John Jonas explains why your Filipino worker's productivity drops and how to fix it. Common causes: boredom from repetitive tasks, unclear requirements that trigger job-searching, or a return to normal hours after initial overwork. Rotate tasks, clarify expectations, and talk directly to diagnose what's happening.
Chapters
What do you do when your OFS productivity drops? Hey, my name is John Jonas and I'm going to talk about what do you do when your online Filipino specialists productivity drops? So Mark wrote to me the other day and said, hey, I hired a couple people and they started off really enthusiastic, doing really great work. And after about a month or so, their productivity dropped to the point where I can tell they're spending about half the amount of time that they should be. What do I do? So I actually asked my Filipino team, what do you do? What's causing this? And they gave me a couple different reasons why this might be happening. So number one is they're bored. Maybe they are are doing something that's super, super monotonous and it's just really hard to do it every day, day in and day out, and they're bored and they're tired of it. So if that's the case, try and, try and mix it up. Try and give them something else to do. Keep doing what they're doing, but give them something to break the monotony. So the second thing that my team said was there are not clear requirements. If you leave something open ended like, hey, I want you to do SEO for me, and you don't really say what that entails, then they don't know what you expect and they don't, they know you expect 40 hours a week, but what do you want in those 40 hours a week? Then they start to get worried and then they start to think, oh, I'm going to lose my job. And then they start looking for another job and they get another job and now they're spending half their time on your stuff because there weren't clear requirements. So set clear expectations and requirements with them. So the third thing that my team said was it's possible they spent a whole lot of time in the beginning because they were trying to impress you or they were trying to, to make sure that they were learning things right. Or it's possible they were spending 60 hours a week for the first couple weeks and then they went back down to 40 hours a week and this is really what's more acceptable to them. And so in this situation, you just have to communicate, open up communication. And here's what I would say in this situation. I would send an email that says, hey, I like having you work for me. And I noticed that the first couple weeks you did really, really great. And then your productivity went down. What happened? What, what caused the drop in productivity? Is it that you were working too much and now you're back to a normal working time? Or have I done something wrong or is something not clear or. Or have you found another job and you're not interested anymore? And so I feel like whenever I've done this, whenever I've opened up these lines of communication with. With my team, they. They respond really well to it. They usually give me a good answer, and I'm able to solve problems like, you're not being as productive anymore by communicating with them really well. I have someone on my team that has worked for me for probably 10 years now, and there's been a couple times where she just wasn't very productive. And I talked to her about it, and she said, you know, the tasks that you've given me just aren't very challenging, and I'm bored. And I was like, oh, well, okay, well, what else can we do that helps you feel like you're of more value on our team? And she had some ideas, was like, sweet, let's start implementing these things. And all of a sudden, her productivity goes way up, including on the other things that she wasn't doing super well on. And now she's doing new things and the old things even better. So when you experience someone's productivity dropping, the first thing isn't to say, oh, my gosh, they're lazy and I'm going to fire you. The first thing is to approach them with an open mind, saying, hey, I noticed, and what's causing this could be that they found another job and they are not going to be very productive for you. And if that's the case, you got to make a decision like, are they worth it? Maybe you should cut their hours and their pay and just be upfront about it. Maybe you should say, you know what? I still really just like having you work for me and your time is worth this for me. You have to make that decision. My name is John Jonas, and I talk through things like this in the Outsourcing Lever, where I explain so many cultural things about how the Philippines works and what to do when you run into situations like this, how to open communication channels. I'll give you ideas for emails that you can send to them when you have a problem. Outsourcinglever.com Go get it. It's free. My book is about 100 pages and it's super easy to read. You'll become really good at hiring specialists in the Philippines to help you grow your business. La.
