Every company has a different personality and work ethic.
However, employee types usually boil down to shortsighted vs. big picture.
We have always strived for our employees to be big picture contributors, meaning we hire and nurture proactive types who always look to go the extra mile. We believe in helping them understand the "why" behind what they are doing, which gives them an extra perspective from which to view the task at hand. This enables them to go beyond just the plain steps.
The Parable of the Oranges is well known. Recently, we saw the heart of the story ring true when one of our employees did something amazing.
Read on to discover our version of the Parable of the Oranges.
Parable of the Oranges - Prialto Style
A longtime Prialto virtual administrative assistant realized that their member (aka: client) had a personal need. To be clear, the need wasn't professional but personal.
Yet, the need was very vital to this member's day-to-day funcionality as a father and person.
His wife was on a business trip. Because she knew that certain things would be forgotten (as they had been before) if her husband (our member) wasn't reminded to accomplish them. So she left a to do list. But as many of you know, these lists can be easily read and forgotten.
Seeing this situation, our virtual administrative assistant acted proactively by putting reminders on several of her member's calendars in addition to her own calendar. As the tasks came up, our virtual administrative assistant would remind her member via email and text him regarding what was pending and/or about to be due.
As if these friendly reminders weren't enough, our virtual assistant actually performed several of the to do list tasks since she had taken care of those tasks in the past and knew her member's preferences. In those instances, she added those finished tasks to her daily summary as "completed" instead of flagging tasks as pending.
We call those "wow moments."
When an employee thinks of the outcome for any task at hand and also thinks of the various ways to make that outcome even more of a success, they are looking at the big picture.
When an employee uses various approaches and connects different "paths" together to create an outcome that amplifies his or her member to such a success point, he or she is definitely viewing the situation wholistically.
Tenure, education, and talent are key attributes for hiring success at our company.
However, what trumps them all is a virtual assistant employee who views the task at hand, sees the overall goal, approaches everything with creativity, and gives it such a twist of both proactivity and creativity that the member wonders how anything ever got done before our virtual assistant services provided such actionable support.
CONCLUSION
Do you have a to do list full of busy work that is keeping you from achieving higher level tasks? You may want to hire a virtual assistant for that!
Additional Resources
3 Ways to Make Sure You Hire a Virtual Assistant Who Is Proactive
Want Real Power? Hire a Virtual Assistant in a Managed Network.