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April 26, 2021

What is a Virtual Assistant? And Why Smart Business Owners Use Them

Imagine a world where you focus on growing your business, and all your administrative, technical, and customer service tasks are cared for by capable and dedicated hands. If this scenario sounds like an unachievable nirvana, you’ve likely never heard of a virtual assistant. Virtual assistants (VA) can save the day–and your sanity. Knowing how to find and use VAs can change your life as an entrepreneur and help you take your business to the next level.

 

Why Use a VA

As you start and grow your business, it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing it all. You manage your calendar, pitch products, book travel, invoice clients, monitor your social media–all of it. But that’s neither sustainable nor advisable. First of all, you can’t be an expert in everything. Even if you are an expert in things as varied as social media, accounting, and marketing, managing it all is too much for one person who is focused on launching and growing a business. 

Recognizing that you need help and finding it is not a failure. Rather, it’s a way to set yourself up for success. Recognizing the need to outsource tasks, such as those that are administrative, technical, or generally outside your wheelhouse, is a sign of growth and commitment to your business. By outsourcing tasks that distract you from the core work of growing your business, you are showing your commitment to success in the areas that matter by focusing on what’s important and the things that make your business great.

 

More about VAs

VA’s are a real game-changer for many entrepreneurs because they can save you so much time and hassle as you scale your business. Often, VA’s have their own computers and other office resources. Some VA’s work for more than one client on a part-time basis and others work for a single client.

And, they commonly participate in support networks to continue learning and growing. Many have extensive contacts within the VA world if you find you need additional or focused support. 

There are two main types of VA’s. General VA’s can help in a wide variety of areas and those with a specialty within an industry or specific tasks. 

 

General VAs

A general VA is often a jack-of-all-trades who can help you with various tasks across categories. Think of this person as your day-to-day go-to resource to get things done. 

If you think of a traditional office, the general VA is like an executive assistant. The person who functions as the nerve center of the office, keeping people and projects on track. They can offer on-demand support, just how and when you need it. For example, general virtual assistants often perform:

  • Administrative tasks, including:
    • Managing your email and calendar
    • Arranging travel 
    • Performing receptionist duties (including answers calls, which are easily transferred to any phone in the world)
    • Managing files (including creating a file management system)
    • Taking minutes in meetings
    • Planning  events 
    • Issuing invitations
    • Entering data 
    • Creating reports and slideshows for presentations
    • Running personal errands, such as online shopping for holiday and birthday gifts
    • Answering support tickets
    • Transcribing voicemails, podcasts, or video content
    • Building databases
    • Maintaining mailing lists
    • Booking appointments
    • Entering CRM updates
    • Creating and managing spreadsheets
    • Updating web site pages
    • Creating PDFs, forms, and templates
    • Conducting basic research
    • Recruiting other resources, as needed
    • Serving as a liaison between you and other team members
  • Technology services, including:
    • Training team members to use new and existing software
    • Managing software
  • Customer Service tasks, including
    • Responding to customer emails and calls
    • Sending routine messages, like birthday wishes and reminders
    • Identifying trends from customer emails and calls and bringing them to your attention
  • Marketing and Social Media activities, including
    • Setting up, managing, and updating social media accounts
    • Creating large email lists
    • Testing and sending email blasts
    • Setting up Autoresponders
    • Publishing blog posts, managing comments, and replying to comments
  • Basic Financial tasks, including:
    • Bookkeeping
    • Invoicing
    • Entering receipts
    • Managing accounts receivable

 

Speciality VAs

A specialized VA possesses specific skills and know-how in a distinct area or industry. A specialist VA is more of a resource for particular projects or elements of your business. If you think of a general VA as an executive assistant or office manager, the specialty VA is more like a department head–the person with deep knowledge about a specific function or area.

Some Specialty VAs often focus on an industry, like real estate. However, many have deep expertise in a specific area, such as:

  • Social media
  • Research
  • eCommerce
  • Marketing 
  • Accounting/bookkeeping
  • Content creation and editing (written, audio, and video) 
  • Graphics (Design and photography)
  • Project management services
  • Mobile app development

Specialized assistants can complete more complicated and in-depth tasks within the specialized area. For example, a general VA can post a Tweet or update Instagram. A specialist can help with more in-depth work, such as embedding SEO words into posts.

Sometimes a general VA and a specialist work together. For example, a specialized VA with a background in web development or graphic design can create new material that a general VA can update and tweak over time.

 

Can One VA Do it All?

No. As you can see from the lists above, one VA–even the best VA available–can’t do all of these things. So, the trick is knowing what you need in a VA, writing the job description that covers your needs, and finding the person–or people–that you need.

VAs are so flexible. It’s easy to staff up and down, based on your needs. 

 

How to Get Started

VA’s can be remote employees or independent contractors who work from home. Both models work well depending on your needs. 

The first step is to determine the work you want the VA to complete. This thinking creates a scope of work and helps clarify what you’d like to have completed, outlines the timeframe, and estimates the number of hours needed to complete the project. 

Once you assess the scope of work, consider the type of VA you need, a contractor or an employee. If you have several needs, you may need a combination of resources to fill your needs.

For example, depending on your workload, you may want to bring a general VA on as an employee. You may also want to find a specialized VA to create your website and another specialized VA to build out your marketing plan. Because these are both shorter-term needs, a freelance resource may make more sense for those roles.

