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The nationwide shift to embrace working from home just took a big step forward. Yesterday Amazon announced that they will allow working from home to be an option to all of their employees, indefinitely. Essentially, the decision will be left to individual managers to make for their own respective teams and departments. This is a shift from their previous stance, which indicated they expected a company-wide return to the office in January 2022. It was at this time that they expected to enforce a minimum 3-days at the office per week. Now it looks like 0 days at the office will be required, so long as the work is getting done of course.

“The decisions should be guided by what will be most effective for our customers; and not surprisingly, we will all continue to be evaluated by how we deliver for customers, regardless of where the work is performed.” – Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy, in a company-wide email

A Sign of the Times

The pandemic has forced a lot of companies to rethink their stance on working from home. Some have fully embraced the change and made the proper steps to support it going forward, while others have resisted a full adoption and instead gone for a hybrid model, in the meantime. Is your business working from home a lot? Should you embrace this workforce evolution indefinitely? There really is no right or wrong answer, as experts will attest that there are definitely pros and cons to be considered. With so many facets of our jobs becoming digital, a hybrid work model at the least is rapidly becoming the answer. For a lot of companies, they don’t need to dive all-in, nor do they need to resist the growing demand and risk alienating good employees and jeopardizing health. Adopting a mix can give a company the best of both worlds. That’s essentially what Amazon is doing now, by leaving the choice in the hands of managers. Because what works for one company, or one department, may not work for another.

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Less Physical, More Digital

Amazon has over a million employees, globally. They have major centers in cities like Seattle, SF, NY, Boston, LA, and a work-in-progress facility in Washington. One might think this is a problem for them going forward, as more office space with fewer employees using them is a waste. This is a very real concern for big companies right now, as well as for the commercial real estate business. For just one example, in Seattle, the amount of vacant office spaces has been increasing over the past year. While this may be a concern for realtors, it’s a silver lining for other business owners. More employees working from their home office equals less money spent on an office lease. Now a company like Amazon will always need buildings for distribution centers, but they could conceivably reduce overheard costs by way of administrative facilities. More and more companies are turning to outside providers for remote working employees, like virtual assistants. It simply makes sense nowadays, as more and more local employees are essentially becoming virtual assistants themselves!

Perks and Benefits

We’ve recently written plenty of articles about how and why virtual assistants are the way of the professional future. To boil it down to a few of the main positive points is relatively simple because the entire case for utilizing VA’s(virtual assistants) is relatively simple too!

You can get the same skills, experience, and even education as a local hire
You save up to 70% on employment costs vs a local hire
Flexibility. Hire one, or hire 10. It’s one flat monthly payment. We handle the rest.

One of the first things a business owner considers is the quality of employees they get when they outsource. While a valid concern, it’s far less an issue nowadays than ever before. Companies like ours recruit our VA’s from places with a population that fluently speaks English. All VA’s we consider go through a rigorous and thorough hiring process, that includes FBI grade background checks. We ensure all VA candidates come already with the skills and experience necessary for the roles and industries we typically place them in. A lot of them have attended universities and have all the necessary tools for tasks like accounting, marketing, customer service, realty, etc. And all of this comes to US employers at major savings. MyOutDesk handles all of the insurance, PTO, benefits, etc so that our clients only pay a monthly fee per VA.

Who’s Next?

It’s starting to seem like only a matter of time before bigger and bigger companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple start increasing their outsourced employee numbers. It’s literally a win/win for everyone! Companies can save money hiring VA’s to handle the busy work that can all be done from anywhere in the world, freeing up space and budget for local employees who either need to be more hands and present or require particularly special skillsets. The big names are doing it, and you might be the next big name of your industry. So what are you waiting for? If you have any obstacle in the path to growing your business, you owe it to yourself to reach out. There has never been a better time than now to at least explore the possibilities. Click below to schedule a free one-on-one consultation with one of our experts. We’ll hear you out first, and then discuss how we can help.

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MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
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1. Use the Whole Office 365 Suite

If you’re not already using all of the apps available in Microsoft’s Office 365 suite, consider switching from whatever platform you’re currently on.

Teams works better with Microsoft’s own applications than any other office suite, giving you a much stronger integration between your documents and communication.

2. Use Microsoft Team App Integrations With Other Tools

While Teams integrates tightly with Office 365, that doesn’t mean you can only use it with Microsoft applications.

Microsoft provides a large selection of apps for MS Teams that integrate with other services. You can connect Teams to tools like Trello for project management or Twitter for customer service, for example.

3. Treat Teams Meetings the Way You Would Treat In-Person Meetings

While Teams can work like a chat tool or email, it’s best not to treat it as a “social” tool. Set expectations for your virtual assistants upfront and treat virtual meetings through Teams the same way you would treat in-person meetings.

Expect people to be on time, to be on camera, to present themselves professionally, and anything else you would expect of an employee working in your office.

4. Take the Time to Learn How to Use Teams Effectively

Learning how to use the Microsoft Team app effectively gives you all kinds of options for working with your VA. It offers a lot of powerful features, not all of which are obvious.

For example, you can use the screen sharing feature in Teams to show your virtual assistant what you want them to do. And if you use the meeting recording feature to create a recording of that session, they’ll have a training video they can refer back to while they’re getting up to speed with your processes.

5. Use Planner to Stay Organized

The Planner feature in MS Teams is a perfect way to break down a project when you’re working with virtual assistant services. You can set up “buckets” which are essentially projects, each with a list of tasks to be completed.

You can assign those tasks to different people, including your virtual assistant, and get notifications as they complete their assigned tasks. You can also chart the project’s progress with the built-in reporting features in Planner.

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Amazon Embraces Remote Work – Are Virtual Assistants Next?