John Jonas answers what to do when your outsourced Filipino staff hits one year. The 13th-month pay is mandatory and separate from any bonus. Consider a raise, small gift, or work equipment instead.
Questions this episode answers
December 1, 2021.
Lazada (lazada.com) and Shopee.
As part of annual salary/life — expected and needed; should not be counted as a discretionary anniversary bonus.
All raises are done in January; the host also notes the one-year mark is a good time for a raise.
Chapters
Hello and welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing Podcast. The podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing your work. My name is John Jonas and this is episode 26, a one year anniversary with your OFS. What do you do? So my youngest child just had a birthday. He turned 8 and since we were traveling over his birthday, he didn't get party and we're not really big on parties anyway, but you know, this is like an anniversary thing. He did get some Legos, clothes, other toys. We were gone and every single day he opened at least one present. And then at the end of the week he got a new bike and he really double dipped because the bike wasn't delivered on time. And we knew that. And so he got a whole bunch of presents and then he got a bike. And the bike is pretty sweet. It's a mountain bike that is like, it weighs like 15 and a half pounds. It's amazing. So he really made out this year on his birthday anniversary. If you have someone coming up on their one year anniversary, here's the question I just got from Mozam. He said, my VA will be turning one year old working with me next week. I wanted to ask you a few things. What is typically expected around this landmark from a VA perspective? Salary negotiations, bonus evaluation, what are your experiences? Also my VA kind of suggested I could give him a tablet or something. He'll be getting the 13th month bonus, should that suffice and he can then purchase what he likes. Also I remember seeing a post from you a while back where you had mentioned some website where you could buy some electronics and send the VA's. Send it to the VA's address or something. So that's the end of Moazam's question. Here's my perspective. Number one, one year anniversary of an OFS. Nothing is expected. There's no standard for this. Number two, the 13th month bonus is just part of their lives. It's part of their annual salary. It's expected and needed by them to take care of their families at the holiday time. Do not consider that as like bonus or a raise or a one year anniversary something. The 13th month bonus is part of it. If their one year came in February, you know, the 13th month does not suffice. If you want to do something nice for pay the 13th month and do the nice thing. Don't count the 13th month as the nice thing. So his OFS suggested that he could get him a tablet or something. I'm sure that Moazam said, hey, it's your one month. What, what can I do for you? And I bet this his worker wants a tablet and so he suggested it, which is fine. And I'm kind of surprised that he did, that he would suggest it. I'm not, I'm not super surprised though. I've seen it before. If you haven't done a raise yet, then the year mark is a good time to do it. One year is a good time to have a raise. January is also a good time to have a raise. And that's when we do all of our raises. We do all of them in January. If it were me, I probably wouldn't buy a tablet for a worker unless it's going to help them with their work. I might contribute to a laptop if that's going to help them with their work, which I think is more likely to help them with their work than a tablet is. Or if you just want to do something nice, then yeah, go for it and do it. I mentioned some sites that you could buy some electronics and send it to the VA's address. Those two sites that I've mentioned before are Lazada.com, l A Z A D A and Shopee. Those are both pretty simple. Like you can buy something and send it to them. You can also probably buy a gift card for them at those two sites and let them do whatever they want. I would say generally like a tablet is probably a bit much for a one year anniversary, but you know, if you're, if your OFS is really, really great, then you know, buy some loyalty for yourself. And not that they're not gonna be loyal because they probably are, but you could increase it and make someone happy. You know, that's always my philosophy is to make someone happy, do a little bit extra, help them, want to work with you and want to go above and beyond what you're asking them to, especially at a year anniversary.
