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You have probably read all about the benefits of hiring a Filipino virtual assistant. This isn’t another one of those.
We want to mix things up a bit this time. So for this one, let’s dive into some of the less-talked-about advantages of having a Filipino virtual assistant on your team working remotely.
These are added perks as well as minor tweaks you can do that may not have crossed your minds but can take your business to new heights.
Many remote professionals come from call centers and other BPO companies where they are required to work the night shift and even the graveyard shift, which runs midnight to early morning.
Call centers also tend to change work hours every other week, which helps Filipino workers be more flexible in their schedule, anticipate changes to immediately adjust, and keep up with you or your team when they need to without a dip in performance. Even newcomers know what to expect so they understand that the work schedule can change from time to time.
This is an option you will always have, but should you take advantage of it? Think of it this way. When they take the morning shift, they keep your business up and running while you are fast asleep. Your business is basically online twice the hours it normally would without having to pay overtime. Yes, you get double the things done and serve twice the number of customers for one budget.
Keep in mind that while Filipinos are used to it, it doesn’t mean they love the idea. Many of them would still prefer to work during the day as this is where they feel will be most productive. A flip-flopped schedule doesn’t exactly promote good health.
Unless they are night owls or just highly flexible, and many of them are, you might want to stick with morning shifts anyway. It is all about meeting halfway so you can start your day during the final hours of their shift to check in with them.
Of course, this approach isn’t for everyone. So it is important for you to think really hard on whether or not a synched schedule makes sense for your business.
If the things a Filipino virtual assistant works on won’t need your urgent approval or they can do their job efficiently without having access to you throughout, let them work during the day. The same goes if you have a Filipino project manager to handle all this for you.
We wrote a guide on the challenges brought about by time zone differences to help you with scheduling with your Filipino virtual assistant. In this article, we discuss:
This is a benefit that you can tap into early on in the game and will pay dividends later on especially when you are outsourcing to the Philippines for the first time and are looking to build a remote team.
A hardworking hire who sets appointments for you or manages your schedule can be molded into hiring manager material you can trust to find more talented professionals to join the team.
With the rights skills and attitude, your first hire can grow into a bigger, more important role. We have colleagues who have found success in a single Filipino virtual assistant who handled major facets of the business and ultimately helped a business idea become a money-churning reality.
I also know people who eventually promoted their very first virtual assistant to a managerial role with greater involvement in core business processes due to the dedication and skills they showed.
So when you look for a Filipino virtual assistant, think long-term. Learn about their potentials early on and what they could help you with beyond what you are initially hiring them for. Ask them about how they see themselves in a few years. Find out if they are truly passionate and committed to your industry and your business.
Being the first person to be in a business is also quite the motivator because a Filipino virtual assistant will have a sense of ownership in that they root for the company to grow and become successful and have the pride of being the first people to be part of it.
The great thing about this is that the salary increase that would come along the promotion wouldn’t break the bank and would likely provide an excellent return of investment or ROI in the long run.
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How do you nurture a Filipino virtual assistant? If Filipinos are one thing, it is that they are loyal to an employer who treats them fairly and with respect.
In the country, you will find house helpers who stay with an employer for decades–being around for every important moment in the family they work for and watching the kids grow and become parents themselves. Why is that? Because the helper is treated as part of the family.
The same can be said of remote professionals. When you are a good boss to them, they return the love with loyalty. They go out of their way and beyond their job description if it means improving the business and keeping you satisfied.
How do you build a lasting relationship with a Filipino virtual assistant like that? You recognize their hard work, reward their excellence, pay on time, and promote overall well-being.
We compiled a list of tips on how to make a loyal Filipino professional out of a contractor to help you keep your best-outsourced finds committed to your business.
Ensuring that everyone is put to task, meets your expectations, contributes to the business as they should, and is provided any training if needed is of utmost importance, but sometimes you may not just have the time.
This is one of the things that makes an agency more appealing because it will basically designate a project manager who does all the monitoring for you and acts as your primary point of contact for progress updates.
However, you miss out on one more benefit–a tailored communication process that will allow you to get to know more of your virtual assistants beyond the job.
But is that even necessary, you ask? Why yes, if dedication is important to you and if you know that you have the best workers who actually help the company move forward, and want to keep them around.
