John Jonas runs a 38-person team of Filipino specialists with unlimited paid time off. No formal tracker, just trust: take what you need as long as you tell people ahead. He explains why PTO security matters in the Philippines, where travel between islands for funerals and family obligations is common.
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How much paid time off should you give to your OFS in the Philippines? How much paid time off do people in the Philippines actually need and how much should you give and should you have a policy for it? So for us, for our team, where we have about 38 full time people that work for us right now, we don't actually have a paid time off policy or tracker or anything of the sort. The only thing that we tell our people when they get started is you have as much paid time off as you want and that includes sick time, vacation time, holidays, whatever. We don't really care. We just want you to do your work and get really good work done and then take whatever time off you need and that entails. Like we have someone that has had a really hard time with his eyes over the last year and he's a programmer so it makes it really hard for him to work and we've given him tons and tons of time off, but he's so dang good that I don't really mind because I want him to get healthy and come back and work again. We've had other people that have, you know, they'll get married and then they want a week off. Like sweet, you can take the week off. That's great. So for us, our policy is I don't care how much time you take off, I just want to know a little bit ahead of time. So like if you're sick, send me an email telling me that you're sick and that you couldn't work. If you're going to have a two week long vacation, that's fine. Just let me know ahead of time that you're going to take two weeks off. I've never actually seen someone say I'm going to take two weeks off, but I've seen them take a week or a few days or go to a funeral. But having knowing that they can take the time off they need is a really big deal in the Philippines. So that like someone dies and they're on a different island and they have to take a boat to get there that takes a full day to get there, another full day to get back and they're going to be required to take five days there. They're not scared about losing their job. So they don't just disappear, they tell me instead. So I've seen other people that have, they'll say, hey, you have like upfront, you have 10 paid days off per year and that includes sick days or vacation days or maybe 10 paid days off that are vacation days and five sick days per year. You know, you can have a policy like this and then you can track it or you can not track it. I don't really. You can track it or not track it? I prefer not to track it because I don't. I don't want to complicate things. I just want to make this simple and I want to make their lives better. So how much paid time off should you give? They don't really expect a certain amount. Some companies in the Philippines give very, very little paid time off. I feel like it's better to make their lives better than it is to be super strict and forceful with things like this. So for us, again, we let them have whatever time off they want. In my book, the outsourcing lever, I talk about paid time off and about holidays and vacation days and sick days and sick leave. And you can get that@outrigourcinglever.com it's free. Head over there to outsourcinglever.com get it. I guess you have to pay for shipping and I will ship you the book and you will know so much about hiring specialists in the Philippines to help you build your business.
