enabling busy professionals to maximise their time and minimise non-business-critical tasks.
Executive assistants generally have a high level of education and often come from corporate backgrounds that give them a better understanding of what executives need on a day-to-day basis.
They thus provide vital organisation and support and allow you to prioritise and focus on what matters most.
At Virtual Assistant, Millie, we can help you manage everyday tasks, from travel coordination to event planning and inbox management, so you can focus on what you do best.
We have a handful of dedicated Virtual Assistants who can be matched with you based on the experience and skills you need.
Contact us today to concentrate on growing your business and leave the admin to the professionals.
