You know that you need help; you’re swimming in monotonous, endless tasks which you have neither the skills or inclination to get on with. You know you should be working ‘on’ your business instead of ‘in' your business but the emails keep coming, you haven’t called back that potential lead, cash flow is suffering and you have a stack of invoices to get out to help to claw back those most-needed funds.
You enquire about hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA), ‘how much?’, you retort, ‘I can’t possibly afford that’!
When you work with us at Another Mother you’re not just investing in the skills of one VA; you are able to tap into the knowledge and experience of an entire team. A talented group of ladies who have held senior positions in business and who know their stuff. Also, we're masters at efficiency. We’ve done the leg-work so you don’t have to, finding processes and systems to work methodically, using the best technology to suit your individual needs.
Let’s put this into perspective: you could hire a Personal Assistant (PA) as an employee, but it’s likely they’ll have some skills you need but not all. Are they a whizz at social media AND book-keeping? Are they available to work if a call comes in at 8pm and adjust your calendar to reflect something urgent?
The average yearly salary for a PA in the UK is around £29,500 according to Total Jobs (2020). Say you take them on as an employee, at 35 hours a week, this equates to £16.21 per hour.
Yep that’s nearly £10 an hour less than you’ll spend, on average, working with us - even if you have happened to find the most AMAZING PA who can do it all and who is available to you 24/7.
But that’s not all you pay an employee: As an employer you will pay Class 1 NICs of 13.8% on all earnings above £8,722 per year.
Oh and did I mention, the pension that you now need to calculate contributions based on your employee’s pensionable earnings at a minimum of 3%.
What if they go off sick? 6.9 days of absence is the average, in the UK, per year. This is not only a disruption to your business operations but alongside holiday entitlement (the average is 33.5 days of leave per year) you’re paying someone for over 40 days a year when they’re not in fact working.
By working with us, you will have a dedicated account manager but everything is documented so if they go away, or heaven forbid are hit by a bus tomorrow, another member of our team is on hand to take over. There’s no pause to what needs doing, you’re covered knowing we’ve got it all in-hand.
In 2020, if your employee works Monday to Friday, the amount of working days in the year of out of 366 is in fact, 254 which takes their cost up to £22 per hour.
But we haven’t even factored in all those office distractions - trips to the toilet, grabbing a cuppa or sandwich, seeing someone on the stairs and having a quick catch-up about how their weekend was. Even working remotely, your employee is still paid when they need to answer the door to sign for a package, if they get a WhatsApp they need to respond to from a friend or they have to pop to the shop to get a pint of milk etc.
A conservative estimate, is a whole HOUR is lost each and every single day by distractions at work. Employees are paid whether they lose this time or not.
Let me break it to you, for those contractual, 35 hours a week, this employee is costing you £25.67 per hour. This is the total cost to an employer including NIC & pension for 214 working days a year at 6hrs a day.
At Another Mother, all of our work is tracked: imagine a stop-watch for each client, each project, each contractor. You can set the amount of time we work for you and most importantly - you ONLY pay for the time that we work for you. Full transparency, with a contract of one hour minimum per month. No horrible surprises.
Let’s go back to the employee though, how much have they also cost you in providing facilities? That office doesn’t come for free, nor does the desk that they sit at, on that ergonomic chair. How much do you spend on their tea and coffee, stationery, training, insurance, utilities? The list goes on and on.
Now, because there are so many differing circumstances we cannot provide a uniform calculation for everything you provide but what I hope is that you’re beginning to see that OUR hourly rate is not quite as high as it may first have looked when you study what you’re paying an office employee.
We’re completely set-up with our own computers, phones, insurance, office space and guess what? We even pay for our own cuppas. We’re a team of professionals, using our expertise to get the job done efficiently and to the highest possible standard.
Can you afford not to take us on?
Get in touch now for an obligation-free chat about how we can best support you with your business and from all of us at Another Mother we look forward to hearing from you!
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