I understand why many business owners prefer to have their OFS work in their timezone. It’s just more convenient. You don’t have to worry about things like scheduling meetings and whatnot. There’s also the added benefit of monitoring your OFS work hours.
The first time I hired someone the agency said
“Do you want them to work on your hours?”
I didn’t know that’s an option. Yeah, let’s do it!
A few weeks in he came to me and said:
“Sir, working at night is really hard. It’s affecting my family. I’m not sleeping well which is also affecting my work. Can I work during the day my time?”
The problem with having an OFS work in your timezone (if they’re not used to working nights) is that it affects their health and productivity. Usually it ends up affecting the quality of their work.
There is a way to use this time difference to your advantage. Here’s the current (daylight savings) time difference between the Philippines and the timezones we have here in the US.
EDT – 13 hours behind – USA Monday: 9pm – Philippines Tuesday: 10am
CDT – 14 hours behind – USA Monday: 9pm – Philippines Tuesday: 11am
MDT – 15 hours behind – USA Monday: 9pm – Philippines Tuesday: 12 noon
PDT – 16 hours behind – USA Monday: 9pm – Philippines Tuesday: 1pm
And for those in the UK
GMT – 8 hours behind – UK Monday: 9pm – Philippines Tuesday: 5am
Depending on where you live, most of your OFS work hours would happen while you’re sleeping.
So what I do during the day is:
Respond to their daily reports if needed
Give feedback on the projects they’re already working on
Give them new/additional tasks
Give instructions
Give training
What I don’t do is touch the things they’re supposed to be doing.
It took me a long time to realize that if something didn’t get done while they were working, I DIDN’T NEED TO DO IT MYSELF!
I work on other important tasks.
I work on improving systems.
I work on giving better training and feedback.
What’s great about the time difference is there’s nobody there to distract me from getting actual work done.
Now…if you find that you need to talk with them, figure out when your work schedule overlaps with theirs. You’ll find that some of your work schedule overlaps with some of theirs in almost every case because they rarely work 9-5 Philippines time.
Want someone to work on your time?
John