As costs for business and living keep rising in Australia, companies are working harder to cut expenses. They want to stay afloat or grow despite a shortage of skilled workers. 

IBISWorld reports that, as of 2024, over 36,000 Australian companies are currently utilising Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). In a study by Money Transfer Comparison, 60% of medium-sized companies in Australia are looking into offshoring for customers and suppliers. Software development (38%) and IT infrastructure (31%) are leading the outsourcing wave, followed by manufacturing (30%), labour (29%), shipping and logistics (29%), and research (15%).

Using offshore staffing agencies in the Philippines is a smart way to grow your business sustainably. The Philippines has become a consistently strong source of skilled offshore workers. They support the global business community with many specialised skills. 

When considering offshore staffing, it’s important to assess if this is the right fit for your business. Here are key points to help you evaluate and make an informed decision on whether it’s more advantageous to incorporate an offshore team into your existing in-house team.

With a complete in-house team, direct and indirect costs are your main concerns as an employer.

These can be financially prohibitive for start-ups and medium-sized enterprises, preventing them from scaling up.

Offshore staffing in the Philippines is a more viable and cost-effective option, especially for SMEs that lack the capabilities to maintain an entirely in-house workforce. They have the resources and facilities to create a great workspace for your remote team. This is better than spending a lot of money to expand your office and buy tools for an in-house team. As a result, you can save as much as 70% on operational costs.

Due to the lower cost of living in the Philippines, labour expenses for high-quality offshore talent are significantly lower compared to local staff whilst still offering competitive industry rates for Filipino workers. On wages alone, depending on the role, you can even save up to 83% with Philippine outsourcing. The minimum wage in the National Capital Region (NCR) of the Philippines is now at P645 per day (around AUD$17). In Australia, the national minimum wage is AUD$24.10 per hour.

A stigmatising myth about outsourcing, in general, is that you’ll be working with overseas staff possessing substandard skills who are limited only to call centre work. On the contrary, the majority of professionals in the Philippines are graduates of reputable colleges and universities. Talent with specialised skills are required to pass industry-accredited licensure examinations to practise their trade legitimately (e.g. Certified Public Accountant).

The Philippine government has also been instrumental in creating opportunities for skills training in response to shifting global employment trends.

This proactive environment of nurturing high-quality talent in the Philippines for a variety of in-demand skills, combined with their trademark traits of resilience, diligence, and resourcefulness, has made Filipino outsource workers in high demand. 

The local shortage of skilled specialists in Australia presents a major concern for companies wanting to maintain a regular in-house team. Offshore Philippine teams can bridge the talent and skills gap, often performing beyond expectations. As such, they can become integral members of your company, supporting your core staff so they can focus on their core duties.

Managing an in-house team can be challenging if your company lacks the HR bandwidth to manage a multitude of employment concerns – recruitment, onboarding, payroll, and performance reviews, to name a few. This can impact your in-house team’s performance and output.

Professional offshore staffing agencies in the Philippines can provide a full range of end-to-end managed services, including:

In-house teams offer the advantage of being co-located, which can simplify management and collaboration. With Philippine outsourcing, a common misconception is that it lacks oversight. The truth is, you still maintain full control over your offshore team, even if they’re based overseas.

An experienced offshore services provider can seamlessly integrate your offshore staff into your company culture and structure through effective managed services. This allows you to set your required standards, from work output KPIs and quality assurance measures to data security protocols, communication platforms, and monitoring channels.

Flexibility in staff management is instrumental to scaling your business. Managing and retaining a full-time in-house team requires a considerable amount of your operating budget and a substantial portion of your time. The savings you can get from offshore staffing in the Philippines can be allocated to building up the resources you need to implement scaling strategies. 

Offshoring enables you to extend your core staff at a fraction of the cost versus hiring additional in-house employees. This allows you to scale your operations more efficiently, making your business more agile as the market evolves. Your offshore team members can be adjusted accordingly, hiring one person or a whole team, to adapt to your business needs.

