Episode 266 transcript
Today I’m deep diving into the pros and cons of an employed executive assistant versus a virtual executive assistant. So if you’re thinking about diving into either, you’ve wondered what that difference is, you don’t know how to figure out yourself, then this week’s episode is for you. Hi, Emma Mills here, and welcome to episode 266 of Mi TV, which is quite a practical episode, I think this week because I’m going to dive into what are the actual differences between employing an exec assistant and getting a virtual exec assistant? And it was triggered, like most of Mi TVs, by a question that I was asked on Facebook the other week. Like, what is the difference between people paying you an hourly rate, a higher hourly rate than an employed hourly rate? Like, what is the actual difference?
So I thought, let’s just get this, like, boshed off for good and go through it in this episode. And I just want to super clarify that in this episode, I am comparing an employed executive assistant, so someone shit hot, good at getting stuff done and managing you and moving things forward with a virtual executive assistant, which is what we provide at MiPA. I’m not comparing here admin assistants, like general Vas. I mean, admin assistants, we can get in so many different places, apprenticeships in different places around the world, part time in Facebook groups, like getting somebody to do things that you have given them to do task by task is easy.
For the purpose of this episode, I’m comparing really great executive assistants that are going to take the initiative and move things forward, either employed or virtual. So here we go. Okay, so I’m going to go through the key things to bear in mind from employed to virtual. So, number one, location. It goes without saying that if you are employing someone local to you, whether that’s in the middle of the country, in the countryside, like wherever it is, your location, dictates the talent pool. So if you’re in central London, talent Pool’s gonna be much bigger and wider. But for some, for lots of business owners, that location bit is quite key because it’s gonna drastically decrease what you’ve got access to. So you are limited geographically with a virtual executive assistant. The talent pool there is naturally much wider.
Now, we are based in Manchester, but we do actually have some of our team who work remotely because they’ve got fantastic skill sets and we wanted them to be part of our team. The majority are in the office in Manchester, which is a big place to recruit from. And because we have scale of the number of executive assistants that we’ve got, employed in the office, we naturally have lots of different personalities, skill sets and expertise across the 1214 people in our employed PA team. So we’ve got breadth of experience, expertise, rather than just the one individual. So just in terms of location, it makes a difference.
If you’ve ever tried to recruit anyone before, you’ll know what a roller coaster that can be of the people that you get through and trying to filter through everything, what they say, the interview process to get the right person. And so obviously, when you’re employing just one person, you kind of what you’ve got in that package is what you’ve got. Whereas with a virtual executive assistant, you’ve generally got their skillset plus the skillset at the team behind them. Productivity. Now this is a juicy one. If you. I am not making any of these stats up. And if you google how productive is an employee every single day, there have been so many studies done and ultimately they all average out around the same, that somebody who works 8 hours a day is actually productive for around 2 hours, 53 minutes, 3 hours. Let’s call it 3 hours for ease. So 3 hours out of an eight hour day is actually pure productive. Like needle moving, like proper work getting done. That’s not a great deal. It leaves 5 hours. So if, for example, your employed executive assistant could take that like that is the average they’re productive for that amount of time per day. What is happening in the other 5 hours?
Now, I know I’ve had the situation before where I’ve employed somebody, and that stress of not giving this was back in the early days. Not giving them enough to do, not having enough to do, making up work, thinking what they can do next, like that is a stress in itself. So understanding that they have enough for the 8 hours that they are productive for only three of them, what the heck are they doing in the other five? Do I need to find things to do? What? Like what do know? What can I give them next is a time drain in itself. But if I flip that and go, okay, well, if we just have the three productive hours from a virtual executive assistant, that’s around 60 hours per month of getting really, really good stuff done. And if we keep those figures in mind of having just 3 hours of an employed person, but the other 5 hours you’re still paying for, and then if we look at just getting through 3 hours at a higher rate from a virtual executive assistant, and we’ll just flip on to the next one, which is how much do we pay them? Because the two things together really, really are eye opening the salary of a proper executive assistant is not to be sniffed at. And if I just look at some, when I looked at it this morning, like Glassdoor says, the average exec assistant in the UK is paid 42,318 pounds. On indeed, it was a bit lower.
The average is paid 35,809. If I googled that alone, for the area of London, the average exec assistant is paid 50,000 pounds. So these are not small salaries, but just a reminder that here I am talking about getting a right hand person that can move stuff forwards, get things done, doesn’t have to be spoon fed everything. So if I take the indeed figure, which was at the lower end of the scale, it was 35,809 pounds. Pounds. Now, we’re bearing in mind that they are productive for. Properly productive for around about 3 hours a day. But we know that the salary of 35, let’s call it 36,000, we know that that salary isn’t where it stops. And on average, to employ somebody, it’s generally 1.3 to 1.7 times more than their salary. So in total. So this is factoring in time taken to recruit, manage, motivate on a daily basis. Laptop, space, utilities, just everything that goes around, sick days, holiday pay and potentially maternity. But that’s not in that everything that goes around having somebody, it’s 1.7 times the salary.
