Why Emotional Intelligence Is a Must-Have Skill for Leaders

Leadership has changed. Completely. Strategy matters, sure. Decision-making counts. Revenue targets? They’re important too. However, what’s really driving success in today’s workplace is emotional intelligence.

Whether you’re running a small team or leading an entire company, one thing determines your fate. Can you understand emotions? Can you handle them? Both yours and everyone else’s?

Get this right, and you’ll thrive. Get it wrong? You’ll struggle.

So why does emotional intelligence pack such a punch for leaders? How does it change everything about the way you guide people?

Let’s dive in.

Simple definition: spotting emotions, understanding them, keeping them in check. Plus, connecting with others on a deeper level.

For leaders, this isn’t about being the “nice boss.” It’s not about staying calm when things get crazy. It goes way deeper than that.

It’s about building spaces where people feel heard. Valued. Driven to give everything they’ve got.

Here’s a question for you. Would you follow someone who ignores your problems? Someone who doesn’t listen when you’re struggling?

Or would you follow someone who really gets it? Someone who listens, connects, and helps you find answers?

Ready for the breakdown? Here’s where emotional intelligence really shows its power:

Building Real Relationships

Emotionally intelligent leaders don’t just manage people. They connect with them. They forge real bonds.

They don’t just talk at you. They listen. Really listen. They absorb what you’re saying.

This builds something precious: trust. And loyalty. Without these? Your team falls apart.

Crushing Conflict Before It Explodes

Workplace fights happen. Period.

But emotionally smart leaders? They see conflict coming. They handle it differently. Instead of letting tensions build and build until everything explodes, they step in early.

They tackle problems with empathy. With fairness. They turn disasters into growth opportunities.

Making Better Decisions

Here’s something most people don’t realize: emotions drive every decision we make. Every single one.

Leaders who understand their emotional triggers make smarter choices. Clearer choices. Choices that help both the business and the people who work there.

Boosting Team Spirit

A leader’s mood spreads everywhere. Like wildfire.

When you radiate positivity, your team catches it. When you show empathy, they mirror it back. When you bounce back from setbacks, they learn to do the same.

Result? A workplace that hums with energy and productivity.

Riding Change Like a Pro

Industries shift fast these days. Really fast.

Change rattles people. It stresses them out. Makes them resist new ideas.

But leaders with strong emotional intelligence? They guide their teams through uncertainty with confidence. With heart. They reduce resistance and boost flexibility.

Absolutely.

Emotional intelligence isn’t some magical gift. You don’t have to be born with it. Leaders can develop these skills through practice, feedback, and self-awareness.

Want better communication? Work on it. Need stress management techniques? Learn them. Want to practice empathy? Start today.

The payoff is huge. The more leaders build emotional intelligence, the better their teams perform.

Think about it. Healthcare professionals dealing with scared patients. Real estate agents managing stressed clients. Construction managers coordinate busy crews.

Every field needs emotionally intelligent leaders. Emotional intelligence helps you strengthen relationships, build trust, and create lasting growth.

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. This skill crosses all boundaries.

It’s not optional anymore. Emotional intelligence drives effective leadership.

At OneVirtual Solutions, we know something important: great leadership isn’t just about strategy. It’s about people.

That’s why we arm leaders with everything they need. Tools, resources, and virtual assistants that enhance productivity while fostering stronger team connections.

Want to take your leadership to the next level? Schedule a free consultation with us today.

Let’s discover how we can help you lead with confidence and emotional intelligence.

How to Get More Reviews for your Real Estate Business

One way to get more clients for your real estate business is to leverage positive reviews from existing clients. Not only are they perfect for building trust and brand authority, but reviews are also a good way to generate new leads.

In an article published on BrightLocal.com, 56% of online users choose a business based on the positive reviews it is able to generate. They can also help you achieve a higher page rank in local searches.

For these reasons alone, you may want to generate reviews that will impact your business. Here are some strategies you might find helpful.

