Celebrity Interview: Sean Anthony from the Meralco Bolts

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

We interviewed Sean Anthony, the famous Filipino Canadian basketball player who currently plays for the (PBA) Philippine Basketball Association’s Meralco Bolts. We asked him for his favourite restaurants and what he wants to see in the restaurant industry in the Philippines.

1. What do you love about living in the Philippines?

I have been living in the Philippines for 5 years now and have enjoyed every moment. I love the upbeat and positive personalities that Filipino’s have. I like their community and family based culture. But most of all I love being a quick flight or drive away from some of the nicest beaches in the world.

2. What are your top 5 favourite restaurants and why?

I live a healthy lifestyle as an athlete so the restaurant I frequent the most would be Wholesome Table Salcedo. They have healthy organic food from sustainable farms and the food tastes great as well. The other 4 in my top 5 would be: Elbert’s Steak Room: Great little spot in Salcedo with the best steak in Manila. Love coming here when I have family and friends visiting from out of town. Wildflour: Perfect place for weekend brunch. Walter Manzke has done a great job in bringing over his LA brunch scene to Manila. Hai Shin Lou: Our family favourite for Chinese food. Love the peking duck, fresh seafood, and, other amazing dishes. Antonio’s Tagaytay: A trip out of Manila but the setting and food is definitely worth it. Many blogs and websites rate it the best restaurant in the Philippines. Hole in the Wall: Not a restaurant but a great food court in Century City Mall. My wife and I love dinner and movie date night and always choose from their great selections before heading down to watch a movie.

3. You are from Vancouver, was White Spot making an entrance to the Philippines a big deal for you?

White Spot definitely is a throwback to childhood especially when biting into a burger with their famous triple-o sauce. I liked that they are in the Philippines but hope they set up more locations for easier access.

4. What other North American brand do you miss and would like to see in the Philippines?

The food selection in Manila is actually great. We have a vast range of food from all over the world. But chains that I miss from North America would be Chipotle, Nektar juice bar, tender greens, and In and Out burger.

5. What is your favourite Philippine brand restaurant that should expand overseas?

There are Filipino Communities all over the world with our large network of overseas Filipinos. I’m sure they would love a taste of home which is why Jollibee is working on global franchising. Other filipino franchises that may do well overseas are Gerry’s Grill or Mesa.

Did you know your company needs a nurse in the Philippines?

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

pablo (21) We recently spoke to Nick Sinclair from the Outsourced Accountant. When we asked him about roadblocks to setting up a business in the Philippines, he mentioned some requirements that were unclear to him. One of them was about hiring company nurses for businesses that employ over a certain number of people.

We decided to look into it and try to clear up what the requirements are on company nurses. The Department of Labor and Employment has a list of rules under the Occupational Safety and Health Standards that says that companies need to allocate manpower in order to cater to injuries and prevent diseases from spreading in the workplace. Companies need to have a Health and Safety Committee. The Committee comprises 8 or more people based on the size of the company.

The Health and Safety Committee can be categorized into 4 types with the following composition:

Type A: Companies with over 400 workers

Chairman: Top operating official (manager)
Members:
- Two department heads
- Four workers (union members)
- The company physician
Secretary: The safety man

Type B: Companies having between 200 and 400 workers

Chairman: Top operating official (manager)
Members:
- One supervisor
- Three workers (union members)
- Company physician or company nurse
Secretary: The safety man

Type C: Companies having between 100 and 200 workers

Chairman: Manager or his representative
Members:
- One foreman
- Three workers (union members)
- Company nurse
Secretary: Part-time safety man

Type D: Companies with fewer than 100 workers

Chairman: Manager
Members:
- One foreman
- Three workers (union members)
- Company nurse (first aider)
Secretary: Part-time safety man

The list above covers the minimum number of members in a committee. Companies may choose to have more members in their Health and Safety Committee.

In the Philippines, registered nurses are not hard to find. Nurses face a problem of excess supply and weak demand which is why it is hard for them to find employment in hospitals. They often work as company nurses to gain some experience before moving on to hospitals. Registered nurses can be found through regular job boards. The average salary of a registered nurse is PHP 121,651 per year. (approx. $2700USD)

In addition to following the basic requirements under the Department of Labor and Employment, having a nurse is useful in bringing down healthcare costs for the company. According to the American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, employing a company nurse can bring down costs of injury and illness by up to 40%. With a nurse in the premises, employees must get their illnesses checked before they can take leave, which also reduces the propensity of fraud.

