How do you save money if a Virtual Assistant’s hourly rate is higher than an in-house employee?

This is a question that hinders a lot of business owners from hiring a virtual assistant. The cost of hiring someone to come into your office or business location for $20 per hour seems like such a better deal than hiring a virtual assistant for $35 per hour, right? In the long run NO WAY! State to state in house employees salary laws are different but just take this – with a fringe benefit of 35% you add $7.00 to your in-house employee’s income per hour, then you take in the overhead (office equipment, supplies, worker’s comp and so on) of 50% you add $10.00 to your in-house employee’s income per hour for a total of $37.00 per hour. Those costs seem to get lost in the shuffle because they are either calculated by a payroll service OR through the accounting program you have set up. Those are costs that are not included in your Virtual Assistant’s wages. On top of those “extras” you need to calculate in tardiness, sick days, vacation days and slacking time which every employer pays and have no completed tasks to show for it! Again this is something you do not calculate in when working with a Virtual Assistant – they get paid for the project completed OR for the house actually worked! It has been calculated that you pay on average 2,080 hours per year for an in-house employee and can get the same amount of work completed by a virtual assistant in 480 hours per year (an employee’s 8 hour day can usually be crunched into a 3-4 hour day with a virtual assistant) – calculate this out and it is a savings of over $60,000.00! Now that is a savings!