Do You Pay Your Staff $2 An Hour?

Hey David here and we’re often asked about the type of staff we employ, their working conditions, and how well they are paid.

Now this is a legitimate question and I know other outsourcing providers are asked the same question and as we’ve been in business now for a little over 11 years we have our own best practices when it comes to growing and managing a team.

There are a couple of tell tale signs you should be on the lookout for when dealing with an outsourcing provider.

The first and biggest tell tale sign is the outsourcing companies staff retention rate.

If you pay VA’s as little as $2 an hour then you will naturally have a lower retention rate. We’ve been very fortunate as we pay our offshore staff well above this figure which in turn means we get staff that stay working with you for the long term. As a matter of fact we opened our doors to be independently audited by the Department of Labour and Employment within the Philippines, which of course we passed.

While the cost of living is different in Australia than it is within the Philippines, you still need to pay a fair wage to the people that work with you if you want to keep them. It’s really common sense.

The second is the quality of staff you employ. We work with many clients that have come to work with us after dealing with another provider where the staff just didn’t understand how to do the job.

While this will again come down to how well you pay your staff it will also come down to the recruitment process and how you partner with clients to integrate them into your business.

All outsourcing providers say we have an amazing recruitment process and get the best staff, so it’s important to check with the clients they work with and ask to speak to them and ask to see client case studies to hear from their clients.  

This will help you find out how their offshore staff perform and hear first hand how their VA’s work with them.

Out of interest have over 12 Live case studies of real clients that is available to the public where we share how our clients partner with us. We also have a list of clients that are happy to talk to anyone about us.

Any outsourcing company should be transparent about this.

The 3rd and final are the actual working conditions. This is about the types of computers the offshore staff use, their desks, the lighting and also about the actual working environment.

How is that environment and what else does the outsourcing company do to SUPPORT their staff.

For example we have daily stretch breaks that give the team short breaks to stretch and relax, we have relaxation areas where staff can chill during breaks, we have onsite cooks that prepare fresh meals daily for the staff, we offer after hours personal development in a range of topics from CPR training to advice on fashion. We even have a child care centre to allow parents with children to return to work with confidence their children are being cared for while they are hard at work.

All of these ‘perks’ I mentioned mean translate to higher staff retention, attracting higher quality employees and more focussed staff when it comes to their job.

So I highly encourage you to look at these 3 areas when working with an outsourcing company.

If they’re paying their people $2 an hour it will show right away in their staff’s retention and quality of people and will reflect in their working conditions.

If you have any other questions around this I encourage you to give us a call.

This is David from Affordable Staff and talk soon.