If you aren’t sure who qualifies as an employee and who qualifies as a contractor, here’s a handy rule of thumb: 

  • You pay independent contractors for the result of their work. You don’t have control over how, when, or where they do the job.
  • You pay employees for the result of the work and the ability to control how the job is done.

Usually, independent contractors are in a different business than your own. For example, freelancers, like artists, editors, and writers, are often independent contractors. Independent contractors can also include outside companies doing work for you on an ongoing basis. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has set guidelines for determining if someone is an employee or an independent contractor. 

 

How to Find Your VA

With a good handle on what type of support you need, the next step is to create a job that highlights the skill set you need. Outline the tasks you want the VA to perform, detail the working conditions (onsite, virtual), and clarify your expectations for hours.

Expect to pay between $15 and $45 an hour, depending on the skills and experience you need to complete your tasks. 

Then, post your job on HireMyMom and relax while resumes for good candidates arrive in your inbox. Once you’ve narrowed the field, set up interviews, choose a candidate, check references and make a job offer. 

 

Why Use HireMy Mom

HireMyMom.com is a great place to find a VA that is right for all your needs for three reasons:

  • HireMyMom has exclusive partnerships with three top-rated VA training programs, creating a deep bench of talented professionals who visit the site looking for opportunities.
  • When you post your job, you’ll quickly have access to a wide array of qualified candidates who will be dedicated to helping your business succeed and grow. The site attracts job seekers from across the country with various specialized skill sets and a desire to work hard for you.
  •  HireMyMom’s Concierge service can streamline the process for you. The service was created for busy entrepreneurs and small business owners, like you, who need to hire help but don’t have the time or desire to go through the time-consuming process. With our full-service Concierge service, our HR Specialists will do it all for you from start to finish and present you with the top candidate(s). 

 

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April 19, 2021

Employer Success Story: Danielle Levy

What is your top advice for small business owners looking to hire remote talent? 

Take the time to write down and understand what you need and then focus on who. This means the actual tasks, skills, important cultural and logistical fit, and understand the manager’s style.

What are your top tips for candidates looking to land a job or client(s) on HireMyMom?

Be authentic in your presentation of skills, current situation, and what you are passionate about. That energy will come through in your profile and your interviews.

What is your top tip for working with a virtual team? 

Spend time forming relationships with team members.

Why did you decide to use HireMyMom for your hiring needs?

Being a mom myself, I knew that I knew how to get the work and had the skills for many positions that I was turned down for.  I struggled when my kids were young to find the employer that would trust my commitment level if they gave me the opportunity with some flexibility.

What piece of advice do you wish someone had given you at the start of your business career? 

Have confidence in my own skills and journey.  Everything will happen right on time if I keep moving forward. It’s ok to put my computer down and not to be a martyr. Fresh air, exercise, and good food choices are worth the time because they fuel my body and therefore my business.

What do you see as your greatest success in life? 

(My children….obviously!!) Aside from that is finding my way from “traditional corporate” to entrepreneur while managing my household and graduate school being a sole breadwinner.  I will never take a moment of free time, flexibility with my schedule, or penny in my bank account for granted.

What is something about you that many people don’t know?

I walked out of graduate school midway through a lecture on opportunity cost. Literally walked out mid class and it took me 10 years to return. The cost of time of staying in school was too high as the opportunities in my career were what I was craving. I’m glad that I went back but I have never regretted that walk out.

 

 

 

Want to be one of our Featured Employer Success Stories? Click here for our form. 

Looking to hire a virtual professional for your business? Click here for more info!

 

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April 7, 2021

5 Ways Moms Can Delegate to Get More Done

Guest post by: Michelle Laurey

Work-at-home moms often face the unique challenge of balancing work needs with household management. Childcare, meal preparation, and household chores can eat into your work time if you are not careful.

If you postpone chores to finally get some work done, then the house is in disarray.

It doesn’t have to be like this!

Next time you’re struggling to balance your work and home life, try these five tips to delegate your workload.

 

1. Split Up the Chores

Your spouse and older children can each take on their own responsibilities around the house.

Delegating the household workload helps you focus more time and energy on your business.

Use the following tips to successfully delegate chores:

  • Assign one task to one person. Whether it’s loading the dishwasher, putting away laundry, or writing out a shopping list, designate a single person to be in charge. Sharing tasks can cause confusion about who is doing what and when.
  • Set goals and deadlines. Assign different tasks to different days of the week so everyone knows when they need to finish their chores. Plan errands and shopping around your schedule, and choose times when fewer people are out.
    Soon your family will adjust to your routine and won’t have to keep asking when you’re picking up groceries or mailing that package.
  • Go through the task list with each person. Sometimes a spouse or child doesn’t know how you want a chore accomplished. Maybe they are unfamiliar with the right settings for the washing machine or where pots and pans are stored.
    Walk them through the task so they can learn to do it without you around.
  • Put it in writing. Whether you use a smartphone app or a piece of paper on the refrigerator, keep a list of what needs to get done and whose job it is. Having a visual plan helps everyone stay on track.

Delegating chores will also reduce the stress that often affects your productivity.

 

2. Arrange for Childcare

First-time work-from-home parents often assume they can care for their young children while working. Unfortunately, they quickly found out that is not the case!

Childcare is a full-time job all on its own.

If you can’t afford a babysitter or daycare, consider asking a retired family member if they can watch your children a few days a week.

