Forbes defines inflation as an increase in prices and a decrease in the purchasing power of a currency over time. So if you think your dollar isn’t going as far as it did before the pandemic, you’re not alone. The impact of inflation on small and medium-sized businesses may seem negligible at first glance, but it can quickly add up.

Most entrepreneurs are aware of inflation. However, sometimes they overlook how inflation affects their inflation. They view inflation simply as a supply and demand imbalance, unaware that it is affecting their workforce and therefore their processes.

Photo credit: Canva

How is inflation affecting the small business workforce?

Rising prices: A challenge

Increasing costs are a challenge, whether you are an established business or a start-up. But nobody can get rid of it during inflation. An increase in demand causes companies to raise their prices – either because they have a supply shortage or because they are confident that higher prices will not affect their sales.

Inflation costs everyone

Employer Perspective: Small business owners invest all their funds and energies into scaling their business. Instead of raising prices, they’re laying off employees to cut costs so their business and sales aren’t impacted. However, it’s becoming a massive pain for them as they have to look for staff when things return to normal.

Layoffs are a common method used to cut costs in the US. However, insiders mention that the cuts are due to slower company growth coupled with rising labor costs.

Employee Perspective: The Bureau of Labor Statistics presents the latest data that shows consumer prices increased by 7% in the last year ended December 2021. This is the most significant rise in inflation since 1982. In addition, significant price increases in some key industries are causing high inflation, including used car prices (37% increase), energy (including electricity and gasoline (29%) increase) and food (6.3 percent increase). ).

America’s great resignation is also the result of rising prices, even for daily utilities. Professionals are moving to better opportunities with high salary scales that small businesses cannot provide.

Local workers need better compensation

This point is an extension of the previous point. According to a recent LendingClub survey, 64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Even people making six figures are feeling the effects of inflation! As of now, 48 percent of these households are living paycheck to paycheck. It’s easy to see that as the cost of living increases, so does the stress of trying to stay on top.

The most common reason for termination is the desire for more salary. No one wants to dedicate their dedication and hard work to a company that doesn’t make them feel respected and important.

But of course, it’s not that easy to just snap your fingers and give everyone on your team a raise or a significant bonus. It’s not practical for small and bootstrap companies.

How Can Virtual Assistants Help You During Inflation?

Your small business could suffer seriously if you choose not to address these pain points. Fortunately, there is an effective solution for small businesses and startup owners struggling with inflation.

This is how you can hire a virtual assistant to stay profitable during 2022 inflation.

• Be free from employer liability

1. No fixed contracts: Hiring a virtual assistant gets even better for small business owners as they are not required to sign a virtual assistant employment contract. Hiring a virtual assistant is not time-bound, which means startup founders have more freedom when outsourcing than when hiring an in-house employee.
2. No office set up: The virtual assistant renders its services remotely. Therefore, they do not require a physical workspace, saving you on office equipment costs.
3. No insurance costs: Permanent employees receive various benefits and hefty salaries. Their packages include health insurance, travel allowance, rent allowance, etc. These costs can weigh heavily on small business owners, especially in times of pandemic and inflation.

• Save big during inflation

1. hourly rates: You don’t have to pay hefty salaries, insurance costs, office equipment fees, or additional virtual assistant costs. VA services are available on an hourly basis. In short: Business founders only pay for the required operating hours.
2. A big cost saver: Hiring a virtual assistant, or remote work in general, is an effective measure to combat inflation for both professionals and business owners. Remote work makes life affordable for working professionals as they can work from their workplace, unlike traditional work that requires a daily commute.

   As a result, they save on fuel costs and often on rent as well. Because of this, local professionals need higher wages to handle rental and commuting costs – a massive jolt for small businesses. Remote work solves the problem of higher compensation and becomes a win-win situation for everyone.

• Receive the same benefits as in-house employees:

1. Highly Experienced Virtual Assistants: Virtual assistants come with immense experience. Your skills combine different things including multitasking and tackling various challenging situations and projects like yours. In this sense, they bring the same experience and value to your projects as an in-house collaborator.

Photo credit: Unsplash

1. Virtual assistants are pre-checked: The most time-consuming aspect of running a small business is attracting worthy talent. Reportedly it lasts 42 days to fill a position. However, the average time to fill a vacancy varies by industry. You can choose not to be part of this ordeal by hiring a virtual assistant. You can hire a virtual assistant in less than a quarter of that time.

Remote recruiters like Wishup select the virtual assistants after several rounds of interviews to ensure companies can skip this process and work with the professionals.

• Exclusive benefits with Wishup

1. Strict selection process: Wishup promises to deliver only the best. Therefore, only the top 1% cut the total number of candidates applying to be virtual assistants. The selection process is deliberately designed to be challenging in order to meet the most demanding and highest expectations of customers and their projects.
2. Pre-trained virtual assistants: Wishup trains its world-class virtual assistants to perform more than 70 tasks for customers. This is a key benefit over internal staff that you need to train after onboarding. In addition, trained virtual assistants speed up your workflow because they can start working directly without delay.
3. Immediate replacement: Wishup provides customers with an instant virtual assistant replacement. If you are not satisfied with the services provided by your VA, you can choose to work with another virtual assistant.
4. Professionals available even for the most difficult services: Wishup strives to keep its standards high. That’s why we have solutions for all industries. Additionally, Wishup can connect you with highly skilled QA testers to ensure you release your next software-based product faster and error-free.

In the final remark

Most business owners are concerned about their survival during inflation. However, few survive such traumatic events, especially after a deadly pandemic.

Entrepreneur Marwan Forzley recognized this gap and unwittingly revealed the secret of business owners who survive and gamble for the long haul. He commented: “Small business owners should remember that we live in a globalized world with available resources that would otherwise have been inaccessible just a few years ago.

Thanks to the interconnectedness of our economies, business leaders around the world can source materials, hire workers, and transact business to help them conduct their day-to-day operations. Likewise, small business owners can hopefully harness the power of our globalized society to connect with the resources they need in their entrepreneurial journey.”

His stance was not aimed at inflation, but what he is proposing fits the situation. Inflation costs everyone. On the one hand, employers have to lay off employees to save costs; On the other hand, workers take refuge by changing jobs in order to get higher compensation.

It causes difficulties for companies because they have to spend time finding another suitable replacement, which takes weeks or even months. Therefore, hiring a virtual assistant can be helpful for businesses as it saves time and money. And with companies like Wishup, it becomes even more convenient for small business owners to hire a virtual assistant, knowing they can rely on the professional to deliver only the best, even during inflation.

Email us [email protected] to hire a virtual assistant, or click here to schedule a free consultation!