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Business managers may have many different reasons for hiring the services of a virtual assistant. Here are a few examples from tuki , endorsed by our clients:
1. You don’t have the need to employ a permanent member of staff, you just need someone as and when your business requires it, so flexibility is important.
“She is a godsend because I don’t need a full time secretarial service but she charges by the hour at a very reasonable rate which means that it’s not a drain on my finances and allows me to operate more efficiently.”
“It’s reassuring to know she is there for me when the pressure is on.”
2. Virtual Assistant’s may have skills that you don’t, plus it is important to manage your time and utilise your own skills to your best advantage and concentrate on what you do best.
“Vicci has Massively reduced my work-life pressures with her remarkable Executive Assistant efficiency, and Word wizardry.”
3. Many of my clients work alone and it can be useful to bounce ideas off a Virtual Assistant and come up with new and improved ways of doing things together.
“She knows and understands the intricacies of the coaching industry, and her professionalism shows through when the going gets tough”
“Fearless in turning her mind to new challenges and solving them in record time”
Please get in touch to find out how tuki could help you and your business.
At a recent work event, I found myself speaking to someone I hadn’t met before. He worked in a different field to me, so initiating a conversation took some effort on both our parts. We ended up talking about gaming, he told me that it was something he and his wife used to do, but since becoming parents, collapsing on the sofa in front of the TV was usually the most they could manage. I confessed to being capable of very little after 9pm except pouring a gin and tonic. We didn’t dwell on our families, but suddenly the conversation became easier. We worked in different sectors, at opposite ends of the country, and had a different family set up, but we’d found some common ground.
As working parents, there were certain challenges we both faced. In the context of that conversation it was that feeling of sheer exhaustion at the end of the day, but a lack of flexible childcare provision, rising childcare costs, and simply fitting it all in are hurdles that many of us face. Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that at the end of 2016, 81.3% of people of working age with dependent children were employed. That’s a whacking great 11 million working parents in the UK , making up over a third of the workforce. The number of households where both parents are working is rising, and the same is true of lone-parent households.
But despite the growing number of working parents, and the advances in technology that make mobile and flexible working possible, the system doesn’t seem to have caught up. It’s still considered the norm for a business to operate on a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 basis, and one only needs to visit a Business District in a city after 7pm to find proof. Of course, there are some businesses that have embraced flexible working, and sites such as www.workingmums.co.uk encourage employers to commit to developing a family-friendly working culture, and more importantly, to shout about it. But even where flexibility does exist within an organisation, the chances of finding childcare provision that’s both flexible and affordable enough to work alongside it are slim.
More and more people are turning to self-employment to find the flexibility they need to juggle their families and work. The level of self-employment in the UK rose from 3.8 million in 2008 to 4.6 million in 2015, continuing a trend from the early 2000’s. Of course self-employment comes with its own set of challenges, but for many (myself included), these are outweighed by the flexibility to work when and where it suits them. Whatever your thoughts on the term ‘mumpreneur’, it originated to describe a phenomenon – more and more women were choosing to take the risk of setting up their own business rather than return to their jobs after having children, often because it just wasn’t practical or affordable to go back once childcare and the demands of a young family were taken into account.
I made the decision to go back to being self-employed when my daughter started school. I’d envisioned things getting easier at that stage, and when they didn’t, it was a wake-up call that I needed to make a change. One of the main reasons my business partner and I founded tuki , was because we wanted to create something that was flexible for everyone – our clients, our team, and ourselves. We knew there were a lot of really great people out there that just needed a different option. Our Virtual Assistants can work when it suits them, whether it’s 5am before the rest of the house wakes up, during school hours, or as I’m writing this, while the kids are in a gymnastics class. So long as the client gets the results for when they need it, everyone’s happy.
Whatever your working scenario, you’re not alone. There’s an abundance of articles out there with tips on how to survive, and how to achieve the holy grail of a work-life balance. You only need to type ‘working parents’ into Twitter or LinkedIn to find a swathe of people giving an honest account off the challenges they face. Somewhere along the way it became acceptable to share our failings as well as our successes.
So what’s my top tip for working parents? Find the funny side. This usually happens when I share the details of my breakfast-throwing-door-slamming-tantrum-filled pre-work morning with another working parent and remember that it’s not just me - there are 11 million other working parents out there facing the same challenges every day.
As working parents, there were certain challenges we both faced. In the context of that conversation it was that feeling of sheer exhaustion at the end of the day, but a lack of flexible childcare provision, rising childcare costs, and simply fitting it all in are hurdles that many of us face. Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that at the end of 2016, 81.3% of people of working age with dependent children were employed. That’s a whacking great 11 million working parents in the UK , making up over a third of the workforce. The number of households where both parents are working is rising, and the same is true of lone-parent households.
But despite the growing number of working parents, and the advances in technology that make mobile and flexible working possible, the system doesn’t seem to have caught up. It’s still considered the norm for a business to operate on a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 basis, and one only needs to visit a Business District in a city after 7pm to find proof. Of course, there are some businesses that have embraced flexible working, and sites such as www.workingmums.co.uk encourage employers to commit to developing a family-friendly working culture, and more importantly, to shout about it. But even where flexibility does exist within an organisation, the chances of finding childcare provision that’s both flexible and affordable enough to work alongside it are slim.
More and more people are turning to self-employment to find the flexibility they need to juggle their families and work. The level of self-employment in the UK rose from 3.8 million in 2008 to 4.6 million in 2015, continuing a trend from the early 2000’s. Of course self-employment comes with its own set of challenges, but for many (myself included), these are outweighed by the flexibility to work when and where it suits them. Whatever your thoughts on the term ‘mumpreneur’, it originated to describe a phenomenon – more and more women were choosing to take the risk of setting up their own business rather than return to their jobs after having children, often because it just wasn’t practical or affordable to go back once childcare and the demands of a young family were taken into account.
