John Jonas (Secret Sauce of Outsourcing, Ep. 393, May 6, 2024) describes how natural disasters usually affect only parts of the Philippines, recounting a recent tropical depression and heavy rains that impacted Mindanao. He summarizes a quoted reply from an offshore Filipino staffer describing national resilience, evacuation centers, and disaster-preparedness support (including Japan’s influence). Jonas notes he has had Filipino staff since 2005, currently employs about 40 people across the country, and emphasizes that keeping one’s job is typically the highest priority for OFs after a disaster.
Questions this episode answers
393
May 6, 2024
About 40
Since 2005
The Luzon earthquake in 1890
Chapters
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 393. What usually happens when there's a natural disaster in the Philippines. So some of my ofs who are in the Visayas region and Mindanao experienced a strong storm last month. Well, so they experienced this strong storm, and then we wrote about it for our newsletter and I'm recording it for a podcast. But in between, there's been two other things that have gone on that affected my team, and these were both in Mindanao, where there was heavy raining for like five days straight. And they were saying, wow, I don't remember the last time it rained this much for this long. There was flooding one of my offices in an evacuation center. So, I mean, natural disasters are just super common in the Philippines now. They don't always or even often affect my team other than I have a pretty big team. I have 40 people in the Philippines, and they're spread all over the country. So if a natural disaster happens in the north of Luzon, the main island, well, then I'm gonna have someone that's affected by it, but it's not gonna affect everybody else in the rest of the country. I have a bunch of people in Mindanao. So if there's a natural disaster in Mindanao, it's going to affect some of them. It's gonna affect some of them more than others, but it's not gonna affect other people that are in Cebu or Iloilo or Manila or wherever. And typically, that's how natural disasters in the Philippines are. They affect one area of the country and not others. And so the chances of your ofs being affected are pretty slim. And the chance of them being, like, really, really affected are pretty, pretty slim. So this, this original storm that I was set to talk about in this, I didn't even know about it because to them, it's not strong or unusual. Yeah, it was a. It was a tropical depression and it caused flooding and it had lots of rain, but they don't say anything because it's just normal to them. I did hear about it from my son who's on a mission in the Philippines. And. And so then I, then I emailed. I emailed my team and asked, hey, like, why don't you tell me, why didn't you tell me about this storm? And are any of you affected by it? Here's the answer that I got. I'm going to read this because it was a really good answer from one of my ofs. She says we experience typhoons and earthquakes all year round. So we have learned to prepare for, live with, and adapt to most natural disasters. We all know how well prepared the Japanese are for most, almost any disaster. The Philippines and Japan have a close relationship some. So one of the ways Japan has helped us over the years is with disaster preparedness. In addition to aid, they share their techniques and technology, and the Philippines has tried to integrate as much as possible. I wish we could be as good as Japan, but politics sometimes get in the way. Another reason why we're more prepared now is because of the Luzon earthquake back in 1890, which caused the death of 1,600 people and injured thousands more. This event triggered massive political and social changes to push for better earthquake preparedness. This earthquake is the reason why you don't see massive skyscrapers in most places in the Philippines. We have many ways to adapt to most storms that come our way. Most places have established evacuation centers in case of flooding. We use social media, tv, radio and text alerts to tell people if they need to stay at home or evacuate or cancel classes and work, etc. If there are affected areas, they're communicated right away so nearby affected regions can step in and help. All these things have made us pretty resilient, even when we encounter really strong typhoons and earthquakes that cause a lot of destruction and we know how to bounce back. So since 2005, this is me again. Since 2005, I've had people in the Philippines working for me and I've seen a lot of natural disasters in that time. Most of them were had moderate effects. A couple of them were like huge, massive natural disasters where multiple people on my team lost houses and had to move. And we helped them in those situations. But in almost every situation, the email that I get from someone, and it's not just me, I've had multiple other people, employers, send me emails saying, oh my gosh, what do I do? I just got this email that says, and this is the same thing that emails to me say, but don't worry, sir, I saved my laptop and I will be back to work really soon. So their biggest concern is keeping their job, because without a job in the Philippines, life is just really, really hard. And so their first priority is to make sure they still have a job. And so even though they may not have a house, they may have lost everything. They didn't lose their laptop because they still want to make sure that you're happy with them and that they keep their job. And this is kind of how you can expect to work with an ofs. When you hire someone in the Philippines, they want to make you happy. They want to do good work. You will become a priority for them. As long as you treat them well. You got to treat them well.
