24 Nov 2025 · 5 min
New Filipino hires are often afraid of misunderstanding instructions or disappointing you. Ask them to summarize the task before they start, give clear feedback early, and build trust through simple training steps. This prevents costly mistakes and gets them productive faster.
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 208, how to not crash and burn with a new OFS. Okay, so last week we were doing a skills ride. So my daughters, as they ride their mountain bikes, they have. They have a set training schedule that every day there's a specific ride they're supposed to do. They're supposed to go on a two hour ride today that is all low intensity. Or they're supposed to go on an hour and a half ride today that is has these high intensity interval sets in it. Or they're supposed to go on a four hour ride today that's just really, really long and lots of climbing. And so it's all scheduled on Tuesdays. We set that aside and we do a skills practice day where we're just going to practice skills and whether that be cornering or maybe it's wheelies or manuals or jumping or whatever it is. So last week we practiced jumping and my daughters didn't want to do it, but I bought this jump that, that we can put in our driveway. And it's not that big. It's only like. It's really only like that big. Right. But it has a good ramp up. And so one of them was like, no, I'm not gonna do this. I was like, yeah, do it. You're gonna do it. And my daughters are very good about when they're on their bikes, they do what I say. They trust me. They trust me that I'm not gonna lead them into something that's horrible for them. So she does it. She goes off the jump and barely jumps. She jumps like that, like half an inch, right? And she saw that, oh, I can do this. Cool. And I was doing it with her. Like, I was going off the jump and we had done it before and I wanted to see, like, can I jump over something? Can I jump over this box? Can I jump over that box? Can I jump over the fence in my backyard? Which is pretty low, but a box is less, is less committing than a fence where like a box will just fold if you hit it right? It was all awesome. My daughter's going off the jump. Both of them are going off the jump. They have a friend that's going off of it. We're all learning. We're learning how to jump higher. We're learning how to land well. We're learning it all. And then one time everything went wrong for me and I hit the jump wrong. And as I hit it, I knew it was wrong and I was in the air wrong and I was coming down wrong and all of it, I just knew it instantly. And I was instantly on the ground and everything hurt. And I have a big bruise on my hip and I sprained my ankle and I just crashed so hard. And it was. It was terrible. My daughter took a video of me laying on the ground, like, rolling. Not really rolling, just moaning because it hurts so badly. And I actually, like, ripped the tongue off of my shoe because I had scraped it on the ground so hard and it was bad. So in this episode, I want to talk about how you can not crash and burn with a new OFS that you hire. And here's the thing that I want to talk about. I want to talk about fear so you can. One of the really biggest things you can do to prevent pain for yourself when starting with someone new is understand that they are scared. They're scared to work for you. They're scared that they're not going to understand you. They're scared that they're not going to do good work for you. They're scared that you're not going to give them good instructions. They're scared that you're not going to be happy with their work. They are scared, and you probably won't get really good work from them until they begin to trust you. And that fear leaves. Like, they know that you're going to train them, you're going to provide them what they need. They know that they're going to do good work for you because you've given them good enough feedback and you've given them positive reinforcement and you've built a relationship. Until that point, a new person in the Philippines is scared. And they're unlikely to try and go really above and beyond to do great work for you because they fear that that extra effort is going to do something wrong. So when I bring someone in new, usually the first task that I give them, I give them the task. I give them this training and I ask them, hey, will you please summarize what I'm asking you to do? Tell me what it is that I'm asking you to do and how you're going to do it. I don't actually ask them to do the task. I just ask them to look at the instructions and then tell me what I'm telling them to do. And this does a couple things. Number one, it gives them a way to give me feedback on my training. Like, if they don't understand what they're supposed to do well, that's on me, not on them. That's my explaining rather than them doing it wrong, which is could be on them, it could be on me. But if they tell me what they're supposed to do and it's wrong, then obviously I haven't explained it right. And if they, if what they tell me is wrong, then I go back and redo my training. If what they tell me is right, then great. I'm ready for you to start this first task which this is a really easy way for them to ensure that you're going to be happy with their work before they start. They gain trust in you. They know that you're going to give them feedback and training. They are pretty dang sure that you're going to be happy with their work. It just builds a really great relationship of trust right from the beginning and it will keep you from crashing with your new ofs.
