How to Pay Your Remote Workers On Your Virtual Team

Remote employees and virtual assistants may charge for their work by the hour or on a monthly retainer basis. With hourly workers, you may be charged on a sliding scale with one hourly rate for administrative work and a higher hourly rate for high-end skills like website maintenance or database management.

The ability to pay your remote workers in a timely and accurate manner has important business implications.

Negotiating Payment. For most work, the range in hourly pay is between $20 to $80 per hour that is largely based on experience level and the tasks performed. You’ll want to negotiate the pay rate with your workers based on a couple of factors:

    • Is this a one-time project like the creation of a logo or brochure?
    • Are you hiring someone to be part of your team long-term?
    • What is the job that needs to get done?
    • Does your employee have his/her own equipment or do you need to provide it?
    • What references can your worker provide?
    • What other projects like yours has this worker completed?  Can you see examples?

Handling Billing. Before you start some projects, a new remote worker may require partial payment up front before they get started.

After that, you’ll most likely pay your remote workers off of time sheets or the invoices that they submit to you. Invoices should contain:

    • Worker’s name, contact information, and the date
    • Amount of hours worked for you and the tasks performed
    • Amount of dollars per hour charged.
    • Amount owed to the worker
    • Terms of payment, i.e., 14 days within receipt of invoice
    • How to pay them, i.e., check, direct deposit, or PayPal

Once fair pay rates are established and work is performed on time and at the expected quality level, pay your remote workers as agreed upon and it should become a turnkey process. If you are happy with your worker, it’s recommended that you pay them on time. Nothing destroys the employer/employee relationship faster than nonpayment for work.

Pay your remote workers fairly, accurately, and on-time using HiveDesk!