Managing Your Filipino Assistant

You Hired A Human, Not A Robot…

• This is your full time-time employee, take care of them

• Ask them about their work

• Ask them how they like doing their work

• Make sure they know that you care about them

Filipinos Are Very Conscientious

• Many may feel like “they’re not good enough for you”

• They’re worried they won’t perform perfectly

• They’re very non-confrontational

…… because of these cultural traits, if they don’t know how to do something, they won’t tell you and they’ll just quit without telling you why….

Where To Hire

OnLineJobs.ph

You Must Train Them

• They will not ask you how to do something, they will just try to “figure it out”.

• If they can’t figure it out, many times they will just quit instead of asking for help

• They are welcome to call our help desk and attend classes / training

How To Pay Them

Pros & Cons

• Xoom.com

• Paypal.com

Provide LOTS of Feedback

• Provide POSITIVE feedback before you give negative feedback “I like the way you are doing _______. On this other thing, here’s a couple of pointers”

• It will help you get better work from them

• It will make your experience MUCH better and help you keep your employees forever!

• Any positive feedback you can give goes a long way

When communications ends, relationships end!

Use Jing To Give Feedback

• Nothing like your own voice giving them great feedback.

• Hearing where you put your emphasis in your voice will help them understand exactly what it is that you want.

• Here’s an example:http://screencast.com/t/94kkSzGRFawB

Require Them To Send You An Email Every Day

• Keeps them accountable

• Keep the relationship under control

• Keeps projects moving forward

• Prevent you from micro-managing

Your Expectations

• They’re worried about making mistakes (they are afraid of you)

• Give it time, nurture the relationshipIt will pay off 100 times in the long run

Pay Them On Time

Keep in mind that this is how they are feeding their family!

Don’t Pre-pay For Work

• Filipinos are from a very honest culture, however……

• Don’t prepay them

• Don’t send them a laptop

Time Tracking With AgentGuardian.com($15 per assistant per month)

Time Tracking / AgentGuardian.com

• Also gives you how many keystrokes on the computer keyboard per minute (for measuring data input)

• Cost: $15 / assistant / per month

13th Month

• In December you need to pay them a bonus of 1 months salary.

• This is pro-rated if they didn’t work for you the entire year.

Employment Policies

Unless otherwise agreed on, tell them:

• They are expected to work 40 hours/ wk• They’re expected to send a daily email to you• They’re expected to have only 1 job, working for you• They can take personal time off when they need to, just don’t

take advantage of it• You’re here to help them if they get stuck on something…

“Please just ask me”• You expect this to be a long-term working relationship. It’s a

permanent job

What About The Time Zone Issue?

Some like to give them things to do all day, then the assistant has it all ready for you the next morning.

I pay an extra 50 cents an hour to have them work my time zone.