“I don’t know, my Filipino team just isn’t ‘proactive enough’,
They can’t seem to ‘work independently’,
And there’s always little things that go wrong….”
Do these statements sound familiar?
The thing is, there is a special way of finding, managing, motivating, and leading the best Filipino workers out there.
I know this because I’ve been in the industry for over 17 years (yes, I started to do SEO work when I was in college and actually outsourced some work to my dad’s coworker’s wife, LOL true story)… and after officially owning companies that hired, trained, and managed Filipino workers, I’ve learned the best ways to work with them.
I grew up in the Philippines. I started traveling in my late twenties and I’ve spent years living overseas now.
I learned to look at our work culture from the lens and perspective of so many people. Whether they meet Filipinos who cared for them as nurses, a hotel receptionist in a five star hotel, a cruise ship bartender, a Project Manager for a Fortune 500 company, or one of the most common stories, their memorable “virtual assistant” (VAs)… they always share stories with me.
Let’s focus on the VA one since I’m in the outsourcing industry right now.
It was funny because the stories I heard about their VAs would start out as positive, as if they are trying not to offend me… but then as we continue to talk and as I give more permission for them to be more open, they typically share their concerns.
Some of them feel defeated and stopped hiring from the Philippines altogether. Some of them resort to paying a low salary because they believed their Filipino workers just would not grow or be better.
“There’s always a power outage…” (Weird, in the cities I lived in we had power 24/7, and these are the only cities I hire from.”
“There’s always an emergency or a dead grandma… and they want to borrow money.” (After you’ve heard a few of these and ask for proof and not get it, you eventually learn.)
“They’re just not up to par with the team that I want, but they’re so sweet and loyal though.” (No. Don’t suffer just because people are nice. Maybe they’re just not a good fit and that’s OK.)
As a Filipina, I’m not gonna lie… it’s annoying to hear these statements, but I 100% empathize.
I, too, made a decade’s worth of mistakes before I finally got it right. And we’re always improving! So I thought I’d help some people out. 🙂
This week I’m hosting a special workshop for online business owners with Filipino remote teams, or those who want to hire Filipinos. And I’m going to share things that will empower you to…
- Find and hire actual SMART people who love stability instead of flaky freelancers
- Encourage your teams to come to you with creative solutions
- Build a culture of “caring for each other”, actual teamwork that gets the best results
- Employ higher standards in delivering quality work
- Discover best practices for onboarding and off boarding
This workshop is 100% FREE, all you need to do is sign up to our newsletter to get the reminders, and access the information below. Send your teammates and friends who hire from the Philippines.
Send this to them: Zoom link for the workshop
Join the link on November 20, 2025 | 9AM EST.
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Hi, hello, if we haven’t met, I’m Karla Singson, and I own and lead Proximity Outsourcing.
We’re known to hire the best managerial, creative, and tech talent for agencies and fast growing online businesses. We grew from zero to seven figures in a little over a year without ads. After serving 500+ online businesses, we are extremely proud of the work we do. Check out our case studies and testimonials here.
The majority of our team is based in the Philippines, and some of them are in Latin America. I created this workshop to empower fellow Filipinos to deliver high quality work and communications, and get the right credit for it. 🙂
Save the date! And see you there.
- Karla Singson
- Let’s connect on LinkedIn↗️
- Message me on Linkedin for custom workshop requests.