 

Most clients are ready and willing to give you their feedback, especially when it’s positive. Asking them the right questions will convince your clients to support your brand by giving a good review. Make sure to respond to their reviews with a message of appreciation.

 

Where’s the best place to showcase the positive reviews about your business? Usually, you would want your clients to write reviews on your site, but there are also other options providing optimum exposure. The following platforms have the right features for allowing users to drop off a good rating or a positive comment:

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Yelp
  • Boast
  • SurveyMonkey

 

Once you have gotten hold of stellar reviews, you can showcase them using eye-catching graphics that include their photos as well as their job descriptions and their organizations. You might want to give these tips a try:

  • Utilize bold headlines or italics.
  • Keep your text concise, using just a few powerful sentences.
  • Use bullet points.
  • Try out different fonts to add personality, but no more than two fonts to avoid clutter.
  • If you are not sure where to start, you can look at what other businesses have done.

 

After finishing the materials you need, you will have to share them across your social media accounts, starting with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Provide a good post to go along with the review you are showcasing.

 

You can always get satisfied clients who can write reviews for you without being asked. However, you can still reach out to them and get their feedback by providing them with rewards and freebies. This allows you to generate a large volume of reviews that can definitely increase your real estate business’ credibility.

After all, your reputation in the industry is crucial to your success. In this sense, it’s an advantage to consider implementing an effective online reputation management plan. One Virtual Solutions offers services that cater towards improving your online clout.

Book an appointment today and see how we can help you widen the online influence of your real estate business.

The Growing Need for Hiring a Real Estate Virtual Assistant

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Real estate is highly regarded to be a promising career, but in order to survive in this business, you need to work hard and be willing to sacrifice your priorities. What most real estate professionals don’t know is that hiring extra help can now be done without the hassle of setting up an office or paying for additional taxes and benefits. You can even hire an assistant who can provide professional administrative, technical, or creative assistance for as low as seven dollars an hour. These assistants are outsourced offshore and can do almost everything an on-site assistant can do. From assisting you with website management to closing transactions, hiring a virtual assistant just might be what you need to keep a thriving business. A lot of realtors want to do their tasks on their own to ensure quality work, but in their well-intentioned attempts to do everything themselves, they become too overwhelmed. This sometimes causes their sales to suffer.One of the biggest limiting beliefs in real estate sales is if you want to have things done right, you have to do it yourself. This might work for some, but for real estate professionals who have a lot on their plate, doing so would be unwise. Being a real estate professional does not only involve selling properties, it also involves building rapport with clients, creating various marketing materials and closing deals, not to mention processing all the necessary paperwork.What busy realtors need is a personal assistant who can foresee the progress of transactions, prepare all documents and follow up with clients for the realtor to concentrate on more important tasks. Hiring one can cost at least 3,000-4,000 USD a month.Knowing how expensive quality on-site assistants can be, realtors often choose to go for freelancers who work from home despite not being able to gauge their capability, experience and reliability. Now, this is where we come in.Our company can provide real estate professionals with a highly skilled virtual assistant who can effectively do all the tasks needed for only half the price. We provide real estate professionals with different types of administrative support like MLS management, listings management, contacts database management and transaction assistance. Our virtual assistants are also experts in social media management, customer service as well as creating different marketing materials such as flyers and postcards.

We do not just hire anyone. Our virtual assistants are professionals who come from top notch universities and are all fluent speakers of the English language. We make sure that each of them are always open for criticism, willing to learn and can adapt fast with any task—allowing you to focus more on closing clients and growing your business.
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3 Reasons Why Real Estate Professionals Need Virtual Assistants

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When you put yourself in the shoes of a real estate agent, you can expect a hectic schedule every single day. You will need to go out and look for properties that are for sale/lease and then keep an eye out for prospective clients. It may sound easy but it definitely requires a lot more hard work than the usual nine-to-five job because success in this industry requires plenty of connections, knowledge and dedication.

