My family and I are pretty healthy.  

We eat really well.
We exercise a lot.
We sleep 8+ hours/night.
We have low stress.

Generally, we’re pretty darn healthy. 

That doesn’t mean we don’t have our problems. 

– 2 of my kids just had their tonsils out.
– After 10 years of stomach problems I figured out about 2 years ago that I’m allergic to dairy.
– I have significant mercury poisoning which affects my brain.
– My teenagers have a hard time falling asleep.
– My wife…nope, she’s perfect.

Your Filipino team are likely to have some health issues too.

I got an email yesterday from the sister of one of my workers:

“Hi Sir, this is [MY VAS NAME]’s sister. Today [MY VAS NAME] was rushed to the hospital. Once she got there she was rushed to the ICU.  She has been having health problems the past few months and was getting better. But she started bleeding last night and seemingly took a turn for the worse…”

At this point, I have no idea really how long she’ll be in the hospital, or how long she’ll be away from work.

It’s just part of having people work for you. 

Some people expect a remote worker to be available 100% of the time.

They’re human.
(I wish I didn’t have to say this…but you’d be surprised…)

They’re going to have health and family problems. 

When they do, it’s very likely legitimate. 
They’re not faking it.
They’re not trying to get out of their job.

At least, most of the time this is the case.

My only advice is to 
– Cut them some slack.
– If the work you have them doing is mission critical, hire 2 people to do the job. Then you have a backup.  You can even have the first person train the second person.

John