Assistant

stphnstevey

I'm a contractor working through a limited company.

I setup and run clinical trials of new drugs and devices with nurses and doctors at hospitals for pharmaceutical companies looking to eventually market that product. I visit hospitals around the country, monitor the data collected, ensure they are doing things correctly and write a comprehensive report of what I find. I also assist the sites remotely by phone and email with questions as well as keep the pharmaceutical companies up dated with progress

I call myself a 'glorified secretary' as alot of my work is admin based and I am surgically attached to my computer. Although it would take a little training, some work is just admin

I work hard and have never been without work. For the past year I have taken on as much work as I can cope with and have been inundated with work

But I have reached a ceiling were I can't physically take on anymore work

My wife has helped were she can, but she has a full time job it 'tests' our relationship!

I feel a little chicken and egg, as the work needed would take some training, but by the time taken to train someone I could have done it myself, but then if I train someone once, they could do it again and again

There are several very large companies that hire out resource to pharmaceutical companies to do what I do and must have started off in a similiar situation

So basically I want to do what I do, but for more people!

I don't know where to start really though (or seem to have the time!, which I know is ironic). I have considered an internet based assistant?

TBagpuss

So, you want to employ someone as an assistant?

I think taking on a new employee there is always a cost , (salary, NI, training etc) and this comes first, so there is a lag before you start to see any benefits from the extra work they are able to do.

I assumethat the doctors etc use your limited company, not you personally, so you would not need their consent to take on someone new, but double check, and if the work involves liaising with them then factor in time to meet with them to introduce the new person, too.

You might want to start with someone part time so you can gaugue how much extra work there is. Bear in mind hat you will need to allow some tome for supervision and for dealing with the additional admin of having an employee other than yourself.

Is there a quieter time of the month/year when it would be easier for you to make the time to train someone without putting too much extra pressure on yourself?

InsideInsurance

You obviously have a number of choices... you can take on a basic assistant to do grunt work that you leave at that level, you could take on a junior person who starts off mainly doing grunt work but you are training up or you could take on a fully experienced person.

In part you'd need to check your existing contracts, I am guessing they have the normal substitution clauses as all IR35 avoiding contracts do but you'd also need to check that they clients are actually happy with substitutions being made as often these clauses are lip service.

You then need to work out if you can generate enough additional business to pay the cost of this extra person/ people. Being a vSME with just one or two employees you are going to be massively more sensitive to sickness and staff holidays etc as they being perms arent going to have the contractors mindset of no work = no pay

stphnstevey

As the vast majority of admin work can be done via the internet, I'm leaning towards a virtual assistant to bypass the employer/PAYE pitfalls

I would keep the customer facing to clients and sites, but hopefully offload some of the admin of timesheets, invoicing, report writing etc

I currently bill the client for the time it takes to do these admin tasks and as long as the cost of a virtual assistant isn't more than what I charge the client, I should still make a profit

Thats the theory anyway! Just need to put this into practise!

honeypop

A 'virtual assistant' would suit for this. You can train them in what's needed and then they can retain that info and be called on as and when you need them. They work on a subcontract basis so you don't need to define a set amount of hours, nor worry if there's nothing for a while. If you find one local enough, you can meet in person for training etc and they could attend meetings/trials that they need to if required, otherwise a remote assistant would work fine.


I started off exactly in your position (different industry though) and go to the point where I was at capacity and couldn't take on anything else, and now have a team of VA's so that I can take on more work (and also not work so much myself when I need to). It works well!

honeypop

If you want to ask anything about how it works with a VA, I can try and help!

stphnstevey

honeypop wrote: »

If you want to ask anything about how it works with a VA, I can try and help!

That would be great thanks!
Would you recommend any particular company?
Is there a ballpark rate for admin?
How flexible are they ie you mentioned as needed basis?
Do you just pay for the work they do or is there a min contract/hrs or ongoing fees?
Do you get to keep working with the person you trained or is it whoever is available?

Sorry so many questions!

InsideInsurance

stphnstevey wrote: »

That would be great thanks!
Would you recommend any particular company?
Is there a ballpark rate for admin?
How flexible are they ie you mentioned as needed basis?
Do you just pay for the work they do or is there a min contract/hrs or ongoing fees?
Do you get to keep working with the person you trained or is it whoever is available?

There is no set answer to most of these because there are so many VAs out there that different ones are trying different business models.

There are some agencies at one extreme where you just get an allocation from a pool, its pure pay on use and if you need someone at 3am on Sunday morning they probably have someone.

At the other end of the extremes is where you get a single person who is your VA. They can offer a retainer/ minimum contract type arrangement for a discounted rate or offer a pay on use at a higher rate.

By the nature of VAs they are going to have multiple clients which will all have peaks and troughs in their other clients work which is where there are benefits of using pools because they can level the workload across people but this may not work with your training issue.

It may be better to have a small number of VAs and evenly distribute the work amoungst them even if you prefer one above the others thus creating a system with redundancy built into it should one be off sick, on holiday or snowed under from another client.

honeypop

InsideInsurance has it right, there is not real set answers about who you should use but have an idea of how much work/time you will need them for, skills etc and try and find someone to fit.


Answers based on my experience:


Would you recommend any particular company? - There are many agencies and sole VAs, agencies will try and match you with someone from their team who suits what you are looking for, they may well operate from a pool although never come across that myself. If you give an indication of where you are in the country, I may well be able to suggest some ideas (maybe not, though!). You can PM for this.


Is there a ballpark rate for admin? - In the SouthEast, seems to be £15-25 per hour, although could be less for menial/basic tasks, and some charge more for specialised work.

How flexible are they ie you mentioned as needed basis? - You could get someone agree to be trained who will then just be on hand whenever you need (with a little notice so they can juggle current workload). With some of my clients, I will call on the VAs for work the following week, or occasionally same week (with others, they will know what needs doing and when more in advance as it could be a routine/regular projects). Sometimes they can't commit due to existing work, which is why I have more than one to call on. As mentioned by InsideInsurance above they will usually have other clients too, with varying workloads. You could find one who thinks your projects will be an ideal fit though.

Do you just pay for the work they do or is there a min contract/hrs or ongoing fees? - You can sometimes get a reduced fee if you commit to a certain amount of hours per month on a retainer fee, which will have a notice period, alternatively there will be a set ad-hoc/pay as you go rate. Their work will be timed so you only pay for time actually spent working.

Do you get to keep working with the person you trained or is it whoever is available? - Unless you go with a VA who works by themselves (where you will always use that person), in my experience with agencies you will be allocated someone that will be the same person each time you need them. It would definitely be worth having 2 different people trained, in case one is sick, on holiday, too busy when you need them.

Mistral001

Just a general point. Many businesses are not scalable. They work well with one person and that one person can make a reasonable living by working hard, but when you take on employees or even freelancers it becomes a completely different animal.

I have employed people and I have used freelancers. if you are unsure of which way to go I suugest you get a friend or relative to work part-time to test the water and see if it will work for you.

As others have said, the cost of employing someone is expensive, not just in the employers NI, holiday pay and sick pay etc , but in terms of supervision, training and accommodation/equipment.

The freelance route maybe attractive, but unless you are getting someone very cheap, you might find that you are running the business just to keep them in work as their work probably needs to be carefully monitored and/or checked as you will be totally responsible for their output as far as your client will be concerned.

CanadianExpat

Sorry for the hijack, but does anyone here have personal experience of using virtual assistants? If one of the attractions for the PAs going in to this is that they can work flexibly, I guess you can't rely on the same person being available long hours 5 days/week. Do you find yourself working with different people on different days or times of day, and if so how does the handover work?