John Jonas explains the difference between regular holidays (banks closed, most people off) and special holidays (schools close but many parents still work) in the Philippines. The government often announces holidays last-minute and shifts dates around Muslim holidays. Subscribe to a Philippines-holidays Google calendar to stay on top of changes when managing remote staff.
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Episode 399.
John Jonas.
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 399, How Philippines Holidays Work. So Philippines holidays are not super straightforward like they are in the U.S. in the U.S. we have like 11 holidays that are. These are the holidays and that's it. Although they're not actually as straightforward as you think at first. You're just used to it because what about Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day? There's a whole bunch of other days that you, if you have kids in school, those are definitely, like, really important days. Halloween is like, such a huge day, but definitely not a day off in the US So in the Philippines, they actually have different names for different kinds of holidays. And this. This podcast was actually supposed to be based off of Chinese New Year, but that was a couple weeks ago as I record this, but it's still really relevant. So in the Philippines, two different kinds of holidays I'm going to talk about. So one is a regular holiday, and the second is a special holiday. So regular holidays are what you think of when you think of a holiday. It's a day off. It's a day off of work. It's a day off of school. Banks are closed. Most people don't work on a regular holiday. So when you hear me talk about a regular holiday or in my newsletter, I will write about a regular holiday. This is a regular holiday. Chinese New Year is a regular holiday. That means most people in the country are going to be off of work on that day. A special holiday is more like a school, school holiday, although it's kind of different than in the US A special holiday. In the Philippines, kids will be off of school, but a lot of the times, parents still work. Those days are harder for parents in the Philippines, and so they may ask you to have the day off because their kids are out of school. Typically, there are more holidays in the Philippines than there are in the U.S. actually, I think they have something like 25 holiday days. So Chinese New Year in the Philippines is a holiday, and here's where the whole conversation gets going. So. So the Philippines celebrates Chinese New Year because they have quite a large Chinese population or a lot of people who are. There's a lot of people who are mixed Chinese descent, so. And actually, I think I said that Penny's New Year is a regular holiday. It's not. It's a special holiday. But a lot of people still celebrate it. But a lot of people still celebrate it because it's supposed to bring wealth and good luck. And then usually I wouldn't even say anything about Chinese New Year, except that this is how the Philippines government works. A couple days before Chinese New Year, which falls on Saturday, they announced that Friday would also be a special holiday. So, yeah, the Philippines government making up holidays days before they happen, making kids out of school, throwing things out of whack for their parents. Yes, this is just how it works in the Philippines. The government just makes things up days before this happens. Also with some of the Muslims holidays, I think it's Ramadan. And they'll just, the week before, decide this is when the holiday is. This is when people are off of work where typically it would have fallen on Saturday. And they're like, yeah, we're gonna do this on Monday. A couple years ago, the Philippines government actually changed their normal policy on this. They know the Philippines has so many holidays and they also know that the Philippines is interacting with the rest of the world because they're doing so much, they're participating so much in the global labor force. So a couple years ago, they decided in if a holiday falls on Saturday, we're not going to celebrate it on Friday, we're just going to leave it on Saturday. And too bad for you, you're out of luck. You didn't get the day off. You have plenty of days off work. If it falls on Sunday, we're not going to sell, we're not going to add a celebratory day on Monday. The holiday is on Sunday and that's it. Except only kind of. Right. Because they just did this with Chinese New Year. It falls on Saturday and they decided, oh, yeah, Friday is a special holiday because of Chinese New Year. So how does this affect you? Well, for the most part, it's not going to affect you. At least you're not going to know that it's going to affect you. Because your people in the Philippines know that you don't celebrate Chinese New Year. And they're probably not going to do anything about it. But it could be that they're going to ask you for the day off. For example, if they have kids, they have multiple kids in school, those kids are going to be at home. They know this is going to be outside their normal routine. They're going to ask you, hey, could I have the day off? Or maybe they'll work extra ahead of time and extra afterward and they just won't say anything to you and, and won't work during normal hours on that day. Typically, it probably won't affect their productivity very much. It might a little bit, but usually not at all. Worst case scenario, they miss a day of work because of it. Not the worst situation. If you want to know more about the holidays in the Philippines and trying to keep up with it, which I don't keep up with it. I just do what I'm about to tell you at onlinejobs PH Holidays. We have a calendar that we maintain, a Google calendar that we maintain with all the Philippines holidays and you can subscribe to it and we keep it updated so. So you subscribe to this calendar, add it to your calendar. I put it in a lesser colored tone so that it shows up but it's not standing out bold on my calendar. And then I know, okay, there's a holiday this weekend, people may not work. Or there's a holiday on Wednesday, people may not work. That way I'm at least prepared. Well, I feel like I didn't get responses from people today. Oh, that's why there was a holiday yesterday. And I know that because it's on my calendar. Super, super easy. In the end, it's just good to understand the culture of the Philippines and how their holidays work. Sam.