If no family members are available, reach out to other work-from-home moms in your neighborhood. You may be able to take turns watching each other’s children on days you’re not working.

Alternatively, you can hire a young adult in your neighborhood to watch your children while you work from home.

You can typically pay a cheaper rate, and you’re available in case of emergencies while still being able to shut the door to your home office while you work.

 

3. Consider Extended Family and Friends

Your immediate family members aren’t the only ones who can help you out.

When someone offers to lend a hand, take them up on their offer!

Some easy tasks you can delegate to others outside your house include:

  • Driving children to and from school. Coordinate with other moms in the neighborhood to take turns dropping off and picking up children from school. This provides extra time in the mornings and afternoons for you to work.
  • Helping with housework. If you have a close friend nearby, ask if they want to arrange dates to help each other with cleaning. One weekend you help clean their house and the next they help with yours.
    This is a great way single parents can stay on top of the household workload without being overwhelmed.
  • Assisting with meal prep. Consider arranging weekly meetups with friends or other moms in your neighborhood to prep meals for the upcoming week. You can buy in bulk to save money and split the costs among the group.

In return, you can step in to help when they are feeling overwhelmed.

 

4. Simplify Scheduling and Organization

The best way to ensure everyone completes their tasks is to organize and schedule everything.

There are numerous apps that can help you make lists and remind family members of their chores.

By taking advantage of these, your family can add items to the shopping list, create reminders on the family calendar for upcoming appointments, and check off tasks they’ve completed.

This helps everyone stay on track without you needing to lift a finger.

There’s a number of apps available to help create family lists and chore charts to digitally divide up the workload and set important reminders.

 

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Hire a Professional

If the workload is too much and you don’t have enough people to help out, consider hiring a professional.

Many services offer cheap task-based help, such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, and doing other odd jobs.

Several grocery stores offer pickup and delivery options to save time without spending a lot of money.

You can also purchase box meal kits with pre-measured ingredients ready to throw together quickly for a healthy dinner.

Meal delivery is another way you can get a quick lunch or dinner on the table without leaving the house.

 

Final Thoughts

Whether you need help with meal planning or could use an extra hand on the laundry, work-at-home moms have plenty of options.

You can outsource your chores to professionals or delegate responsibilities to other family members.

Mobile apps make it easy to create everything from chore charts to grocery lists so each person can do their part around the house.

Once your household is running smoothly, your business will too.  If you need to delegate some of your work, consider posting your job on HireMyMom where virtual professionals in a variety of fields are ready to take on new jobs and projects! Or if you need more work, we can help with that too!

 

–

Michelle Laurey is a telecommuting wordsmith who especially enjoys writing on a cloudy day at Assignyourwriter UK. Always interested in ways that can help individuals reach their full potential in life, she enjoys producing stories on entrepreneurship, productivity, lifestyle, and health. Outside her keyboard, she enjoys visiting cozy coffee shops and taking long urban strolls with her partner. Reach out to her on Twitter.

 

–

 

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March 31, 2021

How to Outsource Like a Boss for Home and Work

Have you ever looked at your to-do list and realized you need about 30 hours to accomplish everything you outlined as critical for the day? If so, you aren’t alone. Caring for a family and working are both hugely satisfying undertakings. But, let’s face it, it’s also a tremendous amount of work. 

Here’s some good news–you don’t need to tackle it alone. By strategically outsourcing some tasks, you can find more time and energy to put toward the people and projects that mean the most to you. Here’s a round up of the tasks–work and personal–that are great candidates for outsourcing.

Business Tasks

When you run a small business, it’s tempting to want to do it all. You became an entrepreneur because you’re motivated and hardworking.This combination makes it tough to let go of the reins, even for a task you don’t enjoy or could easily outsource. It helps to have a framework for considering what tasks/jobs make sense for outsourcing. When considering outsourcing, think about:

  • What are you great at doing?
  • What do you like to do?
  • Where would you like to grow professionally?

If a task doesn’t fall into one of those categories, it’s a good candidate for outsourcing. 

 

Quickly Find Virtual Help 

When you are looking for outsourcing help for a business task, consider a virtual team member. With remote employees, you don’t need to provide office space and you aren’t limited by geography. You can find and hire a team member who’s located anywhere with good internet access. 

Using a platform like HireMyMom is a great way to source qualified candidates who are specifically looking for remote work. You can save time and money by turning to a site dedicated to connecting driven mom professionals with small businesses. 

If the prospect of a nationwide search daunts you, consider our concierge service to help reduce the amount of leg work you need to do. HireMyMom’s Concierge service was created for busy entrepreneurs and small business owners, like you, who need to hire help but don’t have the time or desire to go through the time-consuming process. With our full service Concierge service, our HR Specialists will do it all for you start to finish and present you with the top candidate(s). 

 

Build a Remote Team 

Here’s a list of jobs that are often outsourced:

  • Bookkeeping
  • Social Media management
  • Graphic Design
  • Writing/Editing
  • Marketing/Email Marketing
  • Project Management
  • Customer Service
  • Facebook Ad Manager
  • Online Business Manager
  • Virtual Assistant (VA)

 

Consider a Virtual Assistant

In some cases, a virtual assistant (VA) may be the right fit for you. A VA can take care of many tasks, including email response, appointment setting, travel planning, and calendar management. You can find a general VA, who does a wide variety of tasks or one with a speciality in your industry or need. 

 

Personal Tasks

Personal tasks can easily add up and cause stress, making it more difficult to manage the day-to-day workings of life. What’s more, many of them are urgent and important and time sensitive. (For example, dinner must be served every night.) Tasks that can wait tend to grow in time commitment and urgency if you put them off. (I’m looking at you, piles of dirty laundry.) Here are some ideas to help relieve some of the steam:

 

Put Meal Prep and Grocery Shopping on Auto Pilot

Planning, serving and cleaning up multiple meals a day takes a huge time investment. (Especially if your whole family is home all the time.) But outsourcing some meal-prep tasks can make every day easier.

  •  A weekly menu hanging on the fridge takes the guesswork out of each meal. If you don’t enjoy menu planning or just need a break from it, consider using an online meal planning service. Several are available and they allow you to quickly select a week’s worth of meals based on your health goals, family preferences, and budget. Once you select your meals, you can automatically create a shopping list for the meals selected.
  •  We all need groceries every week (sometimes more). But driving to the store to collect them is a major time commitment. You can regain that time by signing up for grocery delivery. Several companies such as Amazon Fresh, Peapod, Shipt, and Instacart, are ready to make it easier for you to fill your pantry. 

While it takes some time to initially get set up with these services, it’s well worth the initial time investment. Chances are you make many of the same purchases each week, so many items will stay on your list for each order. You can even use a menu planner that automatically creates a grocery list and sends it to your preferred delivery service. 

  • If you don’t have grocery delivery available locally, consider the pick up service offered by many large grocery store chains. You submit your order online, pull up at the appointed time, and drive off with a car full of groceries. Both pick up and delivery help you save money by limiting impulse purchases.

Cut Down on Cooking

There are several ways to lighten the cooking load through outsourcing. Consider:

  • Sharing the load by finding four like-minded families and forming a cooking co-op. Each family makes four, family-sized servings of one dish. Meet to swap meals and go home knowing that you have five homemade dinners ready to roll–even though you only had to make one. Keep your circle of chefs small until the COVID-19 situation is resolved.
  • Ordering a meal delivery kit to take away the prepping, planning and chopping.
  • Finding a local chef who offers pre-prepped meals for pick up or delivery. 

 

Find Help with Child Care

You choose to work at home to spend more time with your kids and avoid the expense and hassle of day care. But, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t benefit from some help with the kids. Finding a good babysitter, even if it’s only for a few hours a week, can really change the flow of your day. Having a few hours set aside without interruption makes it easier to power through your work. Also, depending on the age of your kids, the sitter can help with other tasks, such as:

  • Driving a carpool route for you.
  • Running errands with your kids–think the post office or picking up dry cleaning. This gives you a few hours of peace and quiet, keeps the kids busy, and eliminates tasks from your to-do list.
  • Working with the kids to go through their toys or books to find things they have outgrown.
  • Picking up the stray items you forgot to add to your online grocery order.
  • Walking the dog or other pet care needs.
  • Putting laundry away.
  • Supervising homework/online school instruction.

 

Clean with Ease

Everyone loves a clean house, but the work to get it sparkling can take all day. The easiest way to keep the house spic and span is to hire a cleaning service. If that’s not practical based on your budget or circumstances, these ideas can help lighten the load:

  • Buy a Roomba or other automatic vacuum or mop so you wake up to fresh floors every morning.
  • Drop your dirty laundry off at the laundromat for wash and fold service each week. This frees up an enormous amount of time and cuts down on the anxiety created by looking at baskets full of clothes–some clean, some dirty, and inevitably, one that’s mixed between clean and dirty clothes. 
  • Hire a service for big jobs that can really nag at you. For example, window washing or other seasonal jobs.

 

Reduce Yard Work

Many people find yard work relaxing, but elements of it can be outsourced to free you up to focus on the things you like most. For example, mowing and weeding are good candidates to outsource. With that out of the way, you are free to focus on tending to flowers or other things that truly bring you joy.

 

Don’t Wait to Reclaim Your Time

Outsourcing tasks is a great way to focus your time and energy on the things that matter most to you. Don’t delay–identify the things that someone else could do for you and start enjoying the increased time and energy it provides. 

Tell us what you’ve outsourced and how it changed the game for you.

 

 

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March 15, 2021

Work and Family Colliding? Top Tips to Set Boundaries Like a Pro

When you love your work and have a family, it can be challenging to set the boundaries that help you succeed in both realms, especially when you work at home and the lines can easily blur. With more and more people working from home and with online and hybrid learning in full swing (and sometimes in flux by the week), the question of setting boundaries for personal and professional obligations has never been more critical. 

After years of working from home and learning to set boundaries between the work I love and the family I adore, here are my tips for successful boundary setting.

 

Accept that Every Week will be Different

Recognize that your highest priority for any given week (or day) will vary, and that’s normal.

Sometimes work obligations will be front and center. Enjoy those times and the feeling of your throwing yourself into professional work. Try not to let guilt about what you might be missing weigh you down. Enlist help from family and friends to help you free up space and time to work as effectively as possible.

Likewise, sometimes family obligations will outweigh professional work. Enjoy those times, too.

Try to be present in the moment and not distracted by what you might be missing at work. If it helps ease your mind, ask a trusted co-worker to alert you to any emergencies that may occur when you’re focused on your family. 

Balancing the day-to-day and week-to-week flow of work and life will help you find greater equilibrium between your dual roles as a mom and a professional.

