In today’s fast-paced business environment, time is one of the most valuable resources. For busy professionals and small business owners, managing everyday tasks can quickly become overwhelming, leaving little room for strategic thinking and growth. One effective solution is outsourcing certain functions to regain valuable time and focus on what truly matters. Here’s how outsourcing can help you reclaim an entire work week per month.

The Reality of Time Management

If you think that you – or most of your staff – spend most of their time on the job doing real work, think again. There’s sobering news in the 2016-2017 “U.S. State of Enterprise Work Report,” which shows beyond a doubt that busywork and housekeeping tasks keep getting in the way of real productivity.

Some nuggets from the study:

• Time available for office staff to perform their primary job functions declined from 46 percent to 39 percent between 2015 and 2016.
• The top triggers for workplace time wasters were unnecessary meetings and too many emails.
• At least a quarter of employees want uninterrupted time so that they can focus on their core roles.

Survey respondents indicate that the lion’s share of their time clocked in on the job is irretrievably consumed by ancillary tasks and disruptions that are often nonessential. The breakdown of how their attention, efforts, and time are spent (as a percentage of their work time) on clerical duties, housekeeping items, and other distractions is as follows:

• Emails – 16 percent
• Useful meetings – 11 percent
• Administrative tasks – 11 percent
• Wasteful meetings – 10 percent
• Interruptions for nonessential tasks – 8 percent
• Miscellaneous – 5 percent

Plus, employees are clocking in more hours at work. Forty-five percent of workers log 41-50 hours per week, and 14 percent work 51 or more hours. That people are working longer, increasing hours is no consolation for the continued time crunch they still encounter in being able to do their actual jobs. In other words, working longer and spending more facetime at the office is not enhancing their performance, work-life balance, productivity, or job satisfaction.

Outsource These Functions to Regain Time

As a leader of a company, entrepreneur of a new proprietorship, or manager of a team in a mid-to-large-sized organization, how can you regain more time for both you and your staff? After all, time is something that can neither be replaced nor replenished. Effective decision-makers bear a responsibility for ensuring it is maximized to the benefit of operations, customers, talent, and the bottom line.

Virtual assistants (VAs) offer a proven solution, not merely a temporary stopgap of relief. When companies hire offsite administrative assistants, they improve efficiency, enhance focus, and make the most of limited time.

Imagine: Paying a virtual assistant to work for 10 hours per week may add up to 40 hours of compensated time per month. But the total value may greatly exceed both the investment and the official logged time.

Here are just a few ways outsourcing these functions can help:

1. Administrative Tasks

Administrative tasks, though essential, can be incredibly time-consuming. Scheduling meetings, managing emails, and handling paperwork are just a few examples of tasks that can eat into your productive hours. By outsourcing these tasks to a virtual assistant, you can free up significant time. Virtual assistants can efficiently manage your calendar, respond to routine emails, and keep your paperwork organized, allowing you to focus on higher-priority activities.

2. Bookkeeping and Accounting

Keeping track of finances is crucial, but it doesn’t require your constant attention. Outsourcing bookkeeping and accounting functions to professionals ensures that your financial records are accurate and up-to-date without consuming your time. These experts can handle invoicing, payroll, expense tracking, and tax preparation, providing you with clear and timely financial insights.

3. Social Media Management

Maintaining a strong social media presence is important for brand visibility and customer engagement. However, creating content, scheduling posts, and responding to comments can be time-intensive. By outsourcing social media management to specialists, you can ensure consistent and engaging content without the daily grind. These professionals can develop a content strategy, create posts, and interact with your audience, freeing you up to focus on core business activities.

4. Customer Support

Providing excellent customer service is essential, but it can also be a major time drain. Outsourcing customer support to a dedicated team can enhance your customer experience while saving you time. Whether it’s handling inquiries, troubleshooting issues, or managing returns, a professional customer support team can ensure your customers are satisfied, allowing you to concentrate on growing your business.

5. Marketing and Content Creation

Effective marketing is key to business growth, but it requires creativity, strategy, and time. Outsourcing marketing and content creation to experts can help you maintain a consistent and professional brand image. From developing marketing campaigns and writing blog posts to designing graphics and creating videos, marketing professionals can handle all aspects of your promotional efforts, enabling you to focus on strategic decisions.

6. IT Support

Managing IT infrastructure can be challenging and time-consuming. Outsourcing IT support ensures that your technology runs smoothly without constant oversight from you. IT professionals can handle everything from setting up hardware and software to troubleshooting technical issues and ensuring cybersecurity. This allows you to focus on your business operations without worrying about technical problems.

7. Human Resources

HR functions such as recruiting, onboarding, and employee management are critical but can be time-consuming. Outsourcing HR tasks to specialists can streamline these processes, ensuring compliance and efficiency. HR experts can manage job postings, conduct interviews, handle payroll, and oversee employee benefits, freeing you from the administrative burden and allowing you to focus on leadership and strategy.

Here are just a few ways a VA helps:

Travel Arrangements:

It can take hours for the average person to book travel. From researching hotels and securing rental cars to aligning other logistics and booking flights, coordinating trips is no small task.

Email Management:

According to some estimates, workers spend more than six hours a day checking emails. Other studies show that it takes up 28 percent of an employee’s time. Virtual assistants shoulder the burden of email, acting as air traffic controllers of clients’ inboxes.

Meeting Coordination:

Many topics addressed in meetings can be handled via a qualified intermediary who negotiates communications among involved parties. Middle managers spend more than one-third of their time in meetings, whereas senior leaders spend about half of their work time in them. VAs can be great mediators in this manner.

Stats and research show that work demands are clearly increasing, even amid technologies that promised to ease burdens and enhance efficiency. For these reasons and more, it’s evident that VAs offer a relief valve worth exploring.

If you’re a leader, people manager or team member who needs to “Make Time for Work that Matters,” a virtual assistant can help you regain precious, priceless hours – time that benefits both the personal and professional spheres of life.

Conclusion

Stats and research show that work demands are clearly increasing, even amid technologies that promised to ease burdens and enhance efficiency. For these reasons and more, it’s evident that virtual assistants and outsourcing offer a relief valve worth exploring.

Outsourcing is a powerful tool that can help you reclaim valuable time each month. By delegating administrative tasks, bookkeeping, social media management, customer support, marketing, IT support, and HR functions to professionals, you can focus on what you do best—driving your business forward.

Imagine what you could achieve with an extra work week each month. Embrace outsourcing to enhance your productivity, efficiency, and overall business success.

Ready to regain your time? Talk with us today about how outsourcing to Lazar & Company can help you accomplish more. Get Started!