Hire a virtual assistant
A vetted South African professional who takes the daily running of the business off your desk — calendar, inbox, paperwork and the follow-ups that keep falling through. From $10 an hour, on hours agreed around your day rather than ours.
- From $10/hour
- Both sides of every match vetted
- Member of VAASA
The handover
What moves, and what doesn’t.
Every agency will tell you what a hire takes off your plate. This is that list, and the other one.
Hands over
- The calendar — booking, moving, and protecting the blocks that matter
- Inbox triage, so what reaches you is the part that needs you
- Meeting coordination, with the agenda attached before anyone joins
- Documents and files, kept somewhere findable by someone other than you
- Routine follow-ups and the chasing nobody enjoys
- Travel, bookings and the small arrangements that eat an afternoon
- Data entry, list-building and the research behind a decision
- Supplier and client correspondence that follows an agreed line
Stays with you
- Deciding what the business does next
- Anything that needs your judgement about a person
- Pricing, negotiation and the conversations where the number is agreed
- Relationships you are the reason somebody has
- Approving work in your name before it leaves
None of this is a limitation we are apologising for. It is the part of the job that only works if it is yours, and an arrangement that pretends otherwise fails in month two.
The role
What the week actually looks like.
Most people do not decide to hire a virtual assistant. They arrive at it, usually on a week where the actual work of the business happened in the evening because the day went on everything around it. The calendar needed three emails to move one meeting. The inbox turned into a to-do list nobody wrote. Something got chased on Thursday that should have been chased on Monday, and the thing you meant to think about did not get thought about at all.
What the role is, in practice. A Nira virtual assistant owns the daily run of the business rather than a list of tasks. The calendar is theirs: booked, moved, and defended, with agendas attached before anyone joins. The inbox is triaged, so what reaches you is the part that genuinely needs you and the rest is answered, filed or chased without a second thought from you. Files live somewhere findable, in a structure that survives somebody being on leave. Follow-ups happen. None of it is difficult and all of it takes time, and it takes that time from whoever can least spare it.
The first fortnight is about writing things down. The single biggest predictor of whether one of these arrangements works is whether the way you do things ends up documented in the first month or stays in your head for a year. That is a step in how we work rather than something we hope happens, and it is the reason the same person staying with the engagement matters so much: the value compounds and it can only compound in one place.
On hours. South Africa is UTC+2 and has not observed daylight saving since 1944, so once your working hours are agreed the offset never moves again. An ordinary South African day covers most of a London one; an afternoon start covers a New York morning and early afternoon. The full arithmetic, with the offsets printed so you can check it, is on why South Africa.
On cost. Support starts from $10 an hour and is arranged at one of three levels — fifteen, thirty or forty hours a week. What actually moves the figure is seniority and the shape of the week rather than the length of a task list; the cost breakdown sets that out properly, including the parts of an in-house hire that never appear on the salary line.
If you are still deciding between an agency and hiring somebody directly, the comparison is written to be useful either way, including the three cases where going direct is plainly the better call.
Before you hire
Four things worth checking, wherever you hire.
These apply to any provider, including this one. A page that is only useful if you buy from us is not a guide.
Ask who covers the week they are ill.
It is the question that separates the arrangements that survive from the ones that quietly stop. A freelancer's answer is usually nobody. Any provider should be able to answer it in one sentence.
Ask to see the process notes after month one.
Good administrative support gets materially better in month three than it was in week one, and it only does that if the way you work is being written down as it is learned rather than living in one person's head.
Ask what hours they will actually be at the desk.
"Flexible" is not an answer. Get the local start and finish times in writing, then check them against your own working day and against whether anybody has to work through the night to make them.
Meet the person, not the account manager.
You are hiring one professional and you should have spoken to them before anything is agreed. A provider that assigns somebody and introduces them on day one has told you what kind of arrangement it is.
Support levels
Fifteen, thirty or forty hours a week.
15 hrs / week
Nira Focus
Focused support. More time for what matters.
Founders and professionals who need consistent administrative support without a full-time commitment.
30 hrs / week
Nira Elevate
More support. More capacity to grow.
Growing businesses that need deeper support across administration, clients, systems and daily operations.
40 hrs / week
Nira Signature
Dedicated support. Seamlessly integrated.
Executives and established businesses requiring a dedicated professional who becomes an extension of the team.
From $10/hour. Administrative support is delivered at one of three levels, and a business can move between them as the work grows.
Questions
Before you enquire.
What is the difference between hiring a virtual assistant and hiring an executive assistant?
Scope and seniority. A virtual assistant runs the daily administration of a business — calendar, inbox, files, follow-ups. An executive assistant runs one or two people's working lives, which means judgement calls about priority, access and what to say on your behalf. If the thing eating your week is volume, hire a virtual assistant; if it is the number of decisions about your own time, look at executive support instead.
How many hours do I actually need?
Most businesses start at fifteen hours a week, which is Nira Focus, and move up if the work grows. The useful exercise before the call is to write down what happened last week rather than what usually happens — the estimate people give from memory is almost always low, and it is low in the same direction every time.
How quickly is somebody working unsupervised?
That depends almost entirely on how much of your process already exists in writing. Most engagements start with a professional working alongside you on one defined slice — the calendar, or the inbox — and widen from there. The point of the first fortnight is to build the written record, not to cover everything at once.
Will the same person stay with the work?
Yes. That is the whole reason the role is worth doing properly — administrative support compounds, and it only compounds if the person doing it does not change. Cover during leave or illness is arranged around that rather than instead of it.
Does hiring in South Africa mean odd hours for me?
No. South Africa is UTC+2 all year and does not observe daylight saving, so an ordinary South African working day covers a London morning and afternoon, and an afternoon start covers a New York morning. The arithmetic for five markets is set out on our why South Africa page.
Where this goes next
Related pages.
The service
Industries
Get started
Tell us what the week looks like.
A short call if you would rather talk it through, or a short form if you would rather write it down.