Disclaimer: As always, consult your lawyer or accountant for advice! We are here to help, but your specific situation should be reviewed by a professional with complete knowledge of your situation.

Executive Interview: Nicholas Sinclair, President of the Outsourced Accountant

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

As part of a new series on this blog we will be profiling PayrollHero users to learn more about them, their business, where they go to learn and best practices.

Nick Sinclair is the President of the Outsourced Accountant. The company is a BPO in the Philippines that helps accounting firms in Australia and New Zealand improve their client value added services. We spoke to Nick about his experience in the Philippines.

Tell us about your company.

The Outsourced Accountant is dedicated in helping Australian and New Zealand Accounting firms identify their current workflow blockages and employ the right team on a full-time basis to help them become proactive in client value added services. We are a BPO focused solely on this niche and our offering is unique and not like traditional BPO offerings.

How and when did you realise the need for Australian businesses to outsource accounting?

I visited Manila for an Entrepreneurs Organization board conference approximately 3.5 years ago and I went and spent the day with Mike O’Hagan and saw his operation there, as well as a range of other businesses. This then got my mind racing and I then thought how I could flip my accounting and financial planning business to become more efficient and allow my Australian team to actually add value to clients. This then grew into a business when others in my industry saw what we were doing and didn’t want to reinvent the wheel so we started an outsourcing business based on what frustrated us most with the providers we used in Manila. I understand that most accounting firms are buried in paperwork and process-driven tasks, causing them to lose focus on adding value to clients. We want to help these firms get back to client facing work by having an offshore team who can take care of all the compliance and administration work.

Where are you headquartered?

Our office in the Philippines is situated in Clark Freeport Zone, while our headquarters in Australia is located in Queensland.

How many locations do you have in the Philippines? Why did you choose this location versus other locations that are perceived more conventional (i.e: why Clark over Manila)?

Just one inside Philexcel Business Park in Clark.

I prefer Clark over Manila because it’s a lot quieter and less congested environment. A lot of our team members who live within the region have already worked in Manila, since it’s obviously one of the biggest work environments in the Philippines, but they wanted to come home and live with their families. Here in Clark, it’s easier to get to work as people will not be sitting in traffic for hours. We’re very much about work-life balance with our team over here so we want them to spend more time with their families.

Moreover, Clark is accessible to expressways, has its own international airport, and enjoys a variety of amenities and government incentives. We also have a talent pool of close to 8 million people with very little competition (compared to Manilla and other regions).

What was the biggest roadblock to establishing yourself in the Philippines?

The biggest roadblock was the time that I had to spend being in the Philippines, being away from the family and missing out on school events of the kids as I was constantly away.

The biggest roadblock to setting up in the Philippines is the legislation and getting the right advice as it isn’t straight forward and you need to register with multiple departments and each department needs the others approval. There are lots of experts who charge anywhere from $1500 to $10,000 AUD to provide this advice but a lot of the time they dont know what they are talking about. We struggled until we found a local lawyer, who is well connected and has a wealth of experience and endless connections. The other challenge is no one tells you all the things you need to have to even operate, things like Workplace health and safety approval, fire approval, a company nurse when you hit certain levels of staff. There is a lot more involved then get an office, hire some staff and your off.

6. Was there an unexpected outcome (positive or not) from moving into the Philippines?

The business we now have was an unexpected outcome. We originally did this to service our own firm’s needs, but we have since grown to 180 team members in less than 18 months and I have now sold my accounting and financial planning business to focus on our outsourcing business.
Outsourced Accountant BPO

How do you see this industry changing over the next few years?

I believe the industry is going to go through continued growth, but more BPO’s will start to niche in specific industries rather than be generalist BPO’s as this market is starting to become flooded with new BPO’s.

What were your evaluation criteria before you chose the Philippines? Were there any other countries you were considering?

We had tried outsourcing in India, Vietnam and in Australia (and failed in all). The Philippines wins hands down.

The Philippines has a strong english culture, a strong accounting workforce and an even better number of accounting graduates coming out each year (its one of the main degrees Filipinos complete). The time zone suits perfectly as its only two hours behind for all Eastern states of Australia and the same time zone for Perth.

