The Philippines is one of the best places to outsource virtual assistants thanks to its low cost of labor and English-speaking population. By hiring a Filipino VA, businesses big and small have enjoyed wonderous benefits such as a lesser workload, smoother business operations, and an increase in productivity, all while saving on expenses.
However, let’s not forget one thing that might be a concern to those who are still hesitant to hire a Filipino VA: They live on the other side of the world from you.
Will this be a communication barrier? What if an error occurs? How will you know if your VA is fulfilling the functions you assigned?
These are all valid concerns, but should it stop you from hiring a Filipino VA yourself? Is the time difference a deal-breaker?
Not at all. In fact, depending on the circumstances it may even be to your advantage.
The Philippines uses a UTC+08: 00-time zone and doesn’t observe daylight saving time. It shares a time zone with China, Malaysia, Singapore, Western Australia, most of Mongolia, and parts of Indonesia.
Between the Philippines and North America, the time zone differences are as follows:
Note: Add 1 hour from November to March.
British entrepreneurs need not worry too much because there is only a 7 hour time difference between the Philippines and the UK.
For Americans, if you live in New Jersey, the time you wake up may be the time your Filipino VA has finished dinner. For the most part, your VA will be working while you sleep.
Is this such a big problem? Not really. Time zones don’t actually matter that much when working with Filipino VAs.
If you worry that you won’t be able to manage your Filipino VA because of the time zone difference, you are forgetting something: A virtual assistant does not need micromanaging!
You don’t need to constantly get in touch with your VA the entire day, a simple email report per day is enough. A VA’s job is to take the load off your shoulders. You are supposed to sleep peacefully at night knowing that your VA is maintaining your business operations.
When you wake up, your bookkeeping is done, or a new article is published on your site, or your social media followers have increased. VAs are accustomed to working on their own. If they are properly trained, they could run your business operations all by themselves.
All you have to do is wake up and read their daily report to know what they accomplished during their workday.
If you prefer to communicate through video calls with your VA, it’s easy to agree on a time when both of you are awake. For example, you could have a Skype call with your VA before turning in for the night, at that time your VA will just have finished breakfast. Agree on a time that’s beneficial to both of you.
Just remember to establish projects, tasks, and deadlines ahead of time so your VA will know what to do with minimal monitoring
If you want to play it safe (nothing wrong with safe) it is advisable to use a time-tracking software. This will assure you that your VA is working on the projects you assigned. Make sure your VA agrees to this beforehand because not everyone is comfortable with being monitored.
Nothing will ever be truly fool-proof. You just need to trust a little. Problems can be preempted during the hiring process. You have to hire the most trustworthy candidate to prevent future issues. Trust your gut, if your instincts are telling you that this person won’t let you down, go ahead and make the hire.
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Say you need your Filipino VA to interact with clients during your normal workday, or you need someone to assist you as you work during the day, what do you do?
You can always find night shift workers. However, for a night shift, you have to pay a higher salary. Why?
Because working at night leads to:
Remember, Filipinos aren’t that different from anyone else in the world. If you want your Filipino VA to work during your daytime, it’s only humane to pay extra for night shift work. The extra wage will also result in extra motivation.
It would help if you hired a Filipino VA who thrives at night. Some people are simply night owls and live most of their lives at night. You would think that this will narrow down candidates for the role, but you’d be surprised at the number of Filipinos who prefer to spend their waking hours at nighttime.
No matter who you hire though, it helps to check up on how your night VA is doing from time to time. Sometimes people don’t realize what irregular hours can do to their bodies and their lives until it is too late. Be considerate, encourage a healthy mentality, and show how much you appreciate your VA’s dedication.
Having a night shift VA also comes with a number of advantages. You can treat these advantages as compensation for paying a premium wage.
Benefits of having your Filipino VA share a time zone with you:
What if you want to run a business 24/7? Maybe an international retail business or a business with 24-hour helplines? For these cases, the time difference will actually be to your advantage.
Since your day is your VA’s night, you can have your local staff run operations during your daytime, and then have your VA take over during your nighttime. Or maybe even alternate between a normal VA and a night shift VA to keep operations running.
If you’re a blogger, you can have your VA compile your mailing list, configure your autoresponder, and research your next post idea as you sleep. When you wake up, everything is ready and all you have to do is write your next post.
For YouTubers, you can record videos during the day while your VA edits your videos at night so it’ll be ready on time.
For e-commerce businesses, your VA can make sure that your products are still selling even as you sleep.
These are just reminders that in a lot of ways, the remoteness of a Filipino VA is actually an advantage rather than a hindrance. The great thing about outsourcing a VA is the flexibility. It’s one of the reasons why many Filipinos want to work online in the first place.
Outsourcing to the Philippines is the key to success for your business. Hiring a Filipino virtual assistant will allow you to relax a little and maximize productivity for your business. Don’t let something like time zones get in the way of that. Take advantage of it instead.
The issues that happen with remote workers aren’t time difference problems but rather hiring problems. If your VA can’t be trusted to work while you sleep, then it’s because you hired the wrong person. Picking the right VA will depend on you, don’t just look at skills and experience, consider their personalities and motivations too.
Don’t hesitate anymore. Head over to OnlineJobs.ph and hire a Filipino VA today. If you’d like to do that and you found this article helpful, show us your support by using our affiliate link, there are no extra costs to you.
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