Real estate agents need to multitask in order to achieve their goals of selling a property. They have to do their own administrative tasks then go out and look for clients. Besides that, they also need to educate themselves about the properties in order to be concise about all the details that they share with their clients.

All these tasks consume so much of their time and leave them with only a few hours for sleep. They lead difficult lives in order to generate income based on commissions—which is why they need assistance.

Since hiring a full-time assistant can sometimes be too costly, realtors have resorted to hiring virtual assistants.

Here are 3 reasons why real estate professionals should hire a virtual assistant:
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Hiring a virtual assistant is

cost effective

[vc_row][vc_column][mk_divider style=”thin_solid” thin_single_color=”#dd8808″ thickness=”5″ margin_top=”10″ margin_bottom=”10″][/vc_column][/vc_row] Hiring an in-house assistant can cost around $20–$35 per hour; but that’s not all that you have to pay for. You still have to provide them with employee-related taxes, insurance and benefits, not to mention spending more money on extra office space, equipment and supplies.

With a virtual assistant, you only have to pay as little as $7–$8 per hour—which can save you more than half of what you spend on an in-house assistant. There are some cases wherein people would rather pay more to get a domestic virtual assistant so they can avoid cultural differences; but in a company that provides virtual assistant services, hiring people who are qualified is a priority.
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Hiring a virtual assistant can help you focus

[vc_row][vc_column][mk_divider style=”thin_solid” thin_single_color=”#dd8808″ thickness=”5″ margin_top=”10″ margin_bottom=”10″][/vc_column][/vc_row]Instead of attending to multiple paperwork, you can focus on preparing for meetings. Instead of taking the time to sort through your emails, you can focus on responding to the important ones. Instead of answering every call and leaving messages, you can focus on getting back to those who are genuinely interested. By properly delegating your tasks to a virtual assistant, you can now focus your attention to finding leads and closing clients.

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Hiring a virtual assistant saves time

[vc_row][vc_column][mk_divider style=”thin_solid” thin_single_color=”#dd8808″ thickness=”5″ margin_top=”10″ margin_bottom=”10″][/vc_column][/vc_row]Despite the time and effort you spend on training the virtual assistant, it eventually pays off when the virtual assistant grasps the process of it all and becomes part of your system. Once that happens, the amount of tasks that you do are cut in half—giving you more time for your family, more time to pursue other projects and more time to catch up on sleep.

At OneVirtual Global Business Solutions, we can provide you with highly-skilled virtual assistants who can take care of all your administrative needs. With rates that are made to fit your budget, we aim to be the strongest support your business can have as we help increase your revenue.

The Day-to-Day Tasks of a Virtual Assistant

The real estate virtual assistants of OneVirtual Global Business Solutionsare dedicated administrative and marketing support executives who perform tasks as defined by their specific clients. They are the day-to-day extra arms of modern-day real estate agents. Their tasks involve attending to daily paperwork, scheduling, updating, encoding and performing sales and marketing functions as advised by their clients. Besides having multiple tasks, they are also expected to carry out all of these functions during their 8-hour shift notwithstanding technical issues that may hamper their daily tasks. As soon as the virtual assistant is logged in for the day, their first task is to report to their client via email informing them that they are ready to start their shift. Depending on the client’s task priority, they will now go about their usual work schedule.

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Social Media (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn)

The social media tasks that virtual assistants perform involve timeline updating, monitoring notifications, posting, answering messages and sending out invitations. You don’t need to be tech savvy in order to handle someone’s social media account. The only thing that a virtual assistant should remember when handling this task is to always post related topics, links, images or messages.