What do you read to keep yourself up to date with your industry and the clients you are serving?

I don’t get too caught up in the BPO industry information, I focus on what is happening in the accounting industries in Australia and New Zealand. We focus on knowing our client, and talking to them regularly so we can continue to tailor our offering to meet there needs. We aren’t a traditional BPO. We also read a lot of industry information, specifically from industry thought leaders like Rob Nixon.

What advice would you give a businessman moving into the Philippines, that you wish you knew before moving to the country?

It isn’t as easy as some people make it out to be (or it looks to be). I have had so many people say that we have had massive growth and made it look easy, but they don’t see all the work that goes on behind the scenes to deliver what we do. The Philippines isn’t a straight forward place to operate, its very paper based and not technology based which makes it hard. I also would say don’t employ an expat that hasn’t had experience managing a business the size you want to grow to. I have seen many expats that couldn’t manage 50 people in Australia but are managing more than this in the Philippines and failed due to lack of experience. There is plenty of local talent that have significant experience, so look locally (we just hired a gun Country Manager that has over 20 years’ experience managing large operations and he is a gun).

What results that you delivered to your clients are you most proud of?

The growth of our business is testament that we are on the right track. 60% of our current growth is from existing clients putting more people on. We have plenty of case studies on it working for our clients. The comment we get regularly is our team are world class and pick it up quicker than our clients expect them to.

How has PayrollHero helped streamline your business?

First of all, it made timekeeping more convenient. It has let us process calculations accurately, and kept us compliant with tax regulations. It also made it easy to manage and generate reports for government statutory benefits since the required forms are already provided and automatically filled.

The big benefit is our leadership team can login to the system, anywhere in the world to see the stats at a quick glance. The system has allowed us to focus on time and attendance and manage this as one of our business’s key strategic goals, and with tardiness being less than 1% late per day and attendance at 98% average for the year to date it is working (compared to the industry average).

How did you run payroll before you found out about PayrollHero?

Before, we used biometrics door access control system for timekeeping, and we did payroll processing with excel spreadsheets. PayrollHero has certainly sped the process up and made it significantly more trackable and accurate.

14. What convinced you to choose PayrollHero over other payroll software vendors?

The unique TAS (Time, Attendance and Schedule) feature wherein team members have to take selfie photos to clock-in and out plus the good client experience (contact persons are accommodating; quick response time on queries raised) from inquiry to sign-up stage made us decide to go for PayrollHero.

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PayrollHero Certification: Hands on Experience with the App

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

Last week, Kieran our Head of Client Success, conducted training sessions for the new PayrollHero team members in Singapore as well as a few clients. We got some hands on experience with the app, which helped us gain a deeper understanding of how the product works. As an intern who has been here for a few weeks, my knowledge about the product came from speaking with team members, listening to sales pitches and reading about the product online. So it was an interesting experience to use the product on a demo account and view it from the perspective of a payroll administrator. All new PayrollHero team members get certified on the platform so that they know exactly what the platform can do.

Kieran took us through every aspect of the product. My first thought when I was told about the training was, “Wow, a two and a half day training session? But I already know everything about it!” Which, as you may have guessed, turned out to be highly overstated. Within the first two hours of training, I came to the conclusion that the product was far more powerful than I had expected.

The first day was about Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS). The next day was spent on generating payroll and the final day was dedicated to understanding time, attendance and scheduling using the app.

The interesting part about the app is its customization capabilities. A human resources (HR) administrator can record the company’s organizational chart. The hierarchy allows you to identify employee types and positions. Thresholds allow you to set rules on what kinds of notifications you get based on the activities of employees under you in the hierarchy. The thresholds have multiple permutations and combinations that, once customized, help you prioritize information that you need instantly versus information that can wait till a more suitable time.

It didn’t stop there. Customization extended to how you segment payroll: employer contributions (CPF, SDL, FWL), bonuses, vacation payments, advance payments, claims that need to be redeemed. Any kind of payment outside of the basic calculation of an employee’s hourly wages can be segmented and customized so that all a payroll administrator has to do, is enter which segment the payment should go into. The app can take care of debiting/crediting the amount to the required account. It will notify you when the account is hitting a pre-recorded limit. The flexibility of the app went as far as allowing you to import data from a spreadsheet, allowing the app to automatically fill in employee details.