 

Know Your Priorities 

Setting priorities is an essential part of establishing boundaries and working effectively. Thinking of your priorities over different time horizons helps to balance workload. Here’s how to do it:

  • Create a list at the beginning of each month. 
    • Think about the large commitments you know are on the horizon in each area of your life.
    • Write them down along with the week they are due.
    • Consider if you need to call in extra help for any upcoming week.
  • Review the list at the start of each week.
    •  Cross off things that are complete.
    •  Identify the most important things for that week to make sure your priorities don’t take a back seat.
  • Look at your weekly list to find your daily priorities. 
    • Consider if any tasks or meetings can slide, if needed.
    • Juggle your day to make things work.

Overall, be realistic about what you can accomplish in a specific time frame. If you have a big project due one week, avoid volunteer commitments that overlap during the same timeframe. If you have school-aged kids, keep an eye on the school calendar as you pace your work. 

 

Plan and schedule! 

When managing personal and professional obligations, planning is critical. Armed with your priority list, work your to-do list or planning app to its maximum capacity.

If you use a paper-based to-do list, draw a line down the center of the page and label one column personal and one column work. Then, list your commitments side-by-side. A comprehensive list in one place makes it easier to see what’s cooking for any given day and see your obligations at-a-glance.

Once you have a to-do list, schedule your time to know when you will be managing personal vs. professional obligations. The schedule is a key to more freedom. When you know when you’ll be working, it makes it easier to say yes (or no) to personal opportunities that pop up. Likewise, it can help you assess what professional work you might want to add or decline, based on the schedule.

As you make your schedule, embrace odd hours, if needed. If you’re a morning person, set aside some early morning time to get work done. If burning the midnight oil works for you, maximize those hours. Fitting work into corners of your day can help you maximize your time and feel more in control.

 

Get Help and Silence your Inner Critic

When you’re managing personal and professional obligations, help and support matter. Sometimes it comes from family, friends, and coworkers. But sometimes it comes from your phone and the wonders of technology. Outsource as much as you can. Check out the Five Awesome Ways for the Exhausted Mom to Save Time and Sanity blog for tips to make life easier through apps and services.

As you go through your days, remember that you aren’t alone. All working moms are in the same boat, managing a large number of personal and professional obligations. Asking for help and extending a hand to others can help create a supportive culture. Ask your partner, children, and coworkers for help. Also consider joining our free community here. 

Above all, be kind to yourself as you manage an impressive portfolio of work and family commitments. You can do it!

 

Tell me how you do it! 

I’d love to hear your best tips for managing personal and professional obligations. Drop me a line with your ideas and share your success stories.

 

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March 8, 2021

Success Story: Marianna Maguire

Tell us about you and your experience finding work on HireMyMom.

Most job boards are usually overwhelmed with both candidates and jobs, making it difficult to really stand out. HireMyMom allows both job seekers and employers to interact much more closely through a smaller job forum with real needs on both sides, and you don’t get lost in the crowd. 

As a mom, it’s important for me to balance the needs of my family – which these days are ever-changing due to the pandemic – and the personal desire to work in a professionally-fulfilling role.

This is the first time I’ve successfully found flexible, work from home engagements that utilize my skillset as well and I’m so thankful to have come across HireMyMom!

 

What are your top tips for landing a job or jobs on HireMyMom.com? 

I would encourage job seekers to be patient, wait for the right opportunity that is a good fit for them, and apply with confidence!

Even if a job posting seeks a specific skillset, employers appreciate a candidate who can also add value to their organization in other areas. Enjoy getting to know the employer and let yourself shine!

 

What piece of advice do you wish someone had given you at the start of your work from home journey? 

When the right job comes your way and you’re invited to interview, don’t be nervous, be yourself and you’ll do great!

 

What do you see as your greatest success in life?

The drive to never stop learning or improving yourself!

 

What is something about you that many people don’t know?

I’m private about my generosity but I’m very proud of it.

 

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February 15, 2021

How to Cope When Working from Home Makes You Miserable

You did it! After months (possibly years) of dreaming and planning, you finally made the leap and are now working at home–congratulations! You’re living the dream of a five-second commute, more time with your kids, and working in pajamas when the mood strikes. There’s just one problem: you are miserable. 

Don’t despair. Any significant change can lead to a feeling of unease and even regret. But, take heart, with years of experience working from home and after talking to many others in your shoes, here’s my best advice for combatting your woes and emerging strong and confident in your decision to work-from-home.

 

Discover the True Issue

First, try to determine what’s wrong exactly. Change is tricky–even good change. And the adjustment period can feel like an eternity. Before you abandon your plan to work from home, take some time to assess what’s really bothering you. In my experience, it’s usually one (or a combination) of four things–growing pains, environmental issues, ambiguity about the decision, or unrealized expectations.

 

Growing Pains are Real

Starting a new job or making a radical change to your working conditions is bound to lead to growing pains. While uncomfortable, these pains are a normal part of the process. Even new projects that are outside your traditional wheelhouse can make you question your skills and choices. 

When this happens, take a breath and reflect on the times you’ve felt this way in the past. New jobs and new skills take a while to develop. The discomfort is part of the growth process. You’re meeting new people, learning new ways of connecting, new systems, new skills, and new processes. It’s a lot to take in. Give yourself grace for slip-ups that might happen along the way.

