A lot of time and effort go into finding the right VA. After posting the job, you sort applications and conduct interviews until you find someone who feels like a strong match. Then you introduce them to tools and teach them your workflow and processes.
When you finally hand over responsibilities to them, it feels like a huge relief. You expect it to be smooth sailing going forward, but before you know it, your VA quits, and you’re back to square one, having to repeat the whole process. You lose time hiring and retraining, and these transitions result in lost productivity.
A high VA turnover describes a situation where this happens too often that it feels unusual, and nothing frustrates a business owner more than this. If you’re dealing with this and wondering why your VA turnover is high, we’ll outline some reasons below that may apply to you and provide suggestions on how to address the issue.
Unclear Expectations Or Vague Job Descriptions
If you hire virtual assistants without clearly defining their roles, you may just be setting the stage for their exit.
Maybe you post a role as “general support” or “help with admin”. Someone applying for the job is likely not to be aware of the scope of your administrative duties. They probably expect to manage your inboxes, schedule meetings, book travel, and take meeting notes. However, after securing the job, they suddenly realize that they are also expected to manage social media pages and handle bookkeeping.
This mismatch between expectations and reality introduces more stress than expected and leaves them overwhelmed. It’s just a matter of time before they start seeking out new workplaces where the role description is clear and they know what to expect.
What To Do: Set Clear Expectations From Day One
From the moment you put out a call for the VA role, the job description should be as clear as day. Clear enough that there’s no room for guesswork. If “admin support” means managing emails, scheduling, data entry, and preparing basic reports, make that explicit. Do not assume they’ll “just know.”
When they clearly understand the job description and what’s expected of them, they won’t be caught off guard once they start working with you. This makes it far more likely they’ll stay.
Poor Communication
Poor communication manifests in various ways, including vague task instructions, unclear priorities, or even radio silence regarding their work.
You may tell your VA to draft an update for a client without mentioning how you want it formatted or the tone to use. They put in their best effort and come up with something they’re proud of, but you reject it. After two or more fixes and rejections, frustrations kick in. For some VAs, the challenge is that they are loaded with work and left to figure it all out, then only hear from their client when things go wrong.
It’s not only your VA that should work on their conversation skills. It needs to go both ways; otherwise, be prepared to have a quitter on your hands in the near future.
What To Do: Improve Communication With Structured Check-Ins
A simple solution is to establish a clear communication structure that keeps them informed. Depending on the nature of the tasks they handle, these check-ins can be daily, biweekly, or weekly. Use these meetings to recognize their impressive work, help them understand which tasks are priorities, set goals, and answer any questions they may have for you.
You can schedule separate meetings for different purposes, maybe Mondays for targets and deadlines, Wednesdays for follow-up on progress, and Fridays for weekly reviews. Or you can combine purposes in each meeting. You just need to figure out what works best for you and your VA. All these details are usually contained in a communication SOP, so if you don’t have one for your VAs, you should create one. It’s easy to create one with AI tools like ChatGPT.
Another way to improve communication is to start communicating more specifically. The goal in all these is to ensure that your VA understands every task assigned to them and has sufficient opportunities to gain the clarity they need to consistently deliver high-quality work.
Low Pay Or Unfair Compensation
Nothing ruins a client–VA relationship more than when the VA feels they aren’t paid enough for the service or quality they provide. Some VAs discover only after you hire them that they can make more money offering the same service elsewhere, or they could have only accepted your offer because they needed it to survive.
This is why you may see some quitting barely one month in because they received a “better offer” from another person or business. Note that it’s not uncommon for VAs to apply to multiple organizations and compare offers or hold onto one client while waiting to hear from another.
Unfair compensation can also be seen in general pay for specialized services. For instance, you hire a VA with graphic design skills to help you create branded content, but instead of paying them a rate commensurate with a creative job, you pay them what you would offer someone who only carries out data entry. Eventually, they’ll want to find someone who values their creativity well enough.
What To Do: Offer Fair Pay And Benefits That Match Effort And Skill
A little research into industry standard pay will give you insights into what to pay your VA. You don’t have to pay the highest rates, but you can use the range as a guide. You tweak from there to match the workload or the expertise of your VA. Less workload means lower pay and vice versa, and the same goes for experience.