Most clients use social media to expand their network and circle of influence; which means that proper decorum and judgment should be observed when updates are made to the client’s respective social media accounts.
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Ad Posting (Craigslist, Trulia, Zillow and Point2.com)

Apart from social media, virtual assistants also utilize other methods in order to market products and services. While Craigslist offers a unique way to find goods and services online, there are several setbacks to their online classifieds platform: scams run rampant, spam ads are frequent and the minimalist design lacks user-friendly appeal. Now, different sites have mushroomed in and around the online marketplace. Although others are more streamlined than Craigslist, they could work for one-off instances when you need to get something specific done.
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Blogging (WordPress, Blogger)

A blog is a web page that serves as a publicly accessible journal for an individual—or in this case, a client. Updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality, point of view and thoughts of the author. Writing something about the product or service that you are marketing is also an effective way to reach out online. It is also a way to stir up the readers’ curiosity.
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Customer Service

We prioritize both handling our client’s concerns and taking care of our client’s customers which is why people-handling skills like being proactive, patient, empathetic and effective are mandatory requirements for a real estate virtual assistant.
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Listings and Contacts Management

Real estate professionals can really benefit from having someone compile and manage information and gather them in such a way that scheduling and list utilization can be maximized. Appointments can then be monitored and promptly conducted for surefire closed transactions. Those are just some of the perks of having a real estate virtual assistant who can do your listings and contacts management.
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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

By using a cyber marketing approach, virtual assistants consider how search engines work, what people search for, the actual keywords typed into the search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. The more frequent the client’s website appears on the list of search results, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. Consequently, this catapults the client’s web page popularity and therefore results to marketing dominance.
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Marketing and Branding

Marketing is the foundation of every strategic approach that a virtual assistant performs for his client. Virtual tours, flyer creation, sales & lead generation are just some of the tasks that a virtual assistant does on top of the social media mileage that the client’s products or services get. These are only some of the tasks that real estate virtual assistants do for their clients during their eight-hour shift. As the day ends, reports and email correspondence are still a requisite. In the BPO industry, there are inbound agents, outbound agents, and virtual assistants—we’re more of a hybrid generation of offshore staffing.

Everything You Need to Know About the Philippines’ BPO Industry

“Hi! This is Jenny, how can I help you today?”

These are just some of the words often heard from customer service representatives, telemarketers and virtual assistants over the phone. Some people might think that their job is easy because they are usually only required to read from a script every single day; but actually, surviving in their industry requires knowledge, skill, confidence and patience.

 Filipinos are well-known for offering top notch BPO services worldwide. Others might think that because we belong to a third world country, we do not have what it takes to give great services—that’s nothing but a misconception.

Here’s a quick overview of how we do things in the BPO industry:

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When BPO companies started operating in the Philippines, most Filipinos were rushed with excitement because of the opportunity to communicate with people across the globe. Some initially thought that this job was easy; but almost everyone who tried their luck in this industry eventually gave up.

Some grew tired of doing the same tasks every single day, some have quit because of health-related issues and some have realized they were simply not meant for this industry.

Upon the start of the application process, applicants are immediately scrutinized. Almost 75% of them are sent home because they are unqualified—without even getting a chance to prove themselves first. If an applicant has passed, they proceed to the interview; but because it’s the BPO industry, people endure at least three interviews in order to qualify for training.

After training, expect around five to ten people to proceed to the production floor. After going through the hiring process, things simply do not get easier. Expect constant change in work schedules and expect to be targeted with insults from customers and clients.

In order to survive in this business, a person needs to be able to adjust sleeping habits, be emotionally strong and maintain a calm disposition. There are some cases when customers do not want to engage in conversations because they do not like the way we talk; but we still prioritize them anyway and swallow our pride. Filipinos accept criticism in a positive way and make it an inspiration for improvement.
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We work hard to make sure that the services that we offer are nothing short of excellent. Besides saving money, we can offer you the best customer service representatives and the best virtual assistants that you can find. We always make it a priority to make our clients happy.

So if you’re planning to outsource, do it in the Philippines with OneVirtual Global Business Solutions.

Why Virtual Assistants are the Staff of the Future

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While the demands of a real estate agent’s job can be overwhelming to a point, a new breed of staff and assistants are here to come to the rescue.