If there’s one particular aspect of a new job that’s troubling you, consider ways to address it. For example, if learning a new technology is stressing you out, seek other ways to conquer it. Look for YouTube videos or webinars to help. Or, try setting small goals to make progress on specific elements of the transition. 

When it comes to growing pains, they can be uncomfortable and can last a while–even up to a year for new jobs. But, just as surely as they are part of the process, they will surely fade. One day you’ll be doing the task that once caused you angst, and you’ll realize that you’ve grown into the role and feel confident in it.  Look forward to that day and the renewed sense of wellbeing that comes with it. Until then, hang in there.

 

Spruce Up Your Home Office

Don’t underestimate how improving your physical workspace may enhance your experience and outlook. Transitioning to working-from-home often involves trial and error when it comes to your actual work setup. If you’re hunched over an ironing board trying to work in the dark closest, you are likely to be miserable.

Look around your house and consider if you might be able to set up a work location in a place that’s easier to work productively. Ideally, you can find a site that includes:

  • Natural light or a place for suitable lamps.
  • A roomy desk or table. 
  • A comfortable chair.
  • A door that can be closed.

Once you have your spot, personalize it with plants, pictures, or artwork that you really like. Consider banning toys or kid homework from the space. All of these things can help make working from home more comfortable. 

 

Banish Ambiguity

It’s natural to have second thoughts about any significant decision. But, nothing will sink your confidence faster than an endless round of asking yourself what if. 

All the reasons you identified for wanting to transition to home-based work are still valid. And, in all likelihood, you’d be second-guessing your decision to work in the office, too. When you sense ambiguity rearing up, vanquish it by grounding yourself in all the reasons that led to your choice.

 

Check Your Expectations

When you consider any new adventure, you envision it unfolding in a certain way. Working from home is no exception. When considering the possibility, you probably saw yourself training for a marathon while living in a spotless house, with perfect children and a steadily growing career. In reality, you may be up before dawn, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and finishing up a project while you dream about taking a shower. Both ways work, and the reality is that both scenarios may happen for you at any given time. Like life, working from home has ups and downs, and it tends to ebb and flow accordingly. 

Embracing the real lived experience is the key to success here. Holding your day-to-day up to an idealized vision is a recipe for disappointment. Change your expectations to have a better experience.

 

Share Your Experiences

How have you battled the work-from-home blues? Drop a line and share your tips.

 

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February 8, 2021

Share the Love! Recognition is the Key to Happy Teams

People are like flowers. They bloom when they get attention. In the workplace, recognition often serves as the sun that helps feed your team and encourages them to keep up the excellent work. But, when you manage a team of remote workers, the traditional ways of thanking your team and showing appreciation may be more difficult. Team lunches, impromptu donut days, or stops at the coffee shop for a quick “well done” cup of joe are tougher to pull off when your team is scattered all over the country. 

So, what to do instead? Here are our tips for making appreciation part of your business’s culture and a list of suggestions to help you find the right tokens of your appreciation to share with your team.

 

Learn the Love Language of Your Employees

The first step is to do a little homework and find out what types of appreciation your employees find meaningful and what things don’t resonate–or worse, backfire. For example, some people love to hear their praises sung publicly. But, one person’s moment of glory can be a cringe-inducing experience for someone else. 

To find your team’s temperature, start by asking team members how they feel about recognition options as part of a regular conversation. Asking these questions may feel a little strange at first, but can be quite natural with practice. As you have meetings with each team member, casually ask about specific recognition preferences and file each person’s thoughts away for use later. 

Ask about specific options. For example, a team shout out, an afternoon off with pay, a spa gift card, a new chair–throw in whatever you are considering as part of your recognition plans to get a good sense. Also, ask each employee for ideas.

If that feels uncomfortable, another option is to send out a team survey asking each person to rank specific recognition options in terms of preference to get a pulse of what your team members genuinely appreciate. Include a write-in box so team members can contribute ideas, too. (If you take this route, consider sharing the survey results with your team so that everyone knows what matters to each other and recognition can become a team sport.)

As you are in the information-gathering stage, observe the way your employees recognize others. Do they start calls with a round of thank you’s? Are you often copied on notes where one team member praises another? These are clues about your current recognition culture. You may find that you want to build on it or head in another direction.

Finally, consider what makes the most sense for you. 

  • What’s your comfort level with recognition? Does it come naturally, or is it a muscle you need to build? 
  • What does your budget allow? If you don’t have a specific recognition budget, don’t worry. There are several ways to acknowledge good work and effort without spending money, and they are all appreciated. (See our ideas for recognizing your team below.)

Answering these questions will help you frame your thinking around recognition options for your team. Make a list of the ways you want to acknowledge others. 

 

Make Recognition a Practice

Now that you’ve done the research to determine what matters to you and your team and considered how you’d like to see a recognition culture grow for your business, it’s time to make a plan. Pick a few ideas from the list below and commit to sharing recognition at specific intervals. The right amount of recognition will vary based on your personality and team size. Find the right cadence and add the practice to your calendar. Don’t worry if it feels forced at first. It will get easier.

