Hive Desk…your new automated outsourcing tool. Anyone who has started outsourcing or wants to begin outsourcing will most likely have the same question come up in their minds…”how can I track my outsourced worker as they are working?” In other words…how do I know my outsourced worker is actually working during the times they submit?

For those that have used oDesk for their outsourced projects,  they provide a solution/service that will track your outsourced worker as they are working on their computer. But for those who were not using oDesk there was no way to track workers on how effectively and efficiently they are using their time.

Good news for those interested in this type program….

I recently was invited as a Beta tester for this new program called “Hive Desk.” Here’s how Hive Desk describes their service:

“HiveDesk makes outsourcing an easier process for both hirers and workers. It is a web and software solution used to help employers keep track of their workers by automatically tracking time and by sending periodic screenshot updates. This helps automate the flow of information from worker to boss, who are usually separated geographically.”

Basically this is how the system works:

Workers install  the desktop application software. The app runs quickly and quietly in the background. When ready to work, they use it to check in to your project.

Once an employee checks in, the timer starts. Their data is logged on their servers so you know how much time they’ve spent on your project. This mean accurate billing, and no time inflation.

It even has a option to allow a certain amount of  “idle” time (it is set at 5 minutes…but you can change it to your own needs or wants)

After 5 minutes of idle activity, the user is recognized as idle until they return. Idle minutes are subtracted so you’re not billed.

To keep you in the loop, screen shots of the desktop are uploaded and shared in ten minute intervals. Employees can delete screen shots at any time, but must provide reason with it.

So, why would people use HiveDesk?

• Save money! No more wasting money on your dollar…or inflating the hours worked. You can also save fees on other outsourcing portals by migrating your team here.
• Increasing information flow: With screenshots uploaded every 10 minutes, you will never be in the dark as to where you projects progress is. It also allows you to know immediately if something has been done wrong and it can be fixed without wasting anymore time.
• Building trust and relationships: The point of HiveDesk is not to control or micro-manage your workers, but to help you to build trust and loyalty. Additionally, many times you must hand over personal information suech as private codes, and passwords etc. to strangers which is never a comfortable feeling. HiveDesk makes the process safer and easier.

Sounds pretty efficient doesn’t it? Honestly I have been poking around inside…looking at the options but I have not actually implemented it. I sort of have mixed emotions about it.

Although I think it is an excellent product and something that was definitely needed you must take care to evaluate your own situation. If you already have your outsourced worker in place and you don’t doubt any of the times they are submitting you may not want to upset the apple cart by asking them to download a new program that will track their time.

Some outsourced workers…if they are already in place and doing a great job will be offended by this move and see it as a “trust issue.” So, you must use judgment in each situation.

On the other hand, if you have not yet started your outsourcing journey, you may want to implement this from the start of your projects  and only hire someone who agrees to download and use this platform. Using it from the start will not offend anyone whereas I feel that if you try and implement it after the fact…you may run into some very disallusioned workers….thinking that you no longer trust them.

HiveDesk continues to grow and add new options. You will soon have the ability to pay your outsourced workers through their site too.

Is HiveDesk for you? Only you can make the decision about whether this program can add value to your business. Many use a similar thing in oDesk with great success…and, no problems.

My job is to bring you the information about new products and services…and, its up to you to evaluate your own situation and see if this works for you

Remember, they are beta testing now so you can join free and see if this is something you will want to move forward with. It’s certainly worth your time to check out as it will cost you nothing and may be exactly what you need.

If anyone does decide to use it…I would love it if you would come back here and leave a comment and let us know how you like it

Taking my 86 year old mom gambling today She just loves those slot machines…and, she wins a lot too

enJOY…don’t forget to take time to play today!

Kathy *

Honey Young from EasyOutsource is here once again…this time to answer the many questions that arose from her previous post on a “Filipino’s Freelance Thoughts on Outsourcing.” Learning what it feels like from the other side of the outsourcing equation can only help you to be successful in your own outsourcing endeavor.