So if I take the basic of 36,000 for an executive assistant, that actually becomes 61,000 pounds that it costs to actually keep, manage, motivate and maintain, do everything that an employee has now, their pension contributions, everything, that’s where it gets to. I mean, it’s a lot. It’s a lot for anybody to take into their business as a. As a, you know, as a cost and to keep them busy and productive. However, if I flip to a virtual executive assistant and I just focus on 3 hours a day of being really productive. So if I take Mi PA as an example, if you had 3 hours a day from us, which is a big package, like I said, it’s a lot to get done. Our average hourly rate for that is 33 pounds an hour. If I take the 3 hours a day for the month, it’s 60 hours. At our average rate of 33 pounds, that comes to. And I’m just looking down because I need to remember the numbers, it comes to 23,760 pounds. So I’ve got somebody that I can create the relationship with.
They are going to manage most of the push me forwards. We’re going to get some chunky stuff done because 3 hours a lot is a lot. Every single day to be working with somebody and for them to be outputting and then I don’t have to be thinking about keeping them busy all of the time. They’ve got specific things to do. But if I compare the two amounts of 3 hours of really good focus work from somebody that’s really great is 24,000 pounds a year. And then taking on that commitment that I have to find, recruit, manage, motivate, interview is 36,000 pounds as the lower end. And then times in that by 1.7, I’m getting 61,000 pounds. It’s a lot. So you can see the difference between the two. The virtual executive assistant gives you a lot more maneuverability.
You still stay nimble, you’ve got, still got somebody that you is like serving you and helping you, but isn’t somebody you have to take responsibly for. And if I loop that in with flexibility, your employed executive assistant is on 40 hours a week. Obviously you’re having to also manage and maintain holidays and sick and everything else that comes with that. With a virtual executive assistant and at MiPA, it may well be that you don’t need that 3 hours a day. Come December, maybe December is a quieter time and you just want to commit to an hour a day. Maybe in summer it’s much busier and you want to schedule scale up, maybe February, it’s 2 hours a day. So you have that flexibility and scalability of having the support when, when you need it and not having that commitment in your cash flow of a salary that is going to be there no matter what is happening in the demand of the business.
So the flexibility part of it is massive, because with us, and to be fair, with most virtual assistants, you can scale that need up and down as you need it. Just looking at skill set, when you are recruiting for an employed executive assistant, they are going to be really high quality people that you are interviewing and want to add into your team. But again, they will have a very specific skill set. When you have a virtual assistant, most often you will have somebody that is supporting you, but you have access to a much wider range of team, with expertise, with different skill sets. You have a much wider range there to go at, as opposed to limiting to the skillsets of one particular person. And if I factor that in with holiday cover as well, of course, if you have somebody employed when they go on holiday, you will be looking after yourself from an executive assistant perspective.
And yet with ourselves and with lots of virtual assistant businesses, when your virtual assistant is on when your virtual exec assistant is on holiday, well, then we’re able to pick up that work with other members of our team. The resources there, the process is there to be able to carry that on without you having to think twice about it. And that for me, that continuity of getting support, without me having to create the processes, without me having to manage and motivate and train somebody else is just absolutely priceless. That’s one of my favorite parts of the difference between and why I think the virtual assistant industry is so bloody great, because it just gives business owners such flexibility. So the holiday code thing is a really big part of it. And now I will say though, on communication, there is something to be said for having somebody at your side and talking to them. And like for me, that is the one where having somebody employed is a tick in the box.
Like, we all love community, we love relationships, we love to be, to have that, that feeling of we’re doing this together and that having that somebody in your office, in your location, it’s really great. And I love that as well. That’s why I have MiPA as an office based business, so that we can build community and culture, but with most virtual assistants also. So with our business, we provide you with a dedicated PA so you can build the relationship, you can build that conversation around what happened at the weekend, what your goals are, how we’re going to help move you forward. And obviously Zoom and video, it makes that all so much easier. But I’m not going to be completely biased. I will say that having somebody employed, yeah, I love it as well. I love having that kind of connection and we’re doing this together.
The connection can be built the same, but I get the physicality of it. And so for me, these, these comparisons of the location of the PA, the product here in the day salary, true cost of what that salary is, the skill set available from having just one person, to having a team flexibility of having the support, having a fixed salary, to being able to scale up and down my service holiday cover, and then just having that communication. For me, those are the key parts that I look at when I think about the differences between the two different kinds of support and, and employing somebody myself. And I just thought that might be really helpful for you today. Wherever you’re seeing this, I will put the one pager with the episode. And so we just got the really clear table so you can see for yourself the things to consider and what that might look like, because getting support can be a really scary thought for lots of people. Some people just can’t wait for it because they want to offload all the tasks. And for others, it’s a bit more tricky, that thought process, to go through it. So I hope today’s episode 266 helps give you some clarity around the costs involved, the differences between them, and then ultimately, what is the right decision for you. I hope this helps you to get your head out of the dirt and into the clouds. And I will see you next week for episode 267. See you then. Bye.
