John Jonas explains why Filipino online workers often juggle multiple jobs: some need extra income, others get pushed into it by poor training, and experienced freelancers manage several clients intentionally. He advises employers to ask direct questions about other commitments and negotiate arrangements that work for both sides.
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 217, OFS with multiple jobs. So at Onlinejobs ph we do and have and probably always will strongly advocate for Filipinos to only have one full time job. We find that their experience is better and your experience is better when they're just working for one employer. Obviously that means they have to make enough money from you to, to support themselves. So I know that there are quite a few job seekers or a lot of job seekers on the site who have multiple jobs. I talked about this in the last episode. Someone who has a full time job and a part time job. So here are like four scenarios typically where this is happening. I'm going to run through these. Number one, they have a part time job and they're not making enough money at it to support themselves, so they're looking for another part time job. And if someone just has a part time job, they're never making enough money, so they're for sure looking for another job. So situation number two, someone has a full time job but they're not making enough money from that to support themselves and so they're looking for part time work. Now most of these people will tell you if either they're going to tell it on their profile or they'll tell you in an interview that they have a full time job and they're looking for part time work. If you come across this, I would suggest you ask them why they're looking for part time work. Number three, you get newbie Filipino workers who get taught that they can get multiple clients, which this is kind of going around YouTube right now where some people in the Philippines are teaching people how to get a job as a VA and they teach them they can get multiple clients and it's all really easy because they sell them a course on how easy it is, then they get, they get a job or they get multiple clients and they get burnt out because they didn't realize, oh yeah, this is actually a lot of work and then they lose their jobs. And then situation number four is they're maintaining work and doing work for multiple clients and they're possibly managing their time well enough that they can work for multiple clients. And if you're hiring someone part time or on a per project basis, this is likely the case where they have multiple things going on because they have to sustain themselves. So in my opinion, number one and number two are perfectly acceptable. There are circumstances that you can work with, especially if you know they're just not making enough money so they need more work. You can either offer more money or accept that they're going to have multiple jobs because people have to live. And as long as they are delivering the expected work on time and your expectations are correct within their time frame, this situation can work really well. Issue number three, where we get newbie workers that want to take on multiple clients is really a result of this. This like cheap or free VA training where they're, they're publishing a video on YouTube saying, oh, you can get these many clients here, look at all this money that I'm making. And they fan out money and, and then they sell them something or they give them something free in exchange for their email address or exchange for them to do something and then they give them this really crappy training. And we're working really hard to fight against this at onlinejobs. Ph, but it still exists and we can't stop people from publishing on YouTube. So just something to be aware of, like, how much experience do you have? How many clients do you expect to get? These are questions you should be asking in your interview process with number four, someone who's working for multiple clients. The best way to figure this out is to ask in a neutral way. So you might want to ask like, how much experience do you have and where have you gotten that experience or is your experience current? What other jobs do you currently have? Who else are you working for? What's your time commitment with them? All these things that say, you know, I might be interested in you having current experience, which means you're working for someone else. So tell me what other, who else you're working for. So with this type of question, they don't know if you want to say yes or no. So they're probably better off being honest with you and telling you, I have this work, I'm working for this person, I have this much time, then at least you know, if you suspect that you have someone working for you either part time or full time, and you suspect that they have taken on another job or they're taking on multiple other jobs, ask, ask them about it. I've had a couple of situations where I suspected it, but I didn't know and I said something and we worked it out. I've had a couple other situations where they accidentally sent me an email that was intended for their other boss and it was like, okay, let's talk through this. And we worked it out and it worked out really, really well. Actually, they it was exciting for them that I wasn't super mad at them and that I was willing to keep them. And they've been really, really great since that happened. So asking. And then when you ask, it's acceptable for you to try and take care of people and like, talk through their financial situation with them and see why are they trying to do. Why? What's their situation? Are they single and they just have more time and they just want to make more money? They want to really want to work really hard? Or do they have a wife and two kids and they're just not making enough money and they need more money to survive? You know, like, those are different situations, but once you know the situation, you can work through it with them. Hopefully. Most Filipinos really just want to create a great situation for you and them, because if you're happy, that means they keep their job. They really love to have a stable paying job that will allow them to support their family. So they want to make you happy. If something's going wrong, talk to them about it and see what you can figure out.