This is a benefit that seems to be afforded usually to a solo entrepreneur or a start-up with a Filipino virtual assistant or several as it allows them to set up a preferred method of communication from the get-go.
We find that the best way to check in with your outsourced Filipino virtual assistant is through a daily or weekly report that will allow him to inform you of their accomplishments, work-related struggles and questions, and even updates on their personal lives.
We’re not talking about being nosy, just something along the lines of “How are things outside of work?” Why would you want to get a little personal with an end-of-day or end-of-week report in the first place? It accomplishes three things:
Of course, you expect your contractors to handle their personal issues without having to tell them to you. However, it allows you to prepare for any problems that may arise.
After all, Filipinos have the tendency to keep struggles to themselves so they don’t look incompetent. They will try to solve a problem on their own and keep it under wraps and act as if it never happened until it becomes impossible to hide.
In order for them to be more open to you, make sure you have consistently good communication with each other and project a sense of sincerity on your part. When you ask for the sake of asking, it can be easy to tell. More importantly, it helps to make them understand the importance of transparency, honesty, and teamwork.
On the other hand, if you have a bigger team and hope to establish this kind of connection, you can designate a project or hiring manager from your own team.
You can delegate the job to a member of your team who has developed the commitment and passion for your business to help you fill your team with professionals who can make a positive impact on your business the way they did (see above entry).
Call centers suffer from a super high rate of attrition. In fact, it is the biggest issue in the BPO industry right now. When a worker isn’t happy on the job, he leaves.
When he chooses to stay, you will see the dwindled interest in his performance because it will stick out like a sore thumb in the form of dipping numbers, dissatisfied customers, or low sales. When someone has zero passion and is only there for the salary, it is hard to find the drive in their service.
Employee turnovers are expensive. The money, time, and energy to find a replacement will all come from your own pocket. It is worse when you didn’t have a say in it in the first place because the agency was the one who hired and trained these people.
Why is employee retention so elusive in the call center industry anyway? This is because many of these companies do not make an effort to take care of their employees.
Work-life balance is important. You are probably hiring a Filipino virtual assistant because you yourself hope to ditch your 80-hour per week work schedule and get some proper rest.
However, it can be difficult to achieve this sense of balance in an unforgiving environment that is full of distractions like a toxic office (more on that below).
Outsourcing to agencies may provide you the benefit of screening and training the hires for you, but they could sometimes fail to keep them invested in your business or in their own company for that matter.
When an employee leaves, they end up recruiting and hiring a replacement all over again or at least training and orienting someone else to learn your business the way the previous person did. Reaching the level of knowledge and understanding the previous person has could take time.
Call centers can be a horrible working environment due to toxic co-workers. I’ve heard horror stories about low morale companies where an agent sabotages a top-performing co-worker out of jealousy.
Sometimes, you will see a group of workers gang up on someone they hate to get him kicked out. Another starts to become filled with a sense of dread and panic when a new hire does better than what is expected of him.
This is a classic case of “crab mentality,” a popular phrase in the Philippines used to refer to the act of feeling insecure and compromising someone they look down on when he starts progressing or doing better than they do.
Where does that lead to? A worker who is an actual asset to your company ends up performing poorly or leaving the company altogether. You are left with the people who do a mediocre job. The worse part is that they appoint themselves as gatekeepers of your company, driving away actual professionals your business deserves.
While this may not be an issue in each and every call center, it is always a risk that you should be on the lookout for. If you are keen on hiring an agency, it is important that it has a solid set of rules in place when it comes to matters like this.
If you can’t have a hand on how these things are dealt with, you should at least ensure that the HR staff is biased against any party and work with integrity and honesty.
Hiring a Filipino virtual assistant who works remotely drastically decreases the risk because they can work in peace, far and away from typical office distractions like this. The only thing left for you to do is foster a sense of camaraderie within your virtual team.
You can do so by setting up weekly meetings or watercooler chats on Skype, Slack, or Google Hangouts just to check with everyone. Take it to the next step by flying to the Philippines and organizing a teambuilding activity several times a year.
