24 Nov 2025 · 5 min
In Filipino culture, caring for elderly or sick family members is expected, and offshore workers often juggle this with remote jobs. An employee named Jam manages chores, errands, and driving parents to appointments while working full-time. Employers who offer flexible hours and reduced workload can retain these valuable workers.
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 331. Caring for Family is part of Filipino culture. So I have learned so much about this recently about how Filipinos care for their own, and it has been really interesting to me. And I have another episode coming up about hospital watchers. So let's talk about Filipinos caring for their family. To start off with, have you ever noticed how many Filipino nurses there are? They're all over the place. Or that many caregivers are Filipino or I get emails all the time from people saying, hey, I need a caregiver for my, for my elderly mom, can I bring someone in from the Philippines? And we don't do that. But it's the Philippines that are thought of as caring as caregivers. And part of that is because it's just part of their culture, because of family requirements in the culture. So caring for sickly or elderly members is, is required. And if you're young and healthy, you're expected to care for either elderly family members or sick family members, whether they're immediate family or extended family. And in most cases, this responsibility falls on those who are unemployed. But if everybody in a family is unemployed, someone has to do it. And so someone's probably going to have to quit their job in order to become a full time caregiver. Now, that may sound crazy to you, but this is reality in the Philippines. Now for you. There are two situations here. One, you have an OFS who works from home and they can become a full time caregiver because they're also able to get their work done from home or on downtime. Two, they're expected to become a full time caregiver. And because they work from home, other people think you don't actually have a job, so you need to become the caregiver and quit your job. Which is why I've seen ofs quit. Even though they had a good situation and we really liked them, I've had them quit before to go take care of family members. So recently this has happened to one of my ofs where he was expected to become a full time caregiver because he works from home. So I asked Jam to share his experience. Here's what he said. When I wake up, I make breakfast for my parents. I make sure they eat and take their medication. After that, my parents watch TV or do stuff around the house. That's when I'll start doing the chores around the house. Cleaning, washing, Dishes, et cetera, or running errands. When I was done with chores, I'd work until it was time to make their lunch and dinner. If we have a doctor's appointment that day, I'll prepare whatever we need to bring, like their paperwork. I'd drive them to the appointment. Once we get to the doctor's office, there's usually an hour long wait, sometimes longer. While waiting, I'd either be working or running additional errands. This is me and my mom. He sent me a picture of her. I took her out for snacks after her doctor's appointment. I'm lucky that my parents are still healthy and mobile. I also share this responsibility with my sisters so I don't have to do this all year round. Which gonna add here he doesn't have to do this all year round tells you just how much he's doing. I'm also lucky that I can afford to take this time with my parents. It's not much, but knowing that I can do this and not worry about my job is a huge burden off my shoulders. I know this because I know what it's like not to have that option. When I worked in a call center years ago, my maternal grandfather died. I had to help with the funeral arrangements while working. I was fairly new so I couldn't take days off. I couldn't take my work home. I was so overwhelmed by everything. I was eventually hospitalized for stress. I so a few things to note here. If you're working in an office in the Philippines and a family member gets sick or dies often, you'll see people quit their jobs. And we see it happen with online work too. People are worried that you're going to be so disappointed that they just quit now. Jam has worked for me for a while. He's also really amazing and you'll notice he works in between taking care of his parents. Jam is also one of our better workers. He has stood out in multiple things that he has done and has gained more and more responsibility or very responsibility. He's really great. At the same time taking care of his parents. You don't have to lose an OFS if they get into this situation. Now here's. Here's some general recommendations. If an OFS tells you I have to quit because my family member died or because I have to take care of my mom or they're hospitalized or whatever, try and work it out with them. See if you can get them to work less time. See if you can get them to work in between. Tell them you're willing to be patient with them. You're willing to see how their situation goes. If they need to take a few weeks off and then come back to work and maybe not on the same schedule, or not full time, or maybe tweaking what they're doing for you, it's worth it to try and keep them rather than just say oh well, that sucks. I guess I'm going to let you go. Very often giving a good OFS some concessions. Maybe letting them work less hours and make the same amount is worth it, rather than having to having to find a new person. In Jam's case, he's been super duper productive, even while working, even while taking care of his parents. It's been really good for us.
