Top 5 attributes to look for in a virtual staffing company

If you’ve ever opted to use an outsourcing service for your business development needs, chances are you either had a great experience or an awful one.

Different people have had different experiences with outsourcing services, and these experiences are a result of the way their project delivery was managed by the service provider.

Hiring the right outsourcing service can help companies and project managers deliver results faster. At the same time, they can keep projects within budget, and gain the added comfort of scaling operations at ease, by tapping into the immense talent pool that outsourcing offers.

However, to make this work, companies must understand the right qualities to look for in an ideal virtual staffing company. Here are 5 key attributes that every staffing company must have.

1. Collaborative in their Approach.

An effective virtual staffing company must be an agile self-starter in order to work well as a remote member of the project team. They must be equipped with the right project management and team collaboration tools so that there is no lag in their work schedule or task delivery. The ability to get stuff done without having someone supervise them 24/7, along with a hands-on approach to collaborate on ideas and deliverables are essential to successful outsourcing development.

2. Excellent at Communication.

One of the major drawbacks of having a remote team or employee on your team is their inability to communicate well with your on-site team or clients due to a cultural or language barrier.

Not all virtual employees have English as their first language, so communicating with them becomes problematic. There are people in non-English speaking countries that have a good grasp on the language, but most of them are very poor in verbal as well as written communication.

They cannot even read English properly. Communicating with them is a problem, and how will you work with the one with whom you cannot communicate?

Communication is a big problem, except if you work with a virtual staffing agency, because the employees of such companies are always well-versed in English. They are fully bilingual or even native and can work normally with you.

3. Detailed Project Reports.

A virtual staffing company who has some experience of handling the business it claims to handle will know how important detailed project reports are for the successful completion of a job. This may look not very important, and you would be inclined to think that it is not a big deal if that company doesn’t know detailed project report filing, but this could be an indication of its poor quality. Remember broken windows theory of social science, and how well it has been proved that a small cue can lead to a significant change in the environment.

4. Flexible to Learn, Adapt, and Execute.

The secret is team work.

A good VA company is always organized and prepared to execute any project with the right tools, but that doesn’t mean that you are obligated to work the way they want.

A virtual staffing company must be able to use your tools, and execute a project the way you want it.

5. Reliable Quality.

You never know the quality of output produced by a virtual staffing company unless you get a trial. Right?

Well, not so if you have done some research before hiring one for your job. Carefully read the testimonials and see what their former customers had to say about them. You can find small cues in the testimonials left by clients. Read between the lines and look for those cues.

If not, just ask for a free trial, a good company should give you one.

You need to look for these traits when hiring a virtual staffing company for your projects, so you can start becoming a virtual CEO.