Everything You Need to Know About Hiring Staff in the Philippines
The pandemic has brought about major shifts in all aspects, especially in the workforce with the ‘The Great Resignation.’
This is a major concern for companies and businesses as they are just bouncing back to recover the losses from the previous year. How can you get back up when you have a missing team?
Not to mention another big shift from in-person to online working. More and more people are finding both comfort and productivity in working from home. Leaving office spaces empty and tap still flowing while the resources run dry.
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Tom Morgan
National Manager / ASG
Michael Klint
Director of Operations / Moscord
Larah Teng
Country Manager / Zoom
Ivan Trajkovski
Head of Customer Experience/Catch
Reynaldo Mendoza, Jr.
MTO (PH) Manager / Coral Active
Benefits of Why Companies Hire Staff in the Philippines
Depending on the employee’s location and skillset, the average daily minimum wage in the Philippines is lower than in other countries. A price worth paying for the quality of work you’ll be receiving.
Plus, since they’ll be working remotely, you can save up on overhead costs such as training, purchasing more equipment, or getting more space to accommodate a larger staff.
According to research on higher education, the Philippines produces more than 700,000 college graduates from both public and private institutions annually. That’s hundreds and thousands of qualified candidates and employees each year.
If you’re looking for Filipino workers, there are multiple ways to get in touch with them:
One is through referrals from people you already know in the Philippines. This is similar to a recommendation from your network.
The second is by starting your own online or offline job posting on different third-party channels. Although this might be difficult, you’ll get to meet a variety of candidates. It’s just a bit tedious since it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Lastly, you can enlist the help of a talent-as-a-service provider that can assist you in the whole remote recruitment process. From finding workers in the Philippines that fit the bill and your requirements, interview and onboarding, down to continuous assistance even after hiring. This is one of the easiest and most recommended ways to hire staff in the Philippines.
Given that the Philippine education system is patterned from the US, Filipinos are well-versed in the English language as their primary or secondary language.
The Philippines start teaching the language from a young age up until university to ensure each Filipino has sufficient English proficiency in both written and spoken English.
Cultural Compatibility
With the country’s exposure to diverse people and cultures, Filipinos easily embrace cultural differences and adapt to whatever environment they’re in.
Though it may take time and there will be some reminders here and there, Filipino employees will easily jive with your company culture and thrive in it soon enough.
Things to Consider When Hiring Staff in the Philippines
With all of those advantages, I’m sure you want to go on ahead with hiring. But here are a few things you should take note of before you dive right in with hiring Filipino workers:
Work Style
Filipinos are known to be warm and friendly people, and that extends even to their professional and corporate approach.
The first thing you need to establish is camaraderie or a good working relationship. Although they are remote and in-person interaction is limited, quick messages or interactions like asking how they’re doing and extending that to their family can go a long way in building a good connection with your employees.
Once you’ve cultivated that open culture, then they’ll be able to express themselves more freely and throw ideas at you for discussion. It may be a strange addition to the usual hustle or routine, but it’s a slight adjustment to make sure everyone is comfortable to synergize thoughts and ideas to reach your common objective.
Language
Without a doubt, you can expect Filipinos to understand and converse with you in English as the language is taught from a young age and reinforced until they’re in university.
But if you want to hire more well-versed employees as virtual assistants or remote staff, look into the country’s metropolitan cities or top universities as their English proficiency and education level tend to be higher for talents coming from these schools and places.
Time difference
The Philippines is in the GMT +8 hours timezone, making the country 12 hours ahead of New York to 15 hours ahead compared to California. That’s a big-time difference that you and your employee should discuss and agree on to avoid missed communication.
Work hours
Employees in the Philippines work a total of 40 hours a week with 8-hours shifts across five days a week, Monday to Friday. Though you can discuss working hours further during the interview or contract signing.
You still need to be extra mindful of this consideration as extra hours may incur overtime pay, which is 25% of their hourly rate on regular working days.
Salary
As the employer, you need to be clear on your offer— particularly the currency and frequency.
You need to consider whether you’ll be sending their salary in Philippines Peso (PHP) or US Dollar (USD) to take into account currency exchange and remittance fees, if ever. For frequency, typically employees receive their salary bi-monthly, specifically every 15th and 30th of the month. Plus, they get paid 13 months a year.
You can have a different arrangement, just make sure it’s clear on both your ends to avoid confusion and possible complaints.
Employee Benefits
Other than a salary, having employee benefits heightens the appeal of your job offer.
One of the common incentives is internet allowance—or travel allowance if they’re doing on-site work— and private health insurance. Performance-based salary increases, travel incentives, or additional vacation leaves are also good options to improve employee satisfaction.