There was a time when we all wished for the new age technology to do our bidding for us. When we will no longer concern ourselves with numerous muscle-straining, brain-busting and energy-depleting activities and all that will be left for us to do is just sit, relax and focus.

We all dreamed of the day when robots can finally be household names—replacing secretaries, the workforce and even artisans; doing the things that matter most to you, leaving everything else automated, and remotely programmable. While these—in decades past—could have been lifted off straight from a sci-fi film, robots and artificial intelligence are already within our reach. But how can you actually make good use of these technological advancements to grow your business?

To say that real estate agents are unlike all other sales and marketing professionals, would be a disservice to the hectic and toxic working environment that follows with the nature and challenges of the real estate industry. In fact, one of the most important requirements for a real estate professional, is the ability to manage stress, handle erratic eating and sleeping schedules, and a “work-til-you-drop” attitude.

While the demands of a real estate agent’s job can be overwhelming to a point, a new breed of staff and assistants are here to come to the rescue. Enter virtual assistants; your dedicated, proactive and highly-skilled partners for success.Real estate virtual assistants are specialized administrative support employees that work remotely. They come from diverse backgrounds: from communications, marketing, advertising, to information technology, and business administration.They can be your executive assistant, your secretary, your customer service representative and even your personal shopper. Their diverse skill-set and work experience allow them to handle even the most technical of real estate tasks such as transaction coordination, listings management or even comparative market analysis and broker’s price opinion.There’s more leverage in hiring a virtual assistant than signing an in-house staff. For one, you can disregard any logistical issue of providing office space, equipment and supplies.


Second, virtual assistants are independent contractors and not employees. So you will not be responsible for paying their taxes, insurance or other fringe benefits.

Lastly, hiring virtual assistants—especially those from reliable outsourcing companies—usually come with ancillary support-staff. That’s a team that includes a client services manager, a team leader and even IT support.

So if you’re a real estate professional focused on building your real estate business with people you can rely on and developing an empowering virtual work culture, hiring a virtual assistant is the right fit for you.

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3 Things That Make a Real Estate Virtual Assistant

Proactive, dependable, effective and efficient, they are simply the “clean-up-crew” of the toxic real estate community. They are sometimes called the “super staff”. They are the “go-to” guys when a real estate agent’s system of order goes haywire. No matter how hard the job is, no matter how daunting the tasks are, they always get the job done. But what exactly are the prerequisites in order for one to be worthy of being called a legitimate real estate virtual assistant?

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A WHACKED-UP BODY CLOCK

The real estate industry is a restless world. With real estate agents being on-call 24/7, they are constantly on the move. Thus, their virtual assistant is also not foreign to graveyard schedules, shifting schedules and of course, overtime.A whacked-up body clock allows a real estate virtual assistant’s system to be in sync with the schedule of their client whose location is 8,207 miles away and 13 or more hours ahead of them. It also constitutes to a broken meal schedule, a disoriented leisure time and a messed up love life. Well, you can’t have everything anyway, so why fret?
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CAFFEINE-INDUCED CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

The graveyard shift can often take its toll. While most real estate virtual assistants are already accustomed to sleeping during the day and working at night, some still find rest and sleep very elusive. A cup of potent coffee is a sure way to keep a virtual assistant alive, alert and enthusiastic. Coffee is a natural anti-oxidant that is a proven fat-burner. It helps inhibit diabetes, alzheimer’s and parkinson’s disease. It also helps keep the liver healthy so it’s definitely healthy and beneficial. As a matter of fact, a cup of coffee can prove to be a VA’s most reliable drug in order to stay productive.
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WESTERNIZED TONGUE AND THINKING

We can trace it down to history or even blame it on the immense popularity of western pop-culture, but there’s no denying that virtual assistants, especially those from the Philippines, have taken the second language and mastered it. This upgrading was caused by the length of time that they are exposed in chattering, chatting, bickering, flirting and rebutting with Americans over the phone that even in their dreams, their pronunciation, enunciation, syllabication, and diction including intonation, is undoubtedly westernized…but, grammatically correct. Undoubtedly, language and communication is a real estate virtual assistant’s main tool of trade.

