Ep. 220: How Do I Get My OFS To Work Faster

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing. This is episode 220. How do I get my ofs to work faster? So I've had it happen to me like you hire a new ofs, an online Filipino specialist. They start out great, Their quality output is really good, their work is fast, everything is working well. And then all of a sudden something happens. Everything slows down, quality declines, things just are not working out right. And yet, you know, you hired a good person. You followed like you followed my process@1vaoa.com or you know, you recruited really well. You didn't just hire the first person. So what could go wrong to cause this situation? Let me give you a couple scenarios. Number one, they took on too much in life, whether it be like a second job or maybe you were a part time job for a full time mom. And they just, it just caught up with them. They realize, oh my gosh, I took on too much and they're getting overworked and they can't handle it. And so something has to give. Number two, they don't understand something. If they don't understand how something works or they're unsure about something, they'll be extra cautious and hesitant. And that's a very common scenario. Number three, they have a personal problem, like maybe their sickness or it could be a family issue. Something is taking their time away from your work. Number four, their computer is just slow. They managed to work through it or work FA for a little bit, but eventually they really just need to work on their own. They this is an easily solvable problem. You can easily provide a computer. Number five, they took on another job. Now this is not a great situation either. You don't know they took on another job. You have to ask them to figure it out. They're not making enough money from you and that's why they have to take on another job. Something just isn't right that caused them to take on another job. If that's the case, first of all, you're going to have to figure out that that's the case, which means you're going to have to ask a bunch of questions. If that's the case, you're going to, you're going to have to work through it with them. Number six, and this is a hard one, but maybe they really hate the work that they're doing. I've had this happen to me where I hired someone to do something. It turns out they really hate this work. So they did it really well for a couple weeks. And then they just decided like, I can't do this. But I know I recruited a good person. So my advice is try and give them something else to do and recruit someone else. One of the things you might want to do when you're recruiting for something specific is look at disc profiles. Someone's personality will tell you a lot about their ability to fulfill a specific type of job. And then number seven, the last one I want to talk about is maybe there's a situation outside of their control that is causing this to happen. Maybe there's bad weather. Maybe it's really hot in the Philippines, making it really difficult to work. Maybe they can't afford air conditioning and so it's really hard to get their work done. Maybe there's. Maybe their house is flooded and they don't want to tell you about it because they're embarrassed. There's all kinds of things that could be happening outside. So the solution to every one of these scenarios is to ask. It always amazes me how many people make assumptions that they're lazy or they don't really want the job and they fire someone rather than just asking like, hey, what's going on? Why? I noticed that your work has slowed down. What's the problem? Or did I do something wrong? I'm sure this is my fault, but I've noticed that things aren't going right. What can I help you with? What has happened? All of these things are likely to give you insight into what's going on. The best one that I've ever found is what are you stuck on? That question seems to get a really good response from people in the Philippines. I don't know why, but I've just found it lots of times. What are you stuck on? Allows them to tell you what's going on, what the problem is. And I know it's not magical, but it kind of feels that way to me. If you do your hiring right, you know you've hired a good person. Going through the hiring process again to find the same person is a really painful process and you don't want to do it. So asking what they're stuck on is a really good solution to a decline in productivity.