Offshore outsourcing is a great way to grow your business at a low cost. However, if your remote staff is working from home in a developing country, problems like erratic electricity and limited internet access can occur. Obviously, this will negatively affect their output. One way to overcome these difficulties is to have them work in an office. This can be by seat leasing or staff leasing. When your employees work from a facility, their electricity and internet will be reliable and your staff adequately supervised.

Is working from a facility worth the cost?

If you go to a facility, of course, you’ll pay a bit more, but it very often ends up saving you money in the long run. You get additional uptime, consistency from your team, and it takes away a lot of issues like unreliable internet. A lot of your time already goes into managing a team; you really don’t need the added hassle of dealing with utility issues.

Is seat leasing a good option?

There are a couple of different ways you can offshore work to the Philippines. You can go direct and have people working out from their homes. Or you can have them working out of an office, called seat leasing.

Seat leasing is basically leasing out a space. You’ll still do the recruiting, but instead of a house, they’ll now come to the office—no more electricity and internet worries. It saves you some of the hassle, but you still have to deal with the administrative tasks that comes with employing a staff like payroll and HR concerns.

There’s a level up beyond that, called staff leasing.

Staff leasing is where you get the best of both worlds—not only do you get the facility, but the offshoring provider will also do the recruiting and placement.

With staff leasing, there are definitely a lot of additional benefits which people oftentimes don’t take into account. You’ll usually have an account manager, someone who helps you keep tabs on your virtual team. The outsourcing vendor will also handle IT, payroll, and various human resources and administrative functions. This is over and above the other benefits, you get out of housing your offshore team from a facility.

Staff leasing works really well for businesses looking to offshore work. You get all of the benefits of seat leasing, plus the infrastructure that enables you to just focus on managing your virtual staff.

For your employees, working alongside people from different fields and different backgrounds can bring a lot of fresh perspective to their work. A collaborative workspace that allows for the sharing of ideas will ultimately benefit everyone. After all, the whole can always be greater than the sum of its parts.

In addition to that, you get extra supervision as well with staff leasing, which really kicks things up a notch. Having someone who can check in on your offshore staff on a regular basis and help you foster a positive work culture—that’s really the biggest win.

Good supervision guaranteed.

After infrastructure, the biggest hurdle that business owners face when outsourcing work is employee issues, such as no-shows and lack of productivity.

Let’s face it: there’s just too many distractions when you’re working from home—whether it’s household concerns and friends stopping over, to Facebook and other time wasters. Admittedly, it’s not always the case and it’s not fair to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say that it’s just human nature type. If you find good employees, they will want to do the right thing. But it’s definitely easier if there’s some sort of supervision around your offshore team.

The best arrangement when offshoring work is when you get some sort of supervisory support from your outsourcing provider. Even better if it’s a local—in this case, a Filipino. The fact is there are some significant cultural differences between Australians and Filipinos. Since they obviously understand the culture better, they can help you get the most out of your virtual staff.

Reap the benefits of a facility.

Having your virtual team work from an office will solve your problems with infrastructure, plus any concerns regarding supervision and productivity. An added benefit will be that your virtual staff will enjoy their employment more because they are also being supervised by someone from their own culture.

At Deployed, we make it possible for businesses owners around the world to set up and manage their own low-cost operations offshore. We offer superior shared office space, fully furnished to above industry standards in order to attract the best talent while remaining affordable.

If you’d like to know more, arrange a confidential call or meeting today and I’d be happy to discuss the matter with you further.

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