You won’t have to spend resources on a physical office when you hire a Filipino virtual assistant. When you do, you help them save too. Commuting in the Philippines takes the first few hours of someone’s day and stresses out your employees before work even begins. The jeepney and bus fare also seems to increase consistently that it is becoming increasingly difficult not to notice the dent it leaves in one’s wallet.
If they work at their home office, they save money as well as time and energy that they oftentimes end up using on the job anyway. What we mean is that a Filipino virtual assistant doesn’t mind doing extra minutes or hours without getting compensated for it. They are just happy they are not waiting in line just to get a spot in a jeepney or sit in traffic and car smoke for hours just to be able to get home.
The scope of work you need to delegate will, of course, determine the availability you will require of your Filipino virtual assistant. However, you will find that hiring full-time can attract workers with greater commitment and focus.
The truth is that when you hire a Filipino for a part-time job, he may constantly be looking for a full-time job as a way to keep a more stable income. After all, they work to feed their families and send their kids to school.
If you find a skilled Filipino virtual assistant who happens to be working for another employer already, find out if he needs the extra cash or a side income. Why would a good worker need a second job if they are so good?
There are Filipinos who are breadwinners. Their families rely on them completely so if the first job isn’t cutting it for the expenses, they will go looking another gig to sustain their needs.
It might also mean they have a genuine interest in your industry. There are those who don’t get to practice what they love. But if you offer that chance to them, you can count on good output. Because then, for them, it will feel more like pursuing a passion, other than just simply earning more money, which is not always the best motivation anyway.
Since you might not have the Filipino virtual assistant for yourself, be sure to establish requirements. When it is time to work on your business, you must have his full attention.
It is also important to test the time management and the skills of the contractor. You can’t hire a newcomer because then you’ll just be getting a smaller piece of an already small cake.
You enjoy amazing savings when you outsource business processes to a competent Filipino virtual assistant. Many employers choose to spend some of these savings on bonuses or other perks to nurture loyalty and improve their productivity.
You can do the same by offering to treat them with free meals during their first week on the job. This will only cost you around $10, but it can do so much for your business by inspiring motivation in your Filipino virtual assistant.
You can also offer birthday leaves or a monthly happy hour. Treat your contractors to a $20 bonus every month for food and drinks and eat together through group call. Make sure to celebrate collective success by doing the same thing.
This will not just help your Filipino virtual assistant warm up to the job, it will also cultivate your company culture, which is more important than ever when you have a remote team.
The Philippines can be a disaster-prone country, but that rarely becomes an issue in remote work. Why? Filipino remote professionals go out of their way to go to work even in the face of a calamity.
You may have heard of a couple going through their wedding even when knee-deep in flood or a student who walks and braves long travel or flooded roads just to get to school.
This resilient spirit can also be seen in remote professionals. A good Filipino virtual assistant prepares everything they need to get the job done. They will do everything they could to show up for work.
When they won’t be able to, they will do everything in their power to let you know because they wouldn’t want to get in trouble especially if you are an employer they admire and if the job is what gets them through day to day and help their families.
Hiring a Filipino virtual assistant who works from home helps decrease the level of the carbon footprint the planet has to deal with.
There’s no need to commute or drive to work, which means you help reduce the harmful transport emissions being released into the atmosphere. The lack of a physical office also means less greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants.
What do you achieve? Less energy consumption for a greater quality of work. It’s a win-win-win for you, your Filipino virtual assistant, and mother nature.
We know what you’re thinking. The whole point of outsourcing to the Philippines is the low costs, right? However, you have to be reasonable with your pricing. Low salary tends to attract low-quality workers.
That’s not to say you can’t get a quality Filipino virtual assistant for $3 per hour. You can actually get dedicated workers with experience at this price. You won’t even have to go beyond $10 to have an expert on your team.
You will still need to price competitively to get the attention of the more skilled remote professionals. Or else you will be forced to look at the bottom of the barrel.
Lower rates also indicate zero to minimal experience, which is not always a bad thing if you are a solo entrepreneur or start-up looking to build a team.
Check out our list of virtual assistant service rates to get a better idea. In this article, we discuss:
Also, keep in mind that many Filipinos will not think twice to leave a current job for a higher-paying gig. Be prepared to offer raises when they deserve it or offer a competitive salary. Sometimes, it can be difficult for some workers to stay on an agency that isn’t treating them well as we mentioned above.