Let’s assume the standard pay for an entry-level data entry admin is $20-35. If you’re offering $25 or even $21 per hour for someone handling the most basic admin duty, even though it’s on the lower end, you’re in a safe range. For a VA that you spend a lot of time training, it won’t be unfair to go a little lower. However, if you have a VA with 5 years of experience and proficiency in several tools you work with, like Monday or ClickUp, who can also assist with project management, you may be looking at raising the rate as high as $40-50 per hour.
In reality, not all clients can meet industry standards, especially small businesses and startups, which often have limited budgets. Transparency can help here. If your offer falls below the standard range, be clear about it upfront and balance it with other forms of value, such as flexible hours and a consistent workload. You can also throw in opportunities to develop new skills.
Overwork And Burnout
When a regular 8-hour per day gig starts stretching into some late-night calls and weekend availability, or a set of well-defined tasks keeps increasing to include extra work that wasn’t part of the initial agreement, you can bet that you are about to lose yet another VA.
Let’s say your VA was hired to work for four hours a day, five days a week, and do only inbox management and scheduling. Three months down the line, and they are also managing vendors and preparing reports. Now, they close daily by 6 pm instead of 4 pm, and they also give their Sunday mornings to ensure their weekly targets are met. But all these changes to their schedule weren’t part of the agreement, and there is no extra compensation for the extra work. What do you think will happen if this continues for a few more months?
It could also be a case of unrealistic workloads. Assigning 50 customer support tickets, a month’s worth of social media posts, a detailed competitor analysis, and the preparation of weekly financial reports to one VA and expecting everything to be ready in a few days just won’t work. These roles require a wide range of specialized skills and may deter your VA.
What To Do: Respect Work-Life Balance With Reasonable Workloads
No matter how dedicated a VA is, once it feels like they keep receiving more tasks than they can handle, you can best believe they are already planning their exit. You must adhere to the agreed-upon hours, and if changes are necessary due to new work demands, the decent thing to do is to discuss them first.
Your VA will not only deliver high-quality results and feel respected for their time when they aren’t overwhelmed, but will also likely stay with you for a longer period.
FAQs
Q: What are some red flags that a VA might be planning to quit?
Some early warning signs include:
- Longer response times than usual.
- Dropping quality of work despite reminders.
- Expressing dissatisfaction with workload or pay.
- Taking more unexplained time off.
For instance, when a VA who usually replies within an hour suddenly starts taking 3-6 hours to respond, it may indicate disengagement, and it’s time to address their concerns quickly if you value their work.
Q: How can I make my VA feel like part of the team?
VAs often feel isolated since they work remotely. To make them feel like they truly belong to your team, there are many things you can do. They include adding them to team calls and groups (wherever relevant), wishing them well on their birthdays and milestones, and publicly recognizing their contributions.
It helps to keep a sheet of their joining dates and birthdays, so you can always run through it and know which ones to celebrate every month. You’ll need this if you have multiple VAs, as you may forget these details.
Q: Should I use contracts when hiring a VA?
Yes, contracts are very helpful for setting and reducing misunderstandings. A contract should cover the following:
- Scope of work and responsibilities.
- Number of hours per week/month.
- Pay rate and payment schedule.
- Confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements if sensitive data is involved.
- Terms for termination or changes in workload.
If, in the future, you have to increase their hours from 20 to 30 per week, the contract makes it easier to renegotiate terms formally and fairly.
Q: Is it better to hire a VA through an agency or directly?
Both options have pros and cons.
Through an agency, it’s faster, and you get pre-vetted candidates, plus it’s easier to find replacements if someone quits. However, you may pay higher rates because the agency takes a percentage of the total amount.
For a direct hire, you have more control over the relationship and may even pay less; however, recruitment, vetting, and training require more time and effort.
Are you scaling quickly and need backup in case of turnover? Agencies might be a good fit. Does long-term loyalty and cost efficiency matter more? Direct hiring may serve you better.
Final Thoughts
Keeping a VA is not always the easiest thing to do. You can do everything right and still see a VA quit because they only came in looking for quick cash and not job stability, or because they’ve taken more side gigs than they can handle in that moment, and leaving yours feels like the best decision in that moment. In these cases, there’s nothing you can do about retaining them.
At the end of the day, you can’t prevent every VA from leaving, but you can create an environment where the right ones will want to stay. By setting clear expectations, communicating effectively, paying fairly, and respecting boundaries, you’ll reduce high VA turnover and build stronger, longer-lasting working relationships.
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