While all of this might seem like a rather dry topic to train on for nearly three days, Kieran managed to make the whole session more interesting by throwing in quizzes and having interactive sessions. Every demo account had characters from Kieran’s favourite fiction series. Homer Simpson got a bonus for his outstanding work (let’s pretend like that is EVER going to happen), Sherlock Holmes got promoted to the next level on the org chart, Buffy Summers asked for a change in her schedule for the next 3 weeks and Harry Potter recorded coming in early to work consistently. All these characters were a part of the certification exercises, which made the entire process not only informative but also engaging.

The time, attendance and scheduling part of the course was done through an online training portal on the PayrollHero website. Again, I was pleasantly surprised by how detailed the app was and how customizable the entire process of scheduling was. It was impressive that the app was user friendly and flexible with creating, adjusting or removing schedules based on timing, location and type of work: whether it was a routine desk job or a part time job that required changing schedules often. The app, as was intended, was perfectly designed for retailers and restaurant owners who deal with employees who have erratic schedules which require constant adjustments.

The exercises and quizzes were effective in understanding how much we grasped from the lessons. It was clear that working with app required you to be consistent and methodological with the processes for entering data, giving system permissions, organizing the company’s hierarchy and setting customized options especially since the data that the system works with is sensitive. Finally, the certification undoubtedly served its purpose: it gave us a complete picture of how the app works and how a payroll administrator can benefit by using all its features for time, attendance, scheduling and payroll.

Learn more about PayrollHero Certification in the Philippines and Singapore.

5 Reasons Why Australian Businesses are Outsourcing to the Philippines

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

Australian's Opening BPOS Over the last 10 years, business process outsourcing (BPO) centres have cropped up all over Asia. Two countries have emerged as leaders in the BPO sector: India and the Philippines. While Bangalore city in India ranked first in 2014 for top outsourcing destinations, Manila ranked second. The Philippine BPO industry is likely to do extremely well and possibly overtake India soon.

Australian businesses have caught on to the trend. There is a growing number of companies that are looking at the Philippines for their offshoring needs. Australia is in a particularly favourable location because of its proximity to Southeast Asia. There are a number of reasons why Australia gives preference to the Philippines for outsourcing.

Inexpensive Labour

Common knowledge suggests that labour is cheaper in Asia. But to put that in perspective, an experienced BPO agent in the Philippines earns USD500 a month whereas the equivalent in Australia earns USD2700 a month. Back end operating expenses fall by a magnitude of 10 simply by offshoring. With wages rising in India, the Philippines looks like a good candidate for offshoring.

Literacy Rate: 97.5%

97.5% literacy rate is a staggering number. To put this in perspective, India stands at 74% and China at 88.6%. As a leading country in the BPO industry in Asia, this is very suitable for Australian businesses because of ease of communication with locals. The Philippines has the third largest educated workforce in terms of absolute numbers (after India and China).

Close to home, similar time zone

The Philippines is one of the closest countries to Australia.It is just a 6 hour flight away. Australia also enjoys the benefits of sharing a timezone with the Philippines. This wipes out the hassle of a mismatch in working hours for both countries.

Cultural Similarities

The Philippines was colonized by the Spanish for nearly 375 years until the Americans came along and colonized the archipelago for 48 years till 1946. The lifestyle of the Americans left a deep mark on the Filipino culture. Culturally, they are similar to most western nations, which is an anomaly in southeast Asia. The similar background makes for a negligible culture shock for Australian businesses. The friendly nature of Filipinos makes this the perfect place to set up customer service outsourcing.

Strong Government Initiatives

The government has been promoting the BPO sector for a few years now, through training progammes for Filipinos and financial incentives for companies. The financial incentives include Special Economic Zones, tax holidays for 6-8 years, import and customs duty waivers, reduced tax after the tax-holiday ends (down to 5%) and more. The government is also making efforts to improve infrastructure. Although the progress has been slow, internet connectivity is improving. The country does well in terms of office spaces. Around 80% of office spaces are occupied by BPOs.

