The VA industry is – to date – self-regulated and this is a fantastic thing for our industry. I believe it is one of the reasons why our industry is so non-competitive.
However, that doesn’t mean that VAs don’t operate in accordance with a Code of Ethics. Whilst that Code may vary slightly from VA to VA it will cover basics such as:
- Maintaining honesty and integrity when working with clients, suppliers and colleagues;
- Fair dealing;
- Only taking on work for which the VA is suitably qualified/skilled and seeking to outsource those tasks for which they are not qualified/skilled to another VA;
- Confidentiality of information;
- Not knowingly take part in any illegal/unethical activity;
- Commitment to continuing education/training;
- Refrain from conduct that would bring the VA or the industry as a whole into disrepute.
Another part of a VA’s Code of Ethics is to not knowingly take another VA’s client or deliberately or knowingly undercut a colleague in order to do so. Now it stands to reason that many clients will approach more than one VA for a quote. It is important that clients realise though that once they have chosen a particular VA a contract will be entered into, part of which will no doubt state that the client will not give work to another VA that falls within the skill set of the contracted VA. So this provides a kind of ‘exclusive’ arrangement between the VA and client.
I recently had a potential client indicate that they were contracting one VA but would send me work if that VA was overloaded. It was important to point out in this instance that, since he had not contracted me but the other VA, ethically I would not be able to accept work from him directly … though it is possible that I could accept subcontract work from her if she was overloaded.
Clients generally do not work with more than one VA unless there is a project requiring multiple skill sets in which case the main contracted VA will arrange subcontracts on behalf of the client with appropriately skilled VAs. Alternatively, the VA (at their discretion) may put the client in touch directly with the appropriately skilled VA … something I have done myself from time to time in my practice.
But in this way, for the most part, the client only needs to liaise with one person although there may in fact be a team of VAs working for that client.
© Lyn Prowse-Bishop, www.execstress.com

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