This post is part of a series on outsourcing from a Filipino perspective.
A. (no names will be used) has worked for us for about 3 years.
We initially hired him as a programmer. After having him work for a few months, A’s skills weren’t what we (or he) thought they were. Rather than letting him go, we gave him other tasks. He’s been an invaluable member of our team ever since. We couldn’t do what we do without him.
John Jonas contacted me and asked me if I am interested of being a part of their business. It was my first time working for a foreign company and the feelings of fear, hesitations and pressure were there. I gambled to work for the company and tried to be optimistic that everything will be fine after a month of hard work.
Since then, everything went well.
It was hard for me at first since I need to work from home with no office mates to talk to or ask about a problem with the things I need to do.
Later I became confident with the task John and Dan is giving me because they are always there to guide us and give us instructions on how to accomplish our tasks.
It is nice to work for someone who motivates people, who believes in the capabilities of their employees, provides them with proper training and lead them by example.
I was more motivated to work for the company when the team met on a distinguished place here in the Philippines and when John gave us an assurance with our jobs. And one good thing about that meet up is that we were not only there to talk about business but to enjoy ourselves on such rare occasion.
John and Dan did not only focus on one specific task in hiring us for the team but they have fully utilized our capabilities to work on new things through giving us training and allowing every member to teach and share ideas.
John and Dan was not only the brain in the team but they allowed us to share our thoughts to come up with a more crisp idea. They have always given us a room for improvement which a very good thing to keep us going and not getting stuck to our everyday job.
Interesting, I look forward to further posts from your employees.
Thanks for this series John! It will be very useful to us. All the best for 2012!
Sincerely,
Clay
John – thank you for the post. How do you decide the raise and bonuses for your employees?
Thanks John, you keep on showing us the way, we just need the guts to follow through, but it's nice to know that your Filipino's are happy.
I see you are heading in the right direction. Nice job Jonas! If it works out I may even come back.
i concur with Eula.. this is a fairly thin and "happy as roses" POV. I have had 2 previous employees quit on me after 6-8 months – in both cases the part-time pay was not enough and working for 2 employers was too much.
I didn't start this journey without John's training… it was invaluable to kickstart me.
My only advice is to create spreadsheets (gdocs) for tracking and come up with a baseline of acceptable daily work output — and try to hire fulltime (if you can swing it)
I'd also like to add that Filipino employees are incredibly hard working and have been amazing I wish I had my shit together (seo/ecommerce/webapp etc) so I can hire more.
Its been slow but JOHN if you're reading this "THANK YOU SO MUCH"
Hi Nina,
I find your experience encouraging.
Tell me… are your workers working from an office you provide, or working from home?
Thanks,
Yan
Like anything else if you look for the negative, you will find it and if you focus on the positive, you will find that as well. And this is in all societies. It is a matter of perspective.
And, I know that if you treat people with respect, do your due diligence up front and provide the appropriate training and support, then the people who work with you, no matter where they come from, will respect you and your business and will be loyal, dedicated, team members. .
I have to disagree, I would LOVE to find an intelligent one. Never have. You can't teach common sense.
Even the guy who posted, John's employee… he said that they held his hand (in not so many words) & showed him what to do step by step.
Sure I'm willing to train, but I find even when they are trained they can't get it right. It's next to near impossible to find one that can read a file, do the work & get most of it right, or read the instructions & learn on their own.
And even if they have gone to post secondary they just don't seem to understand my English or are any better than the ones who didn't go to school, so I realized schooling isn't the solution.
I would love to hire them, but alas, I have given up. The stress is just too much for me to handle.
And I'm also finding that more of them are starting to talk back which I never had happen before.
I have the utmost respect for sharp intelligent hard working team members, I would love them to death.
Dan,
I hope you aren't going to put me down. It's a given those are his experiences as mine are too.
I always take responsibility for my actions & I did follow your outline.
@Dan,
I'm not MIA, I just choose to keep quiet some times.
When someone has learned something from you, and they say it doesn't work, you're not going to convince them it does. You have to let others do it.
Like @Harry Shade said, if you look for what's bad, you'll probably find it.
I choose to speak to the people who look for what's good.
Those people are succeeding with outsourcing all over the place.
Really, I'm just trying to help people.
This has worked for me for 6 years. I have 10 full time people. I've only ever let 1 person go after they've been with me for more than 2 weeks.
It has changed my life, the lives of thousands of others, and will continue helping people change their lives for the better.
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I like this web blog very much, Its a very nice office to read and receive info .
I agree! My first experience (and only experience, so far) was just like that. The programmer suddenly just stopped communicating. He did a good job up until then — just sudden silence. I, too, wonder if it has something to do with low self esteem or lack of confidence.