I made the decision to go back to being self-employed when my daughter started school. I’d envisioned things getting easier at that stage, and when they didn’t, it was a wake-up call that I needed to make a change. One of the main reasons my business partner and I founded tuki , was because we wanted to create something that was flexible for everyone – our clients, our team, and ourselves. We knew there were a lot of really great people out there that just needed a different option. Our Virtual Assistants can work when it suits them, whether it’s 5am before the rest of the house wakes up, during school hours, or as I’m writing this, while the kids are in a gymnastics class. So long as the client gets the results for when they need it, everyone’s happy.
Whatever your working scenario, you’re not alone. There’s an abundance of articles out there with tips on how to survive, and how to achieve the holy grail of a work-life balance. You only need to type ‘working parents’ into Twitter or LinkedIn to find a swathe of people giving an honest account off the challenges they face. Somewhere along the way it became acceptable to share our failings as well as our successes.
So what’s my top tip for working parents? Find the funny side. This usually happens when I share the details of my breakfast-throwing-door-slamming-tantrum-filled pre-work morning with another working parent and remember that it’s not just me - there are 11 million other working parents out there facing the same challenges every day.
In today’s fast paced world, ‘multitasker’ is touted as a badge to be worn with pride, and competition in the field can be fierce - ‘What do you mean, you’ve only got 1 child and a full-time job? I’ve got 5 kids, 2 dogs, 3 companies, I’m training for a marathon and simultaneously learning to speak Japanese. And that’s just on Monday’s!’
For many small business owners, however, it can feel like a necessity. Whilst larger companies have the benefit of a department for everything from letter opening to marketing, in a small business one person wears many hats. Any given day can see you speaking to clients, sending out invoices, booking accommodation for a work trip, keeping your social media accounts up to date, and a hundred more tasks to boot, all at the same time as doing the work that brings in revenue. And that’s before taking into account the demands of family life, fitting in exercise, or keeping on top of ‘life admin’.
As neuroscientist Daniel J Levitin points out, multitasking can be hard to avoid:
“Thirty years ago, travel agents made our airline and rail reservations, salespeople helped us find what we were looking for in shops, and professional typis or secretaries helped busy people with their correspondence. Now we do most of those things ourselves. We are doing the jobs of 10 different people while still trying to keep up with our lives, our children and parents, our friends, our careers, our hobbies, and our
favourite TV shows.”
But are we really pulling off the balancing act? Garth Sundem, writing in Phsychology Today , pointed to research showing that 98% of us can’t multitask, or at least not well (despite what we might think). Some people, however, are brilliant at it. The ‘supertaskers’ that make up the other 2% don’t have a hidden stash of kryptonite or wear pants over their trousers, but they do have brains that are structured differently to the rest of us.
More alarmingly it seems that not only are most of us bad at it, multitasking is actually bad for our brains. Earl Miller, professor of neuroscience at MIT , says the urge to multitask is rooted back in prehistoric times, when quickly processing new information could be a matter of life or death. He gives the example of hearing a rustling in a nearby bush, indicating a tiger about to attack. But times have changed, and as Earl Miller sums up:
“In today’s modern society where our lives are rarely on the line, the ceaseless onslaught of information has the potential to cripple us. Our brains aren’t equipped to handle the sensory overload.”
If you’re worried that your multi-tasking tendencies are damaging your grey matter, why not get in touch with Vicci and Selina at tuki to talk about how we can help? tuki offers a range of virtual business support, all aimed at freeing up your time so that you can get on with running your business.
Selina Hewlett is a partner at www.tuki.co.uk
For many small business owners, however, it can feel like a necessity. Whilst larger companies have the benefit of a department for everything from letter opening to marketing, in a small business one person wears many hats. Any given day can see you speaking to clients, sending out invoices, booking accommodation for a work trip, keeping your social media accounts up to date, and a hundred more tasks to boot, all at the same time as doing the work that brings in revenue. And that’s before taking into account the demands of family life, fitting in exercise, or keeping on top of ‘life admin’.
As neuroscientist Daniel J Levitin points out, multitasking can be hard to avoid:
“Thirty years ago, travel agents made our airline and rail reservations, salespeople helped us find what we were looking for in shops, and professional typis or secretaries helped busy people with their correspondence. Now we do most of those things ourselves. We are doing the jobs of 10 different people while still trying to keep up with our lives, our children and parents, our friends, our careers, our hobbies, and our
favourite TV shows.”
But are we really pulling off the balancing act? Garth Sundem, writing in Phsychology Today , pointed to research showing that 98% of us can’t multitask, or at least not well (despite what we might think). Some people, however, are brilliant at it. The ‘supertaskers’ that make up the other 2% don’t have a hidden stash of kryptonite or wear pants over their trousers, but they do have brains that are structured differently to the rest of us.
More alarmingly it seems that not only are most of us bad at it, multitasking is actually bad for our brains. Earl Miller, professor of neuroscience at MIT , says the urge to multitask is rooted back in prehistoric times, when quickly processing new information could be a matter of life or death. He gives the example of hearing a rustling in a nearby bush, indicating a tiger about to attack. But times have changed, and as Earl Miller sums up:
“In today’s modern society where our lives are rarely on the line, the ceaseless onslaught of information has the potential to cripple us. Our brains aren’t equipped to handle the sensory overload.”
If you’re worried that your multi-tasking tendencies are damaging your grey matter, why not get in touch with Vicci and Selina at tuki to talk about how we can help? tuki offers a range of virtual business support, all aimed at freeing up your time so that you can get on with running your business.
Selina Hewlett is a partner at www.tuki.co.uk