John Jonas explains how to work effectively with Online Filipino Specialists. The Philippines mandates a 13th month bonus paid in December, and clustered holidays mean many employees take time off for family. Posting jobs in December is pointless; prepare them then and publish January through April instead.
Questions this episode answers
Episode 382
April 15, 2024
An extra month's pay paid in December, prorated for partial-year employment; legally required for employers with a business in the Philippines after an employee has worked one year.
No — the speaker states you are not legally obligated if you do not have a business in the Philippines, though it is culturally important.
Avoid late December; post in early January (and generally January–April or anytime through November).
Chapters
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 382, some quick tips in working with OFS. So this, this podcast comes from a newsletter that I sent back in December, and it was very December specific, but I still feel like there's a bunch of relevant things in it because so many of you listening to this. I know, I know it's probably February when you get this, or maybe, I mean, you may be listening to this anytime. So many of you will still have people working for you in December again. And you should know the things that I wanted to talk about in December. Let's go through them. First of all, the 13th month. If you're hiring people in the Philippines, you need to know about the 13th month culture. So that's not something that we do in the US or most of the West. I had never heard of it until I started working with people in the Philippines. So in the Philippines, if you have a business in the Philippines, which you don't, but if you do, then it is legally required that after someone has worked for you for a year, you give them a bonus of one month's pay called the 13th month. And actually how it works is it's paid in December. So if you hire someone in January and December, you're going to pay them November's salary. So like on December 1, we pay November salary. And then sometime during the month of December, you're also going to send them an extra month's pay, the 13th month. And then on January 1st, you're going to pay them December salary, so you have an extra month of pay in there. It's also prorated. So if you paid someone, if you hired someone in June, well, it doesn't really matter. When you hire them, you're going to add up the total amount you paid them throughout the year and divide it by 12 to figure out how much the 13th month payment is. If you let someone go during the year in the Philippines, you're still also obligated to make that payment. Now, you do not have a business in the Philippines. You are not legally obligated to pay this. However, it's a really big incentive to people in the Philippines. They base their lives around this. They really, really hope for will keep people loyal to you. This the 13. If there' extra thing you're gonna do for people the 13th, make it be the 13th month. That's the biggest one for them. Also, the 13th month is not a Christmas bonus. So when you're getting to this point, if you're planning it, it's March right now and you're planning on the 13th month in December, recognize it's not a Christmas bonus. Most people in the Philippines are Christian. They celebrate Christmas. If you want to send a holiday bonus or a Christmas bonus or whatever it is, an end of year bonus, that is not the 13th month. Now, you don't have to send this at all. We do. We send in December, we send November salary, the 13th month salary, and a end of year bonus or a Christmas bonus. And those bonuses have ranged from like $25 to $100 to this year. They were much, much bigger than that. But that's completely up to you and what you want to do. Just recognize these two things are separate next holidays. So the Philippines has so many holidays. For example, in December, Christmas Eve is a holiday, so is Christmas. New Year's Eve is a holiday, so is New Year's Day. So in the us, Christmas and New Year's are holidays, but the Eves are not. In addition to those, on December 30th is Rizal Day, which is a full on holiday. So December 30, December 31 and the first are all holidays right in a row. As I am recording this podcast episode, it's late January, Chinese New Year's coming up, which is a special holiday in the Philippines. It's not a normal holiday. They call it a regular holiday. A regular holiday is like a bank holiday where everybody's off of work. Chinese New Year is a special holiday because they have a lot of ethnic Chinese people in the Philippines and it falls on a Saturday this year. And just yesterday the Philippines government decided, yeah, Saturday is the holiday, but so is Friday and that's in another week and a half. So that's. The Philippines just has so many holidays and they'll come in bunches. Around Easter time is another bunch of holidays. So just something to be prepared for. If you want more information on holidays, you can check out onlinejobs.ph holidays next around the holidays, specifically the end of the year, but also anytime there's a bunch of holidays together, like this year at the end of March, or I'm just looking at my calendar, like the 28th to 31st March and then also again the 6th to 10th April, which those two are really close to each other, are going to be considered in the Philippines as long weekends. Now on, on weekends like this or on times like this in the Philippines, people are expected to travel home, which means Often they're taking long boat rides or they're taking long bus rides or whatever it is, they are expected to travel home. Now, Christmas and New Year's is one thing where it is like, if you are not at home, they are willing to quit their job out of fear of losing their job or out of fear of asking their employer for the time off. The pull to be at home is that strong in the Philippines, it's stronger than their job. Us, that's a very foreign concept for us because our job is like the number one most important only thing that we ever deal with in the Philippines. Family trumps job. So at these times this year, when there are these extra long weekends, when holidays fall on Thursday and Friday, or when holidays fall on Tuesday and Wednesday, that means Saturday, Sunday, it's really easy to take Monday off because you're getting Tuesday and Wednesday off. That's a really long weekend. That means people are going to want to travel and they're going to probably be expected to travel for those times. So something for you to be aware of. Your team may want or need to travel. They may be really scared of telling you this. They may be scared of taking the time off. It would probably be a good idea to let them know, hey, if you need the time off, you can take the time off. I want you to continue working for me. Otherwise, I've seen this happen too many times. They quit without saying anything and they just disappear and they're done. And they'll never respond to you again, which is the worst case scenario. But because they don't want to lose face, they don't want to be embarrassed, they don't want to cause problems, they would rather just look for another job and deal with the financial hardships than having to ask for the time off. So. So if they're worried that they're going to lose the job, you should probably say something to them. Okay, one more thing to talk about from this again. This comes from a newsletter that I sent in December. Just so you know, December is not a great time to post a job. Now, I had one customer who was posting his job December 24th and December 26th and December 28th, and he's sending me screaming emails saying, your site sucks now. It's always been so great for me and now it sucks and it's not my fault. This is your fault. What are you guys doing wrong? And I was like, dude, I said this in my newsletter. I said this multiple times in my newsletter. December is not a great time to be posting a job. At least certainly not late December. And he said, it's not the December, it's your system. I said, look, it's now January 3rd. Post your job again. And he got 200 responses on January 3rd. Right. In the Philippines, they're so concerned with the holidays that I just talked about that they don't want to start a new job December 20th because they're really worried about what their responsibilities are December 23rd to January 1st, that they'd rather, I mean, not have work and wait until January 3rd to start applying for jobs. So January, February, March, April, really, really great time to post a job. In fact, I mean, you're going to have success anytime up through November in finding people. And I hired someone in December. You can certainly hire in December. It's just not. You're not going to get the most attention in December. Now, what is a great thing to do in December is to write your job posts and be prepared. I often find that I am super unbusy in December. With holidays and time off, I find I have more time to fill than I have things to do. And so writing that job post becomes the natural thing for me to do. Maybe I put it off for a while and that's a really great way to fill time because it's probably the most effective time spend all year long is hiring that person to take over something and all kinds of things get done without me doing them because of that job post. So that that's a great thing to do in December. Write your job post, don't post it until January.