 

Ideas for Recognizing Your Team

First, let’s look at low and no-cost recognition ideas:

  • Say thank you often. It seems simple, but it’s easy to forget when you are in close contact with someone, and it goes a long way. Hand-written thank you cards, greeting cards, and emails are all effective. 
  • Start or end each team call with shout outs for good work.
  • Schedule quick one-on-one meetings with team members to share positive, encouraging feedback. When on these calls, make a point of not sharing constructive feedback or talking shop. Keep it to a few minutes of personal chit chat and a big helping of thanks.
  • Host a virtual award ceremony to recognize a great quarter or completion of a big project. Ask team members to present tributes to each other or serve as the MC who praises each person.
  • Praise your team via social media. You can use your business accounts, so all your customers see it, or you can add an endorsement of a person on LinkedIn.

If you have a small budget, want to recognize a significant contribution, or celebrate a milestone, here are some ideas to get the most bang for your buck.

  • Embrace the value of the surprise gift.
    • Send flowers for a job well done.
    • Treat the employee (or team) to lunch with a gift card to a local restaurant.
  • Personalize it! Order a personalized commemorative object, such as a nice pen, a plaque, or coffee mug, as a thank you for work on a specific project. 
  • Consider workplace perks as a thank you.
    • Offer increased flexibility.
    • Give the employee an unexpected afternoon off with pay.

If you have a bigger budget or just feel more comfortable using cash or gifts as a thank you, there are many options available.

  • A cash bonus is always welcome. Services like Zelle or PayPal can instantly deliver a cash boost as a thank you. Even a relatively modest amount of cash is welcome. Everyone enjoys finding an unexpected $25 deposit in their account.
  • Gift cards for travel are fun ways to say thank you. With a gift card, the size is not that important–it truly is the thought that matters. (Bonus idea: With travel difficult due to COVID-19, many people dream of their next vacation. Enlist a strategy of sharing travel-related gift cards as thank-you’s over the next few months to help your team see clear to a time when vacations and travel will once again be part of life. When they finally take the vacation, they’ll remember how you helped to make it possible.)  
  • If your team is home-based and you want to go big, consider using home office equipment as a thank you. Options include standing desks, comfortable chairs, or other office pieces that can make your team member more comfortable and productive each day.

 

What Do You Do?

Recognizing your team members goes a long way toward building an effective team and keeping people engaged. I’d love to hear more about how you acknowledge your team and the results you’ve seen.

 

 

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February 1, 2021

Wondering What Happened to Your Motivation? Reclaim it Here With These Secrets!

Working from home is full of perks–a short commute, greater flexibility, and more time to spend with family. But, it can also be challenging to maintain motivation from a home office. There will be times when you struggle and your motivation wanes. Over the years, I’ve learned three keys to staying motivated while working from home–expectations, habits, and connections. Here are my best tips in each category.

Scale Your Expectations

When you start thinking about working from home, it’s easy to have unrealistic expectations for your experience. You may have a vision of fulfilling all your professional goals, giving your children unlimited time and attention, cooking gourmet meals every night, and managing an efficient and lovely home like a pro all the time. The reality is likely totally different. That mismatch can lead to disappointment and diminishing motivation. There are a few keys to combating this scenario:

  • Set and pursue goals for your professional and personal life. As part of this, identify milestones to keep you going. Celebrate the completion of big projects at work or in your personal life, like getting kids back to school for a new term or planning a big family event.  Use a broad definition of success when considering your wins and finding accomplishments worth celebrating.
  • Remember why you are working from home. This can help ground you when you are struggling. Write your initial work-from-home objectives down and review them. Remember the feelings that led you to pursue home-based work and catalog them. Then, include all the benefits–expected and unexpected–that have popped up since you decided to work from home. Review this list when you need a motivation boost.
  • Revisit your expectations. As you think back on the journey that led you home, try to remember your expectations for the experience. Rescaling your expectations to more fully match reality can help you find the motivation to keep going.

Develop Good Habits 

When you commute and go to the office, it creates a ritual. You get dressed, drop off the kids, get coffee, and arrive at the office ready for a few minutes of small talk before getting to work. At the end of the day, you bid your coworkers good night and head home to relax. 

When you work at home, you may shuffle between your computer and the kitchen. You might fold laundry on conference calls and meet family needs as you pursue work deadlines. Working like this every day is exhausting, leading to a hit to your motivation. The solution is to create a new set of rituals to help you start and end your workday. Here’s how:

  • Create and follow a work schedule for each day. The plan can vary based on what’s happening in your life on any given day. But, identify your work hours in advance and share the schedule with your family, so they know when you are at work. Honor the schedule, so you set natural limits on your workday. As you think about your schedule, include some time to take care of yourself. Exercise and fresh air do wonders for your state of mind and level of motivation.
  • Work in a dedicated space. It doesn’t need to be a fancy home office. Just pick a place where you can consistently work with a little privacy and quiet. Add a few personal items to your desk to make it feel more like your workspace. 
  • Get dressed and ready for work. No need to dress up (unless you want to!), but the act of changing into work clothes and getting ready can help you feel more prepared to work.
  • Create an end-of-the-day ritual, such as tidying up your desk or making a to-do list for the next day, to help you transition from work back to home life. Take a few minutes to reflect on your accomplishments before your short commute back to the main part of your house.

Stay Connected

When you work in an office, you see your coworkers every day, and impromptu conversations occur regularly. (Sometimes so regularly that it’s tough to get actual work done.) When working from home, it’s easy to feel disconnected from your coworkers or other professionals. Find ways to connect with your colleagues via phone or video conference. Send invitations for virtual coffee dates, so you have dedicated time to catch up. When you do meet, business is sure to come up. But make time for some small talk at the top of the call. This will help you know your colleagues better and help you stay connected.