There are a number of ancillary businesses that cater to Australian businesses that want to outsource to the Philippines. One of them is Mike’s Manila Tours by (you guessed it) Mike O’Hagan. Mike gives tours around the Philippines for businesses who need reliable information from someone closer to the ground. We spoke to Mike and featured him on our blog. You can check out the post here. We have also published a series on Australian businesses that outsource parts of their business to the Philippines. We have PANALITIX, ServiceSeeking Manila and Wint & Kidd Inc telling readers about what you need to know before taking that crucial step of moving to the Philippines.

If you would like to learn more about setting up in the Philippines with PayrollHero feel free to reach out and one of our team would be pleased to speak further.

Food Hygiene Regulations in Singapore

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

nea

In Singapore, food hygiene is monitored by the National Environment Agency (NEA). All food retail businesses must be registered to the NEA and regulated by the organization to prove that any food sold or produced by the food retail businesses is safe for consumption (retail businesses include restaurants, cafes, and more but excludes hawker centres).

Grading System

The NEA grades food service establishments based on personal and food hygiene and housekeeping of the premises. The grade must be displayed somewhere within the premises where it can be visible to the public. This is a method for the NEA to encourage establishments to improve their grade by adopting better practices. The assessment of the premises by the NEA results in the following grades:

A – a score of 85% or higher
B – a score of 70% to 84%
C – a score of 50% to 69%
D – a score of 40% to 49%

In order to help food service establishments to improve their cleanliness, the NEA has published the Food Handler’s Handbook and other practices and guiding materials.

Points Demerit System (PDS)

The PDS system is used in order to establish precedence for revoking licenses. Offences are categorized as minor, major and serious. Offences lead to demerit points. If an establishment collects 12 demerit points within 12 months, the establishment can be suspended for 2 to 4 weeks or its license can be revoked based on previous records. However this is a general guideline. The punishment differs for the type of establishment. For example, coffeeshops, food courts and canteens that accumulate 12 points over 12 months will be suspended for three days. Here is a detailed list of offences and the demerit points that they cost.

Food Handlers

The term food handlers refers to any person who is directly involved with food preparation: like the chefs, sous chefs, kitchen assistants, staff that handles beverages. Food handlers need to be registered by the NEA. As the owner of the establishment, you need to register all food handlers by filling up this form and submitting it to the nearest Regional Office. To find your nearest Regional Office, you must call 1800-2255 632 (1800-CALL NEA). In order to qualify as a food handler, a basic food hygiene course must be completed. The Food & Beverage Workforce Skills Qualification (WSQ) takes 6 hours of course work and 1.5 hours of assessment. Upon completion of assessment, the food handles will be given a Statement of Attainment. There are 2 subsequent refresher training sessions after 5 years and 10 years. The details on refresher training are on this page.

Food Safety Management System (FSMS)

The FSMS is used to ensure that manufacture, distribution and storage of food is safe for consumption. Every food service establishment must have an FSMS plan. The components of the plan are the following:

1. FSMS Plan

a. Flow diagram: with Critical Control Points identified

b. Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points: charts for Critical Control Points (CCPs)

2. “WSQ Apply Food Safety Management System for Food Service Establishments” Certificate (Statement of Attainment)

For more information on the FSMS and the requirements for your FSMS plan, click here. The link also gives information on different rules for new caterers and caterers that need to renew their license.

Finally, the NEA along with Spring Singapore has created a Singapore Standard for food service establishments so that they can make their FSMS plans by referring to the guideline. The guideline is $42 and can be purchased here. The process of creating the FSMS plan involves a workshop which includes 14 hours of course work and 5 hours of assessment.

That sums up the brief introduction to food hygiene regulations in Singapore. Hope that helps!

An Introduction to Domain Driven Design

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

The PayrollHero offices are buzzing with new energy. This week, the entire team flew in from Manila and Whistler to Singapore and worked through two days of intense training on Domain Driven Design with Kiro Harada. After the rigorous learning retreat, the team emerged with renewed perspective and restless enthusiasm. In an endeavour to contribute to our community, we want to share with you what Kiro taught us.

The learning retreat was conducted by lean and kaizen expert Mr. Kiro Harada. Kiro flew in from Japan and spent time with us both as part of the workshop and to guide us after it.

