Kate Bacon - Virtual Assistant

I work with corporate HR departments on project work that would previously have been undertaken by temporary staff. There is no need to complete such projects in-house, taking up office space, computer equipment and the time to “train” inexperienced contract employees.

Working with a VA experienced in this field you get all the benefits of having a trained employee at only a fraction of the cost. All you pay for is the time I actually work on projects (there are no overheads for your company).

Additionally you have the flexibility of calling on my VA services as and when you need them. I work with corporates in two ways:

Retainer basis: whereby you retain me for a certain number of hours each month – to be used at your convenience; or

To show you just how a VA can support your corporate HR department please take a moment to read the following example:

My business niche is working with executive and business coaches and trainers, and, through one of my clients, I was introduced to a major mobile telecoms company.

My client was involved in running a series of workshops with their top 100 executives; part of the process being Reflected Best Self, a variant on the 360-feedback model for each participant. The corporation didn’t have the in-house capacity to organize the collation of this feedback, so I took on the project that covered six workshops during 2006 - completing the work without ever once meeting the client !

The ability to listen, understand and clarify the parameters for the project
To come up with suggestions enabling the work to run smoothly
To negotiate deadlines that enabled me to complete commitments with other clients
Negotiating a deal with a third-party supplier to print and deliver the final work to the client
To take responsibility for managing the project, liaising between participants and the Executive and Management Development team with whom I was working.

Practically speaking the project required collection of feedback by email from 20 people known to each participant (this was broader than traditional 360 Feedback model in terms of contribution from friends and family as well as colleagues, managers and reports in the workplace).

Once collected the feedback was collated into a PowerPoint document for each participant, requiring editing on my part to make sense of the answers in a few cases!

(The client and I initially developed the PowerPoint template together, to ensure it fit with the company’s own brand).

Participants were “chased up” by me when feedback was slow in forthcoming to ensure the project met client deadlines.

Finally, I managed the print side of the project in collaboration with a local supplier to ensure the final documents matched client expectations.

The project was completed successfully; the client was more than happy, and possibly a little surprised, at how well it could work virtually.