How To Create A VA Onboarding Manual

When you've finally hired a new Virtual Assistant, you might be wondering: what's the easiest way that I can introduce them to my company and what they're here for?

When you've just been hired by a new company, it can be overwhelming to have to learn about the history, the goals, the policies, what's available, etc.,

From that point of view, your responsibility as an employer is to be able to give your VA the resource to know all of that, without having to take up a lot of your time.

Which is the importance of having a Virtual Assistant Onboarding Manual:

What A Virtual Assistant Onboarding Manual Is

It is essentially a guide for new employees to have a uniform way of knowing more about what your business is about.

This way you don't have to repeat yourself over and over, and it's a document that you can keep updating as your company grows.

It's a scalable way for you to be able to hire multiple employees at once and have them get started without feeling like they have to bother you a lot with questions.

Choosing A Platform

As your Virtual Assistant is, well, virtual, you'll need to pick a good platform to host your manual where it would be easy to share and update as needed.

This doesn't need to be a complicated platform: simplicity is key.

What platform that you'll actually use with your assistant already that it would be great for them to be able to explore while reading through the manual?

Here are a few platforms that you can choose from for your manual:

Google Doc

Notion

Asana

Trello

Once you have your platform, here are the different documents that will need to be included and written down in your manual:

Company Infomation

This is the introduction to your manual, and should contain the following:

Your company's history

How did your company start? How did you get your first sale/customer? Give them the context of why you started the company in the first place.

Your company goal (Vision)

Also known as the company's vision, what are you currently working towards in your company? This could be the big goal or the goal for the next year at least. This will show them what the company is working on, so they can be aware of how working with you would help that goal.

Company Policies

Here are the top policies that should be written out as a guideline for your employees on what to do and what not to do while working with you:

1. Work-Life Policy

This will outline what the employees should expect when it comes to their working hours: are they on a flexible time schedule or are there certain times that they will need to work? Do they get leaves? When can they take certain days off, and what kind of heads up will you need if they do take a day off?

2. Pay Policy

How will they get paid? How often? Outline this to give your VA a comfortable place to read through how they'll expect to keep making money while working with you.

3. Communication Policy

Do you have a particular way you'd like to communicate with your VA? How often do you want to be communicated? Will there be regular meetings and meetups?

Resources Page

These will be resources like articles, tools, walkthroughs, and where to access certain things inside of your business.

For example, for 2xYou, our resources page is where our books and courses database is held, where employees can search through the different skills they want to learn and be able to pick and choose what to study.

Standard Operating Procedures Page

This is a database of SOPs on how things are done inside of your company.

From how client emails are sent, or how to fill out a report, or how to update the SOPs itself, this is simply a way for you to train VAs in tasks, or to have them be able to record and create documentation for any new tasks they're able to do.

Assets Database

This can be email templates, checklists, or simply just the marketing materials in your company like logos or banners that they can use.

Custom Pages

There are pages that would probably custom per employee that can be just a template you can edit and change as you hire for different positions:

List Of Expectations

What are the goals that they're expected to help you reach? What are their daily, weekly, and monthly responsibilities?

Are there any reports that they're supposed to fill out? What is the expectation for this particular position?

What can they expect in the first week, month, 90 days?

List Of Tasks

What are the first three tasks they'll be doing in their first few days? What are the tasks that they'll need to eventually take over and learn?

Again, your company manual doesn't have to be this big, complicated thing. It can be a simple document where your new VAs will have a good idea about you and your business in the fastest way.

Have you created a VA Manual before? Have any questions about it? Comment it below!