They cannot hire quick enough to replace those who leave. Staff turnover is horrendous but funnily enough no one talks about it. It is a fear based work-environment with a rampant culture of blame.
The office which you will visit once a week hasn’t got a fixed address, it changes quite often, from awful buildings in disrepair to shared working spaces and serviced offices, short term let. Communication is poor or one-way. You are not listened to and you have no one to turn to. Your work will be constantly monitored and criticised, and not in a constructive way.
Their management and allocation of customers is just as bad. You can end up working non stop, 10-12 or more hours a day. If you are not a good fit for their “stepford” EA concept you will be harassed and made to conform. If you don’t, your only option, after going through unimaginable stress and being shown the door, will be to write one of these reviews. You won't likely last the required 2 years to gain any employment rights, therefore you will not have any legal recourse against them and they know it.
It is definitely a target driven role, not obvious when you start. The more hours you bill the better of course. Customer churn is constant and on the up so do not think you will be able to build and maintain fruitful working relationships. You will be working as a third party EA for these customers. Get used to the feeling that you can be, at any time, be disposed of. You are not part of their business.
Pay is well below what you will earn as a London PA/EA (salary advertised is misleading), you still need to pay for your travel to London once a week. Benefits are not even worth mentioning. You need to provide your own phone and use your personal number for business purposes. They have an app to do international calls, after using it once you will start receiving dodgy calls from Tunisia.
They do also employ people on a self-employed basis, Uber-style. They will tell you that this less than acceptable package is because they are a start-up. They have been running for 3 years so it is up to you what you want to believe. You can buy into their dream but remember they'll keep the equity.
This is just an admin services outsourcing firm with a fancy logo, run by very inexperienced people, with no business acumen whatsoever who shouldn’t be allowed to be employers and who also give a bad name to the virtual assistant community. There is no revolutionary model or state of the art platforms, you work with a few applications that are widely available for free.
If you are reading this because you are looking for a flexible position, please think twice and carefully consider the precarious employment conditions, company and management backgrounds. You can read and believe the perfect world fantasy reviews clearly encouraged and/or written by management or you can think for yourself. The signs are out there, please don’t choose to ignore them.