For example, if you want to extend your business hours, you can take advantage of the time difference with your offshore staff in the Philippines so they can handle your customers’ concerns beyond the office hours of your local team.

When it comes to recruiting top talent, time is of the essence. According to the Global Talent Climate report, the average time to hire is 44 days. A study by Robert Half indicated that the best candidates lose interest with their applications and accept other offers within five to ten days. By HR industry standards, the ideal onboarding process would be between one to three months.

Companies that lack internal recruitment resources can miss out on attracting and retaining highly qualified talent. Onboarding and training new in-house staff can be lengthy and laborious if your internal HR is stretched thin. It can also be costly, and a bad hire will only make it worse.

Efficient end-to-end managed services offered by offshore staffing agencies can resolve these issues. They can significantly shorten the time to hire by around two to three weeks, or even earlier. They can recruit from their extensive network of highly skilled talent, giving you the best candidates to form your offshore team within a much faster turnaround period. They can also conduct a more comprehensive onboarding process, ensuring that the offshore staff will hit the ground running when they start working with you.

Language barriers between you and the remote team can cause misunderstandings that can disrupt your operations and impact your business relationship. Fortunately, Filipino professionals are fluent in English, both in oral and written communication and in comprehension. As of 2023, the Philippines ranks high at #20 globally and #2 in Asia in the EF English Proficiency Index. 

Filipino workers are highly adaptable and can thrive in a working environment with colleagues from other cultures. They are friendly, hospitable, respectful, and hardworking – characteristics that Australian employers appreciate. They may be more reserved at first compared to the laid-back nature of Australians but as the working relationship evolves, they become more open and highly collaborative with an outstanding work ethic.

Adapting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives – a key Western business practice – has also become the norm in the Philippine workplace. When working with an offshore team from the Philippines, it’s important to align DEI values between your in-house and remote teams. This helps promote a cohesive and inclusive company culture that bridges cultural differences.

Offshore staffing in the Philippines has been a game-changer for Australian businesses. In 2021, H.E. Ma. Hellen De La Vega, Philippine Ambassador to Australia, stated that there are more than 300 Australian organisations that outsource Philippine talent, employing around 44,000 Filipino workers in various industries. IBISWorld forecasts that BPO’s market size is projected to increase from 2024-2029 due to the need for specialised talent, particularly in IT and telecommunications with the rapid proliferation of AI-driven systems.

Whilst an in-house team can strengthen company culture and enhance collaboration, partnering with an offshore staffing firm can open up new growth opportunities for your company: 

The cost-efficient benefits of offshoring can provide you with the financial flexibility to invest more effectively in your business growth. This can boost your capacity to develop better products and services, explore new markets to scale up the business, and gain a competitive edge.

To summarise, here’s a quick guide on the key differences between in-house staff and offshore teams.

If you’re struggling with talent acquisition that’s hindering your business growth, offshoring services may be the solution for you. At Twoconnect, we can outsource Philippine talent by building and managing your dedicated remote team of premium offshore professionals.

Our end-to-end managed services provide tailored solutions to help you achieve your business goals. These include expert HR consulting, a detailed onboarding process, customised talent sourcing and recruitment, stringent performance management, and accurate payroll processing.
Over 150 SMEs and multinational companies from across the globe have been able to find high-quality talent and have scaled successfully in partnership with our offshore staffing services:

“Twoconnect takes away all the heavy lifting. A process that would normally take me 30 hours is taking me only 2 hours to find the right person.”
Alisha King
COO, PingCo

“Twoconnect provides regular account management and contact that supports business growth.”
David Whittaker
Managing Director, Manly Spirits

“Part of the reason our business has grown is thanks to Twoconnect. They really did a phenomenal job of placing the right person to understand our business.”
Michael Vlassis
Co-founder, Woolcott St.

“They have a real handle on the local knowledge, being able to have a very responsive team that deeply understands your needs and solve the problem of increasing our team capacity.”
Dr Angela Lim
Co-founder & CEO, Clearhead