A Filipino freelancer Thoughts on Outsourcing….Your Questions Answered

In my previous guest article about A Filipino freelancer’s thoughts on Outsourcing, I read through all the comments and I am very thankful that you appreciated my thoughts on the topic. My main purpose for this post is to try my best to answer some of the questions posed on the comments on my previous article.

Ok, the following are my thoughts/opinions on issues that were raised:

Should there be a contract written about a trial period, is an email sufficient?

If you are hiring a freelancer for the first time, it is best to give them a paid trial task – something that would test their skills but won’t take too long to complete. This way, you will be able to test for their competency without too much commitment on your part. This also applies to hiring programmers.
While a contract serves as a deterrent, it is not completely necessary. Usually, instructions given via an email will do.

Is a month sufficient time to recognize that there is a definite win/win relationship?

A month working with a contractor, sometimes even less, will usually tell you whether you are satisfied with the output of your hired freelancer. You can tell a lot about a person’s work ethics within a month.

Should a freelancer write a daily record of their work and hours completed?

Definitely. Even if you are using a time tracking software, it is still wise to ask your freelancer to write a daily activity log. It only takes a few minutes of their time to do this, but it will help you picture the amount of work accomplished that day.
I write daily activity logs for my work for EasyOutsource.

How often should a review occur and what is the standard for raises and bonuses?

For a long-term working relationship, a quarterly review would be a good idea. Periodic raises will depend on your agreement with the freelancer, but milestone bonuses would be greatly appreciated. If your freelancer did extraordinarily well at a given task, a performance bonus will motivate us to work harder and to keep up the good work. It also serves to boost our morale that our work has been appreciated.

I have written a blog post on Employer tips for successful online outsourcing over at EasyOustource and you may want to read it.

Does a worker mind working for several clients if they need full time work and there is not enough work available with just one client? If the client found other work for them?

I cannot speak for other freelancers, but my personal opinion on this is that I will not mind working for multiple clients if:

• a. The work to be done falls within our agreed job description and I am not asked to do anything illegal or against the law or that will result in a conflict of interest with my original client.
• I would also appreciate it if the assignment of task will course through one client. Meaning, no matter how many people are assigning tasks to me, only one person will assign them and I will submit them to one person.The reason for this is different clients have different personalities and dealing with several personalities at the same time can be difficult. What works for one may not work for the other and it will only serve to confuse and frustrate a freelancer is he/she needs to adjust to different types of clients every so often.

How often does a freelancer/independent contractor expect to get paid?

Since most Filipinos freelancers work for a living, getting compensation every two weeks is the most ideal payment arrangement. This is the easiest way to budget our finances as most 9-5 jobs also pay bi-monthly and most freelancers will be coming from regular jobs and are already used to this payment schedule.

Paying once a month might be too long a wait for most freelancers as there may be financial needs that will come up that cannot be addressed if one will have to wait until the end of the month to get paid.

Paying weekly will also be too often as most freelancers will wait to withdraw funds every two weeks to save on fees that banks charge per withdrawal.

What is the best way to find a project manager?

Our very own Kathy addressed this issue in her guest post on EasyOutsource. She wrote up about the importance of hiring a project manager and she offered sage advice on this issue.

What are the most important prerequisites that a freelancer needs from their client?

The most important prerequisite that we, as freelancers, need from our clients is the assurance that after we deliver work, we will be paid. There are so many people out there who hire freelancers, ask them to do some work, only to disappear after the task has been accomplished/work has been submitted. I feel the pain of so many freelancers that have fallen victim to these non-paying employers.

It is not easy to invest your time and effort without any return of your investment. You spend hours of your time trying to complete a project only to end up not being paid for your effort and the employer earns money from the output that you delivered. Now, that is exploitation.

What is the ideal scenario for a Filipino freelancer?

Almost every Filipino freelancer would want to land a high-paying, long-term, online job. One of the drawbacks of having an online job is the lack of work security and tenure. If we can have that, and be well-compensated, and able to work in the comforts of our home, then that would be our ideal scenario.
Is there any cultural or custom differential that should be brought up?

I wrote a post explaining the case of the disappearing freelancer. This post gives you insight on the average Filipino’s personality and will hopefully shed some light on these custom differentials.

How to best deal with the time difference of the US and the Philippines?

There is a time difference of an average of 8-12 hrs between the US and the Philippines. While it would be good to work within the normal hours in our time zone, there are a lot of freelancers who are willing to adjust their work schedules to accommodate their employer’s time zone.
A good compromise would be that the freelancer will work early or late enough to have some overlap time with their employer to discuss important stuff in real time.

How much should be paid for a trial piece, like writing an article, putting up a blog, SEO and how long is the average time to do different jobs?

A trial job should be paid as much as a regular job. Say, you agree to pay $1/100 words for an article, that shouldn’t change if the task being assigned is a trial one. For trial projects, paying by the hour or per project depends on the kind of work that is required. Like for article writing, this is best paid per output rather than per hour as different freelancers spend different amounts of time writing a 500-word article.

Same goes for SEO, programming, and web design where the output is more important than time spent in doing it. Of course, there should still be a time frame given to complete the task, but payment shouldn’t be based on the time frame given.

For other tasks like data entry, transcription, link building, social bookmarking, these tasks are best paid by the hour if done on a trial basis. That way you can measure the amount of work done in the amount of time specified.

I hope that I am able to answer most of your questions in this post. I would be very glad to give you more insight on our culture and the things that make us uniquely Filipino in my next post. Till then! jullo

Author’s Bio:

Honey Young is the manager of EasyOutsource, a job site where the workers are all Filipino.  She is a Filipino online worker that was hired by the site owners, Matt O’Brien and Michael Eisenwasser.  Both Matt and Mike are American web developers who created EasyOutsource because they found that Filipinos are the best people to outsource work to.

Thanks Honey for answering some valuable questions for us. I am sure they have helped to clarify many issues and will continue to educate those interested in outsourcing to the Philippines…or elsewhere.

If you have any other questions please feel free to leave them in the comments and we’ll post the answers from Honey in another blog post coming soon.

enJOY your week-end…

Kathy *

Join The Challenge!

100 Blog Comments

A challenge initiated by two of my marketing buddies Steve King and Jacinta Dean. Join the fun and get favor with Google

The goal is to get 100 or more comments on  one designated blog post. Each person who participates designates what blog post is the “contest” one.

Anyone can join...so don’t be shy. Just drop a note to anyone on this list 100 Blog Comments of participating people and let someone know so you can be added to the list.

This is a fun exercise that can only help use to gain favor with Google and other search engines. Just think of all the nice bloggers you will meet along the way…to say nothing of what you may learn.  I’ve never had even close to 100 comments on a blog post before so this should feel good

I have a special post that I want to share with everyone today. Honey Amabelle Young, a Filipino outsourced worker and the administrator, forum moderator and all around take care of business person over at EasyOutsource is my guest poster today and has written a wonderful, enlightening piece in which she shares the view from the “other side” of the outsourcing equation.

Outsourcing is growing in leaps and bounds these days, and not just outsourcing but outsourcing to the Philippines. That means good news for me, a Filipino online freelancer.

I consider the proliferation of outsourcing a blessing. Not only does it help the average Filipino earn a living, it helps the entire economy of our country. I am also very thankful that people from all over the world are recognizing the traits of Filipinos that make them very good workers.

I decided to become a freelancer around two years ago and have been the website manager of EasyOutsource for a year now. I have never regretted my decision to work from home ever since. What I did notice, though, is that compared to two years ago, freelancer rates are a lot lower now.

When I started freelancing, the lowest rate a freelancer from my country charges is $2/hr. The rate then varies depending on the type of work and the amount of experience a freelancer has. Nowadays, I can see freelancers charging lower than $1/hr. What brought about this change?

In my opinion, both freelancers and employers are to blame for this decline in rates – employers, for offering to pay low rates and freelancers, for accepting and agreeing to work for these rates. I cannot speak for employers, but I can speak for freelancers.

Coming from a country of more than 94M people, which produces 380T college graduates a year, you can imagine the stiff competition in the work force. While some graduates successfully enter into 9-5 jobs, a vast majority is left unemployed. Combine this with the popularity of the world wide web, with many households equipped with PCs and an internet connection, your result is the average Filipino online freelancer.

More and more people are resorting to working online, thus the number of competition is growing each day. As more people compete for a job, rates will naturally be leveraged for one to rise over their competition. This is the easiest factor to adjust, never mind that the more important ones like skills and experience, are more essential in online work.

This plays on the fact that the average employer is trying to save money, precisely why they resorted to outsourcing as opposed to hiring a local. In this scenario, no one can be blamed. It is the basic law of supply and demand.

Some people are saying that employers are exploiting Filipinos by giving them unreasonably low compensation. The operative word here is: reasonable. Moral obligation dictates that we do things within reason. That the Philippines is a third world country and the cost of living is a lot lower than that of more developed countries is a fact. Therefore, it is reasonable to pay a Filipino a lower rate for the same amount of work than say, an American. That is reasonable, and not exploitation.

When you start to do things that are out of reason, like paying a Filipino freelancer a very low rate because you were told it was ok and accepting that as gospel truth without investigating the matter yourself, then the problem begins.

So how do you know which rates are reasonable? It is not enough to know the country’s minimum wage and adding a little to that to determine a freelancer’s rate. You have to take a lot of other factors into consideration.

First, you’d have to know for which types of work is the minimum wage given. Second, you’d have to consider the fact that freelancers incur overhead expenses that an office worker does not – like electricity for the usage of their PC to do online work, the monthly cost of an internet connection, and training that they may have to pay for themselves.

You’d have to figure all of these in determining the reasonable rate to give a freelancer. Stay within reason and the success rate of your working relationship with your Filipino worker is likely to go up. For your guidance, you may check my post on reasonable rates to give a Filipino online freelancer.

There’s no denying the fact that our country is a goldmine of working online professionals. It is also widely known that a lot of Filipinos are intelligent, hardworking, and loyal. The quality of the work we render is comparable, and sometimes better than freelancers from other countries that charge higher rates. All these, and more, make me very proud to be Filipino.

Author’s Bio:

Honey Young is the manager of EasyOutsource, a job site where the workers are all Filipino.  She is a Filipino online worker that was hired by the site owners, Matt O’Brien and Michael Eisenwasser.  Both Matt and Mike are American web developers who created EasyOutsource because they found that Filipinos are the best people to outsource work to.

Who knows, maybe this will turn into a regular guest spot for Honey. For those of us who appreciate and take advantage of outsourcing to the Philippines…understanding how the other side feels and thinks can only help  us to succeed in our outsourcing ventures.

Thank you so much Honey!

Don’t forget to visit Easy Outsource. They continue to improve their services more everyday. They already offer an awesome place to look for and hire skilled workers, an informative blog and a forum where you can post an questions, successes or concerns you may have.

Recently they added a new service I would like to make you aware of. They now have a section called “Easy Hire” for all those who don’t have the time…or possibly just don’t want to search on their own. There is a fee attached of course but for those in a hurry this could be the icing on the cake.

EasyOutsouce is free to join.

enJOY your week-end coming up everyone

Kathy *

I heard some exciting news the other day that would be lots of fun to share with you guys. A good friend of mine who is also an Internet marketer,  Sally Neill,  recently won a contest that is going to fetch her a completely new $2,000 blog redo ready to roll! Wow! Read the rest of this entry »