This article will feature a specific offshored role that Change Fox has had success with placing and realised significant benefits to the organisations who have included these types of resources in their offshoring initiative.

The below article will provide some statistics and overview details relevant to this type of role and then go on to discuss in more detail observations, areas of particular interest and strategies that should be considered when actioning this type of offshoring initiative.

Offshored role statistics and overview

Scope of the role

Your new marketing assistant is going to assist you with any marketing campaigns including social media. They can prepare draft content, post on the various platforms that your organisation is active and be responsible for monitoring and administrating comments and social interactions with your customers and prospects. The frequency and expectations on social media will be directly related to your organisations marketing strategies and desired responsiveness.

Cultural considerations

• Filipinos are generally reserved and unlikely to offer specific criticism, especially about their seniors. Even more so for those who have had little contact with foreigners in previous roles
• Filipinos have a high sense of pride (often referred to as ‘face’), you need to build a culture of constructive feedback with your team that is non-threatening
• Family is a very important aspect of Filipino culture and understanding this, and bringing this sense of family into your business will be a huge asset to your organisation and drive dedication and commitment to your vision and future
• Be aware of your use of Australian or American slang and the speed of your speech (Australians have an amazing ability to merge an entire sentence into a single work – “hows-it-goin?”)
• Australian and Filipino cultures are a good match once you break through the formalities of Sir and Maam. The relaxed, laid back approach to business adopted by most Australian organisations is attractive to Filipinos if you nurture your team members and help them build to build up their confidence in working within your organisation and for your customers.

Hiring & interview considerations

Depending on your business requirement you may be hiring for different specific skills but the primary differentiator to consider is how active they will be on your social media platforms and hire for english proficiency accordingly.

Further, with any team member you should be considering;

• Will they fit into our organisational culture?
• Are they positive, energetic and charismatic enough to make your organisation stand out?
• Who in your organisation should be involved in the process?

As well as your specific candidate considerations you should also understand the below;

• As discussed above, the majority of Filipinos will be reserved and will be unlikely to talk themselves up through the hiring process; it is, therefore, the responsibility of those facilitating the interviews to make them feel comfortable and to engage with them in such a way that you will get a better idea of their personality and work ethic
• They will call you Sir or Maam, repeatedly. There is little point trying to change this in the interview process, just let it go and take it as the sign of respect that they intend it to be. Once they are in the team you can work on changing that behaviour if you prefer things to be less formal within the organisation
• Techniques, where the candidate is purposefully put through high-pressure questioning, are extremely intimidating to Filipinos and generally, ineffective

More About Offshored Marketing Assistants

Contact Change Fox today because we would love to talk about building a team with you!

Let’s discuss your requirement in detail and we will work with you to build and manage your team in a way that will meet your needs and drive organisational success into the future.