We all know that the Philippines have more holidays than most countries. Is you business ready for the holidays?
We prepared this Google Calendar that you can use to keep you updated on the upcoming Philippine holidays. The ones in red are regular holidays while the ones in yellow are special non-working holidays.
We will be updating this calendar regularly if ever any new holidays are added or removed. To integrate it to your own calendar, just click on the plus sign at the bottom right hand corner of the calendar.
But if you can’t see the calendar just click here to have it open in a new tab.
We also have this calendar below that you can use if you prefer to see all the holidays at a glance.
Now that you have the calendars, you’re probably asking, how do we go about with holiday pay? What’s the right way to go about it?
I get asked this question a lot. To be completely honest, I’ve had reservations writing about this because I know that there’s more than one way to deal with holidays and paid time off in the Philippines. It would depend mainly on what’s comfortable for you and what you feel is fair.
But if you’re just starting out with outsourcing, I understand how difficult it can be to deal with these issues. To make things easier, I’ve listed down the different ways I know how most employers with Filipino workers deal with holidays and paid time off.
The OnlineJobs.Ph Way
I’m pretty lenient when it comes to holidays and paid time off. My workers usually get most Filipino holidays off and they get paid leaves as long as they inform me beforehand. People have told me I’m crazy for doing this because with this system I’m basically implying that they can take as much time off as they want and I would still pay them. But in the more than 10 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve rarely encountered a VA who abused it for two reasons:
- I use TimeProof with my workers. If I see they’re taking more days off than actually working (without good reason), I do reprimand them and dock their pay.
- I’m been lucky with the people I’ve hired. They’re really dedicated to their jobs. And when they do take extra days off, they usually make up for it by working extra hours or working on the weekends.
The Filipino Company Way
If you have plans to eventually set up shop in the Philippines, adopting the system that most Filipino companies use would be a good way to go. Workers for Filipino companies usually have regular holidays and some special non-working holidays off (not paid). If you need them to work during the regular holidays, you’ll need to pay them twice their daily rate and 1.3 times their daily rate on special non-working holidays.
The Hourly Rate
If you’re paying your Filipino virtual assistant an hourly rate, you don’t need to pay them extra during the holidays. Since they are being paid by the hour, it’s implied that they can work anytime they want. This means they can work as much or as little as they want per day, and all that matters is that they fill those 40 hours of work per week. The catch here is you can’t expect more than 40 hours of work if you’re only paying for 40 hours. If you need more work done, you’ll have to pay more.
Your country or state labor laws
If your Filipino virtual assistants are working in your timezone or you consider them your employees in every way, you could also adopt your country’s or state’s labor laws when it comes to holidays or paid days off. I would recommend implementing this system, especially if you have plans to fly your employees to your country or you feel like your system is more fair for you and your workers.
In the end, the best system is the one that works for you; what you think is fair for you and your workers. Just remember that when it comes to dealing with Filipino workers, it’s always better to be kind. You’re more likely to hire and keep the best talent out there when you pay your workers fairly and give them enough time to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
If you need more help, you can join our Facebook group if you want feedback from other employers, just like you. Or you can contact us if you need one-on-one help.
About John Jonas
John helps business owners learn to outsourcing to the Philippines and replace themselves with virtual assistants.
He founded and owns OnlineJobs.ph.
He currently employs 14 amazing Filipino workers full-time and loves every one of them. He lives in Utah, has a wonderful wife, 4 amazing kids, and golfs 4-5 times/week.
Find John at JohnJonas.com and Facebook.
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To start the registration process, just follow this link ===> http://www.onlinejobs.ph/register
Once you’ve completed your profile, you can start searching for the job that you want here ===>http://www.onlinejobs.ph/jobseekers/jobsearch/
You can find a wide variety of full-time, part-time and project-based jobs there, from data entry, design, writing, programming, and more!
The job posts would contain all the information you need to apply for that position.
In your other articles, you recommended NOT to use time tracking software. Here you do. When did you change your view on this?
No we haven’t. We still don’t recommend it for businesses like ours because we have discovered that output based work motivates employees more. BUT, we do recognize that other business models would benefit more if their employees use time tracking software. We also acknowledge that there will always be entrepreneurs who would feel more comfortable outsourcing if time tracking is part of the deal. We included them in this blog post because we’ve had questions about PTO from businesses who do use tracking software.