When it turns into a financial issue, it becomes harder to keep someone interested especially with other call centers that offer a higher salary, not to mention the fact that there are literally a lot more call centers can apply to. There’s one that is less than a hundred steps from where they work.
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There are millions of Filipino remote professionals that you can easily connect to with the right tools. Check out the linked article where we discuss:
Some remote professionals work for agencies and call centers, who will be the ones to link you to them. The rest are on freelance marketplaces looking for an employer in need of their expertise.
So which direction should you look when hiring a Filipino virtual assistant?
One of the most important considerations when outsourcing is how a workplace can affect a person’s productivity. While some wouldn’t want to associate their homes with work seeing that it is the place they can relax and forget about work in the first place, many professionals hope to make money in their pajamas without leaving the house.
Yearly trends time and again show how working at home is considered a perk for workers. In fact, many professionals wouldn’t think twice about leaving an office job in favor of another that allows them to work remotely.
You probably know the many benefits of having a remote professional on your side all too well, but there are more things that you get out of a Filipino virtual assistant who works from home than someone who works for an office-based agency or a call center.
Let’s take a look at the best-kept secrets about the work-from-home model that are just as important for your business.
OnlineJobs.ph connects you to the largest pool of Filipino remote professionals. As the platform with the largest resume database, OnlineJobs.ph will have someone for you. The site also simplifies your search with easily one of the best and most refined search systems you will find in any employee marketplace.
With its five-star rating system in place, you can find your ideal Filipino virtual assistant by choosing skill levels that matter to you and the budget you are working with.
If you are looking for a real estate writer who can help you with graphics and images, you can tailor your search to a worker with five-star blog writing skills, four-star real estate experience, and three-star graphic design who charges within your budget.
OnlineJobs.ph allows you to post a job and view applications for free. In our opinion, you get the best deal with the Pro version at $69 per month. The subscription allows you to contact and hire contractors as well as review their profiles and feedback. You can cancel the subscription once you find the right person for you.
You can find a Filipino remote professional willing to work full-time, part-time, or freelance. However, their availability can be negotiated especially if you find someone you believe is perfect for your business but wants to a different schedule than you expect.
The best part is that there is no salary markup unlike other freelance marketplaces so your outsourced hire gets their money in full. The site simply aims to connect you to the Filipino virtual assistant of your dreams. You also won’t have to worry about transaction fees or any hidden fees.
Unlike Fiverr and Upwork, which charge you for every project, you can post a job ad to your heart’s content. You simply just settle the payment and you’re good to go.
You can use your savings to provide more tailored training, provide bonuses, or other parts of your businesses. Either way, you are looking at an excellent return of investment that’s ten-fold.
However, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the number of applications and resumes you will have to go through to find the right candidate for you.
It will, of course, be worth it to take the time to go through them to be able to find someone who will be committed to your business and will be ready to hit the ground running. It will be worth it to invest in your search considering how much you can save in the long run by finding the right person.
Check out our post on streamlining your search for a Filipino virtual assistant to save as much time resources as possible without compromising quality. In this article, we talk about:
There are instances that will just require you to hire an agency. When you are dealing with a complex project or working with a tight deadline, it would make the most sense to turn to a company with a team that is ready to get to work. An agency will also handle the training and hiring process for you.
That being said, go with one that has a solid screening process and high standards in place. There are some that have a loose qualification system so you end up with a mediocre hire. In addition, choose a company that is proactive in providing solutions and improvements that will help your business and improve your relationship.
Many agencies have their employees in-house, but you will find companies that connect you directly to remote professionals. This will give you access to a bigger talent pool, not to mention cut your savings even further. You will only need to onboard the outsourced hires and you’re good to go.
What you are giving up here is a much bigger pool of contractors to choose from provided by marketplaces as well as full control of the contractor selection process.
Of course, the key to harnessing the full power of outsourcing to a remote Filipino virtual assistant is finding someone who has the right skills and the work ethic. A professional who is committed to your business as much as you are is not just someone you stumble upon.
That’s why we prepared a free training you can download below to bring you closer to the top-caliber Filipino virtual assistants you deserve.
Tell us about your experience working with a Filipino virtual assistant. Sound off in the comments below!