Making Sense of the Millennial Real Estate Market

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Home ownership is not only considered to be a practical decision, but also thought to be one of the better choices for making an investment. Millennials are considered to be the largest demographic group in US history; comprising 42% of the US Housing Market. 84% of millennials believe that real estate is a good financial investment. Most of them started purchasing houses at the age of 33.According to Realtor.com’s manager of economic research, Javier Vivas, millennials constitute 56% of first-time home buyers and are competing against repeat buyers who have more buying leverage and experience. 90% of millennials have purchased their home with the help of real estate brokers with an average price of $189,900 and a median of 1,800 square ft.

Older generations are more interested on bigger savings while millennials are very much focused on their future and taking a big leap in their lives. Buying a home is considered to be the next logical step for millennials. With positive returns in their success, they are surely taking the right path.

Real estate is considered to be the best investment a person can make. Luckily, millennials are on board.

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Take It From The Pioneers of Onevirtual Solutions

Confessions of a Virtual Assistant

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It’s hard to find your first job. After all, your first job can make or break your career, but it will also provide a lot of new experiences that would steer your career into your preferred direction. For most people, it takes several jobs and several companies to find their destined place in the workforce. For some, deciding to stay and grow with a company could come as easy as after their first interview.

Take Christian Pueda – or Sam as what his colleagues would fondly call him–for example. He was looking for a job in the Business Process Outsourcing industry when he found out about OneVirtual Solutions (OVS) through his friend Mae Cortes. When Sam was told that OneVirtual Solutions was in need of virtual assistants (VA), he jumped right into the opportunity.

“I wasn’t exactly prepared to be a part of the company. I was like a blank paper and had no idea what OVS was or what a virtual assistant job would require,” Sam shared.

Although a bit disoriented at first, Sam eventually enjoyed his training days with OVS, as it was fun and interactive. He was able to learn the ins and outs of being a Real Estate Virtual Assistant quite easily.

“No job is ever easy. You must learn to focus and be attentive at all times. It takes a lot of determination but it will help you do your job better,“ Sam added.

For Karyl Casaquite, it’s all about connections. She heard about the job from her brother who happened to have already been working with OVS.

“It was a few months after I had my first baby and my skills weren’t that broad for the job but OVS gave me the opportunity to work and jump-start my career as a Virtual Assistant,” shares Karyl.

Like Sam, she also went through the usual application process. She was interviewed by Mae Cortes and although Karyl felt a little nervous during the interview, she landed the job and became a Real Estate Virtual Assistant.

Karyl and Sam were among OneVirtual Global Solution’s first batch of Real Estate Virtual Assistants. They underwent a series of training, building their skill set for the job and while they both describe the training as intensive, they also recalled all the fun memories they had. Both say it was very challenging at first but the self-fulfillment they earned after starting to perform their VA tasks proved that it was all worth it.

“I understood that clients have a different culture compared to ours. I always get nervous when my client would call to give me instructions, but in the long run, I got used to it. I was able to handle our conversations with more confidence as time went by,” shares Sam.

“There’s this one client who left a big mark on me as a VA. I have learned a lot from him and that’s what made me grateful for having him as a client. He made me realize that things should be taken seriously and should be done at your best. He taught me how to keep up with my work and to manage my time appropriately.”

As with any company or job, the pressure can make or break the employees. Karyl and Sam say that becoming a VA changed them. Asked why they chose to stay, they offered interesting insights.

“Yes, people come and go. I`d rather stay and challenge myself to do better every day than quit and let the pressure get to me. Leaving is a choice but so is becoming better at what you do. In the end we all have decisions to make,” Sam said.

While it was a matter of choice for Sam, Karyl’s reason tugs on an emotional note.

“I stayed because I could not find any other company that would choose to keep me and value my worth as an employee. I’ve had different jobs with different companies before but here in OneVirtual we are a family.”