Also, connecting to others outside your immediate work situation can help you feel less isolated in your home office.  

  • Join professional organizations. When you join an industry-related professional group, you’ll get the chance to network with others in your field and, in many cases, have the option to attend educational webinars and conferences. This is a great way to stay connected, learn more about the industry, and expand the circle of people you know with similar professional interests.
  • Engage with local organizations. Joining a local civic or professional organization is a great way to get connected with people locally. You’ll likely have opportunities to volunteer and meet other work-from-home professionals who can become friends and possible future colleagues.
  • Read relevant trade publications and blogs to stay on top of trends in your industry. Seeing bigger picture news can help you feel more connected to your profession beyond your current role and inspire you to consider new angles for your work and opportunities in your professional life.

These are my top tips. I’d love to hear how you stay motivated while working from home. Please send me your ideas.

 

 

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January 4, 2021

Happy New Year! Here are the Work-at-Home Trends Coming Your Way

As we look to 2021, everyone has questions about what the year will bring in terms of public health, the economy, and the future of work. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that making predictions about the future is a risky proposition. But based on what we are seeing for remote teams and remote work in 2021, here are some things we feel we will see in 2021.

 

Remote Work Continues to Grow

COVID remade the workplace quickly, and many offices were (and are) shuttered. This rapid change opened many eyes to the possibilities of working from home for workers and employers–including those who had not previously been interested in virtual work setups.

While some workers may be returning to the office in 2021, Newsweek recently reported that the share of those working from home and who wish to continue is large and growing. This finding, coupled with the fact that businesses that have not previously searched for remote team members are warming up to the idea, tells me the future of working-at-home is stronger than ever. I expect it to grow quickly in 2021 and beyond because remote work offers so many benefits for each party, including:

For workers:

  • No commute.
  • Flexible schedules.
  • More family time.

For employers:

  • Larger talent pool.
  • Lower real estate costs.
  • More flexibility to add talent to the team.

 

Better Collaboration

With all the benefits of remote work, team communication can still be a challenge. But, I expect that to improve in 2021 as teams settle on collaboration processes that better meet their needs. Expect Zoom calls to be used more strategically going forward and for open knowledge sources to gain traction as we move into 2021. I also expect old-fashioned telephone calls to re-emerge as a critical communication method. People will crave the benefits of conversation without the fatigue that comes from Zoom calls. 

 

Greater Focus on Growth and Development

As people get through the pandemic and look to the future, many are likely to be interested in enhancing their skill sets for greater flexibility and increased economic security.  As a result, I expect to see more people focus on rounding out their skills through online professional development, webinars, and professional organizations. Many online platforms offer remote training. (Check out the training options provided on HireMyMom.com.) I expect new training options to appear and more people to take advantage of them in 2021.

 

More Need for Virtual Assistants and More Virtual Assistants

I expect a sharp rise in the number of people looking for a Virtual Assistant (VA) and the number of people entering this line of work because it offers many benefits for both parties.

VA’s take care of many tasks, including email response, appointment setting, travel planning, and calendar management. It’s a great business model because it solves a problem so many business owners have–squeezing more tasks into a day. Small business owners looking for on-demand support or help with administrative tasks find VA’s indispensable.

It’s also an excellent lifestyle for moms who want to control their own time, skip the commute, and put family first while still keeping professional ambitions alive. For many moms who found themselves without school or childcare options in 2020, launching a business that provides economic security and flexibility is a top 2021 priority. I expect the popularity of online Virtual Training to grow quickly next year. If you’re interested in exploring this career path, we’ve rounded up the best VA training options so you can find the one that works best for you.

 

Evolving Recruiting Methods

Employers and job seekers will continue to find new ways to connect. Many business owners are turning to smaller, niche job sites that specialize in candidates with specific backgrounds or profiles, like HireMyMom.com. Likewise, top-notch professionals looking for companies dedicated to supporting remote work in the long-term are turning to the same sites. 

Using a niche platform dedicated to connecting driven professionals looking for remote work can make the recruitment process faster and easier for both parties through shared expectations about work arrangements. 

Small business owners appreciate sorting through a more manageable pool of candidates specifically looking for remote work. Professionals dedicated to working-from-home can limit their search to like-minded employers, creating a win-win situation that I expect to continue in 2021 and beyond.

 

New  Interview Techniques and Questions Emerge                                                                                                                           

The emergence of COVID-related regulations has accelerated the trend of moving interviews from in-person affairs to calls and video conferences. I expect this trend to continue. As interviews move out of the conference room and on to Zoom calls, the interview process changes along with the script that many have used for decades.

Expect larger groups of people to participate in the interview process, leading to a more robust review of the candidate. I also predict that employers will consider more candidates for the same role. Questions that focus on soft skills will take center stage, as teams know that communication skills, teamwork, and self-motivation are essential components for successful virtual teams. Direct questions about experience effectively contributing virtually and managing projects and people from a home office will emerge as a critical line of interview questioning.

Job seekers will also ask new questions, including pointed questions about work expectations, dedication to maintaining a remote team, hours flexibility, and opportunities to grow within the company.

 

What Do You Expect?

I’d love to hear your predictions for 2021. Please share them so we can all compare notes next year. No matter what happens, I wish you and your family a safe, healthy, and prosperous new year.

 

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