Real Cost of an Employee
One very important concern a business may have when contemplating hiring a Virtual Assistant is whether or not they can actual afford one. A crucial step to take in deciding to hire a Virtual Assistant is to determine how much an employee of your business will really cost you, or the "Real Cost of an Employee."
The "Real Cost of an Employee" is the employee's salary plus all benefits, taxes the business is required to pay, office space and supplies. The truth is all of this adds up and quite quickly. Generally, the "Real Cost of an Employee" is 2-3 times the employee's annual salary and this can even increase to four times the amount of their salary.
This may not be telling you much, so let Lawson Associates show you. We have already done all the work for you with an easy to use calculation of the "Real Cost of an Employee."
All you have to do to find out this cost is open up the Calculator and complete the blank sections. The calculator will complete the rest and show you exactly how much you assume you are paying an employee annually in the section "Annual Direct Cost." However, once you've filled out all of the blank sections of the calculator you will see the "Real Cost of an Employee."
If you don't have the time for the calculator we have simplified the information for you even more. Below is a chart* we have created which represents the Annual Salary of an employee vs. the "Real Cost of an Employee." For example, if an employee earns $10.00 per hour and works 40 hours per week with no overtime their annual gross salary will be $20,800.00 whereas their "real cost" calculates out to $52,646.00.
*The dollar amounts were calculated using our form with no pay for holidays, sick days, vacation days or miscellaneous days with a rate of $500.00 for recruitment and an additional $500.00 for training costs.
Please keep in mind that the cost to your business for office space and supplies may be slightly different, maybe even more, but the calculator still gives you a very good idea of the "Real Cost of an Employee." Another cost to your business you may want to think about is your employee's productivity time. If you pay your employee at an hourly rate can you be sure that employee is remaining productive during the entire hour or are you paying for coffee breaks, office politics and any other downtime?
Now that you know this information a Virtual Assistant might be more appealing to you. The largest advantage of a Virtual Assistant over an employee is that Virtual Assistants charge their clients a set hourly rate depending upon the Services that are being provided.
At Lawson Associates we are respectful to your business needs and we can guarantee that they will be met. We can also promise you that you will always know what the charges will be for the services before they are provided, this way you will never be surprised when you receive your invoice.
If you would like a worksheet you can use in the future to analyze the "The Real Cost of an Employee" Click here to download. (This worksheet does not calculate in the costs of office space or supplies.)