MBA1220 Q&A Wednesday: Any tips when hiring remote employees from the Philippines?

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Hey O welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business that gets you out of your business rut every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, the Complete Business Training and Community Online and today's episode is a Q and A Wednesday episode. On our Q and A Wednesday episodes I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over at omar@100mba.net Today's question is from Sean and Sean asks any tips when hiring remote employees from the Philippines? Thanks for your question Sean. We've hired several people from the Philippines on our team. Carl, our sound engineer and editor of this podcast, an absolute wizard and was a hire from the Philippines along with six other people on our team. And hiring somebody overseas and specifically in the Philippines is not much different than hiring somebody that is right next door. There are some things you need to consider and some tips I can give you when it comes to how to refine your application process so you can find the best candidates for your business, for your culture. The Philippines has become one of the most popular places to hire for growing companies. Filipinos have a pretty strong command of English. They understand Western culture and way of life. But also in my experience, they're also very hardworking and dedicated to key values that we need to have in all our employees. So in today's lesson, I'll be answering Sean's question and giving my best tips when hiring out of the Philippines. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So Sean asks, in today's Q and A Wednesday, do you have any tips when hiring remote employees from the Philippines? Well, let's start with where you can find some really good talent. 1. I highly recommend that you post a job on your site, on a jobs page. But there's also a really good job board called onlinejobs php. Many Filipinos will check that job board for remote positions around the world. Now, this job board gets a lot of traffic. So when you post a job, you gotta be ready to get a lot of applications. You gotta have a system in place. Next, Online Jobs requires you to pay a fee. I think it's about $30 a month or there's a discount if you do three months. Now, OnlineJobs charges a fee to post jobs here and it's about $69 a month, but it's well worth it. And then you can post your jobs. You can hire and then you can cancel, but then sign back up when you have another job that you want to post. Now, you need to be very specific with your job description. Take the time to write a detailed job description as well as a link to how to apply. You don't want them to apply on the actual application via Online Jobs. You want to make it a little bit more challenging so you can get more information and see who is dedicated, who has attention to detail, who actually reads the whole thing and sees that they have to apply at a link. This is going to weed out people that are just applying to every single thing. We just like to create a Google form with an application form. And actually Google Forms has a default application form as a template and you can build upon that. And then we actually incorporate questions for the job description or for the job position. I should say actual mock questions that they would need to answer in order to do a good job. Whether it's customer service or virtual assistant or a designer or developer. You want to give them real life examples, real life things they're going to have to deal with in the position that they can answer. You may want to give them some resources like your website or your knowledge base of your product or service. That way they can get a chance to learn about your company and your product and then illustrate that they can actually follow instructions and read things and produce results. By having an application process, it actually weeds out a lot of people and you can shortlist people based on the responses and you only interview people that actually fit the bill. Now, it's very important when you're hiring overseas that you're very clear with your communication what you're going to offer your employees. Don't assume things, don't assume that they know things. The way things are done overseas may be different than your own home country. So be very clear about the salary, about the time off, about their evaluation process, about how they can get a raise or an increment, what's included with their employment and what's expected of them. I find that Filipinos as a culture are very kind. They're very respectful. But sometimes that means. And sometimes it's not. In all cases, that means they're going to be too shy to ask questions or to request something. They need it to be laid out for them so they know that, hey, this is the opportunity. They can ask for a raise or this is how much they're going to get paid, this is how much time they're going to have off. You need to provide all those answers. We found that Filipinos are very hardworking, but you have to make an effort to make them feel included in your team, that they're part of something greater than just a job. This is especially important because they're remote. They're, you know, they're on another side of the world. So meet with them regularly. Have at least a once a month, all team meeting, check in on them, chat with them on Basecamp or on Slack or whatever you use to chat. Get to know them a little bit. Understand that also Filipinos in general, again, this is just our experience, value family and value having family time, especially during the holidays. So be respectful of that. So some or most Filipinos are going to want to know when it comes to religious holidays, what days they have off. But also the flip side, you have to understand that Filipinos understand the value of working from home. It's a very popular concept in the Philippines to have a work at home job. Most prefer to have a job like that because commuting to a job is a nightmare for most people in the major cities like Manila. They want to save an hour or two on commuting every day. They want to be close to home. Some of them may be parents and they want to take care of their children or maybe take care of their parent. So what we like to do in the interviews is illustrate the benefits of remote work, of working from home. But also understand that, hey, these are the things we need from you to make sure that you're doing a great job. A great Internet connection, a backup to the Internet connection because they may have some outages. This is common in the Philippines to have Internet outages. So we like to say, hey, could you have a backup, like using your phone data, something like that. We also have our communication tools like Slack and Basecamp installed on their phones. Make sure that they have that on their phones because, hey, they may have a power outage. They get a lot of, you know, heavy storms. This is very common. So they may not have power to power their computer to let you know that, hey, I'm going to be late to work or I'm not going to be able to do my shift on time or I'm going to shift my time or work later because of this outage. And by having on their phone, they'll be able to communicate. So just be mindful of this because this is actually quite common. They'll get hurricanes and they'll get storms, you know, a few times a year. I also would note that, you know, a lot of Filipinos and every case is different, but a lot of Filipinos, their better half, their partner, their husband, their wife may not be with them in the Philippines. They may be working abroad somewhere in the Middle east or in a neighboring country so they can earn an income. So we really think that it's important to recognize that and understand that, hey, by being part of your company, they're a part of a second family. They have a support system. They have somebody to talk to. They have somebody to chat with. And even though they're remote, they feel like they're part of something that's bigger than themselves.

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To wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday's question from Sean. Do we have any tips when it comes to hiring remote teammates or employees in the Philippines? All in all, I think that hiring from the Philippines is a great idea. It just takes a bit more work and a bit more preparation when it comes to to building your application because you're going to get a lot of applicants. I think my biggest tip would be be as transparent and honest as possible when it comes to your expectations and what they're getting in exchange. That way things are clear and they understand what is expected of them. Be available to them if they need to talk things out or work things through. And be mindful of geographically. You need to have some backup plans for the storms that they have and some of the challenges they may endure in the Philippines. I know I could speak for Nicole and myself by saying we absolutely love our teammates from the Philippines. They always put a smile on our face. They're super hardworking. They really believe in what we do. They put their heart and soul into our company and we feel so grateful to have them. It took a lot of work to get the teammates we have from the Philippines a lot of trial and error, but those tips I shared today are what I learned from all that trial and error. So hopefully it helps you, Sean and everybody else who's listening. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right now on whatever you use to listen to. Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, we're on it all. Just hit subscribe so your episode is downloaded automatically. So it's waiting for you, ready for you when you're ready to listen. Alright, before I go, I want to leave you with this. If you're at the point where you're hiring people and you're hiring people overseas as remote players, that's a great step. That means that you're looking to delegate things to other people so you can focus on your strengths. So I want to congratulate you, Sean, and anybody else who's listening who's at that step. All right, I'll see you in tomorrow's episode. Take care. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply.