Labor arbitrage allows us to be very selective in our hiring practices. Even a single advertisement will typically yield hundreds of applicants. Cebu has eight local universities currently serving as the primary education center for Central and Southern Philippines, a population of roughly 40 million people.
We work with our clients to develop a training procedure that will meet with their skill requirements. Typically this involves a business expert from the client's organization working with our consultants to develop a new workflow for the business processes being transferred. From the workflow, we create job descriptions with skill profile requirements. These are used initially during the hiring practices (see above) but are especially important for the training purposes.
Motivation is an important consideration for managers to factor into policy decisions. The psychology of motivation is extremely complex and we recognize that there is not hard and fast formula that will produce favorable results. Our objective is to create a working environment that results in self-motivated employees and low turnover.
Our motivational philosophy is patterned after Herzberg's work on the subject and we have realized excellent results putting these ideas about empowerment and job enrichment into practice at iCatchIT. There is always a human side to any employment relationship however we have realized better organizational performance when we spend time setting up and maintaining workflows that encourage self-motivation through job enrichment.
Motivation Factors
Motivational factors are important to consider however equally important are factors that have been linked to de-motivate people.
The critical thing to recognize is that most of these are under the direct control over the organization's culture and policies.
We setup our typical workweek at 44 hours per employee. Depending upon the client requirements, we will set the start time that is most suitable for the job profile. We have found that communication works best when there is as much overlap as possible between Cebu staff and staff based in the US, so at least for the primary shift, we ask our staff to start their shift at the same time when possible.