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When it comes to VA staff teams, yes, it most certainly does. Now that I’ve got your attention, I invite you to keep reading to learn more about my suggestions for VA staffing.
As most prospective VA CEOs find out soon after they begin the process of developing a VA from the ground up, one of the most important things that a VA needs to run efficiently and effectively is a cohesive staff team. A well-organized staff team is absolutely necessary for a new VA to survive the early stages of approval and growth and is just as crucial later on in the VA’s existence. Many of the most common reasons a VA stops operating are rooted in staff issues- lack of motivation, lack of direction, infighting, and inability to fulfill responsibilities to name a few.
How it feels running an unorganized staff team (colorized)
The question then is obvious: How can one craft the perfectly effective VA staff team? The answer is unique for every individual VA, but can be boiled down to a few main factors. Today, I’ll discuss how the size of a VA staff team affects a VA. After some thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that the size of a VA’s staff team should be based primarily on the size (or expected size) of the VA. It’s pretty logical to me- less VA activity, less responsibilities and expectations for staff, lesser number of VA staff needed, right? Sure, one could make the argument that having more VA staff lessens the work needed to be done by each staff member. That is certainly a compelling argument. I, however, align with the other school of thought. I believe that conspicuously overstaffing a VA for its size leads to disarray and a general feeling of corporate bulkiness within the staff team as well as more importantly sending a negative message to pilots. Everyone can agree that a good relationship between pilots and staff in a VA is essential for a great VA culture. Pilots who sense that their staff team is organized, knowledgeable and dedicated will be motivated to fly more and contribute to the community in the VA. This in turn motivates the staff team to keep chugging along and dedicate more time to the VA. It’s a positive feedback loop! This begs the question then: what is the proper number of staff for each size of VA? Opinions vary, obviously, but I’ll try to provide my view in an informed manner. As I mentioned earlier, staff workload depends primarily on the size of the VA. Larger VA, larger workload. Larger workload, more staff needed. Using this general framework, we can begin to estimate the number of total staff needed to comfortably keep a VA running for each size of VA.
In the table below, I’ve listed some of the most common VA staff responsibilities along with my informed estimation of how long it takes to complete them in italics. These are obviously general time ranges for each VA size, but I feel they’re relatively accurate given I’ve worked on almost every task below as VA staff in my time in the community. The horizontal axis lists the three types of VA size I feel I can fit most VAs into- small, medium, and big boy size (think DLVA, BAVA size).
For each VA size and staff task I’ve assigned a staff member, or multiple staff members if I feel the task/size combo requires it. Some staff members are responsible for multiple tasks. This is because the workload for each task changes by size of VA.
You might be thinking; “How can a small or medium VA survive with 1 or 3 staff respectively?!” This chart assumes that all staff are competent, motivated, working cohesively and working full time (without taking leaves of absence). As you can see, at the small size VA, one staff member can be responsible for multiple tasks, because each task takes less time. Inversely, at the Big Player VA, one task might need multiple staff members to complete, because the task takes more time.
SO WHAT’S THE POINT, SAM?
I'm a senior staff member at Singapore VA. We fall right into the Medium VA classification. We’ve been running with a team of 2 to 4 net staff members for the time I’ve been staff. It’s possible to run a thriving VA with less staff than you might think, and that’s what I want you, the reader, to take away from this article. Less is more. Take your time to hire competent, professional, mature staff members and it’ll pay off in less headaches in the future. 98% of VAs are small or medium size VAs, and what I’m about to recommend for these VAs next is vitally important to think about in my opinion. Just because you CAN hire 1 staff member for EACH task you know will need to be completed to run the VA, doesn’t mean you should. The only VAs that should be close to having one singular staff member per each individual task are the Big Player VAs.