Health insurance in the USA is so prevalent that often employers are scared to hire because they don’t know how to do “benefits”.
In the Philippines, you can’t pay for insurance directly unless you have an entity, and in my last email I explained how difficult having an entity is, so that’s not really a good option.
What we do instead is that I send my employees the money to have them pay for their own insurance.
“John, how do you know they’re actually paying their SSS and their health insurance? How do you know they’re not using that money elsewhere?”
That’s simple. I only send them the money AFTER they’ve shown me receipts.
I’m willing to pay for a lot of things that make my OFS’ lives better.
I want to help them. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to trust them blindly.
I’m not just going to give them the money, no questions asked.
And this is where some of the problems come in when working with an OFS. Filipinos are trustworthy people. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exercise some common sense.
We also have a computer upgrade program. We set aside $250/year for them to buy a new computer. We don’t send them the money until they show us the receipt for the new computer (and the new computer).
Ask for receipts!
John
PS. I have a full discussion about benefits you can pay for on my blog
https://johnjonas.com/5-benefits-you-might-pay-for-your-ofs/