Domain Driven Design is all about communication. The gap between what developers want to create and what stakeholders in the company understand can be massive, potentially detrimental to the company. Even between developers, it is hard to maintain a common language as domains grow larger. This makes it tougher to model a problem which leads to further miscommunication.

Blind men and the elephant

For you and me, miscommunication sounds like an obvious problem. But what does it mean in a tech company for people who are not familiar with domains and modelling? To give us an idea of what he meant, Kiro told us about the 5 Blind Men and the Elephant. Each blind man gets a part of the elephant: like the leg, the trunk or the tail. Individually, the blind men know everything about their allotted parts. But when they regroup, one man calls his part a tree, the other man calls his part a snake, and so on.

Different perspectives colour reality and computer programmes cannot distinguish between the two. So what can you do to ensure that everyone is on the same page? The solution to the Blind Men and the Elephant problem is for each blind man to observe his part, regroup, model (or draw) what they observed, go back, make observations and repeat the process till they finally put it all together. You collect information and switch positions to ensure that everyone’s perspectives are clearly understood. The idea is to move from a state of –

Not knowing what you don’t know (or alternatively, knowing what you know)

Knowing what you don’t know

DDD is intended to take you back to the drawing board, where you design incrementally. The model must constantly evolve – from building a scenario that describes a model which is written into code that creates new scenarios, and the loop regenerates itself. Exploring models with creative collaboration while consciously focusing on the core domain is what DDD helps you do.

ddd_graphic.001

DDD in Practice: Modelling a Vending Machine

The concept of DDD can be vague unless you put it into action. Kiro chose to do just that by splitting us into teams and giving us a problem to model. The only instructions were to code for a vending machine.

Round 1: True to PayrollHero’s style, my team decided to code for a machine that vends beer. We got down to writing all components involved in the machine: beer, a tray to hold the beer, a coin collection box, refrigeration involved (liquid nitrogen, of course), landing tray, the works. We then wrote down all the actions involved, inserting the coin, choosing a brand, waiting for the beer. Then we wrote down all possible scenarios: what if too many coins were inserted, what if the power ran out, what if the machine go stuck while vending the beer, what if the beer wasn’t cold, what if… and we went on and on.

Till Kiro came up to us and said our time was up.

We got no coding done. We barely opened a laptop screen. There was no product, just a bunch of ideas. Round one was an epic failure. We had a brief discussion on what to do. Kiro told us we needed to start small. Create a scenario, build a model, implement it and then go back to the drawing board to create another scenario.

Round 2: We needed a fresh perspective. We started from scratch, this time making sure that the developer in the room coded while we built the model. The process seemed slow but was far more efficient. Every non-developer would review the code to make sure everyone understood what was going on. When time was up we had our minimum viable product. By making our core domain small, we had a flexible model that we could work around. It was evident that Domain Driven Design helped us create our MVP within 45 minutes.

Timeboxing: The Bomb

In theory, DDD now seems like a simple idea. Even when you are modelling a vending machine, applying DDD to one problem is easy. What if you are dealing with 20 different problems at a time? Kiro showed us how multi-tasking can wreak havoc on a team. We were made to stand in a circle and pass around a “bomb” in alphabetical order. We were just getting good at it, when Kiro threw in another bomb that we were supposed to pass around in height order. A few seconds later another bomb was introduced that was to work its way around the group in order of birthdays. As you would imagine, we took ages figuring out how to pass three bombs around simultaneously. It was inefficient, messy and absolutely hilarious.

The idea of multi-tasking is just not sustainable. It wastes time and does not capture anyone’s complete focus. Timeboxing is far more effective. Getting work done one at a time allows you to apply DDD, keep everyone involved on the same task and thereby get everyone to focus their energies on a single plan.

Day 1 ended on a high note. Kiro threw ideas on modelling different problems at us and the developers enthusiastically practiced on them. The team was exhausted but an idea was borne out of a full day’s worth of training. We had big plans for the future, with new features in the pipeline.

Day 2 picked off from the previous day’s final tip – timeboxing. When you do tasks one at a time, it’s important to prioritize which feature from your backlog should be worked on. At PayrollHero, developers choose a bunch of issues and then vote on them. After ranking the issues, Kiro suggested we vet through what the problem really is before we go deeper into solving it.

Fact vs Opinion

Once you have identified a problem, it’s worth evaluating whether the problem is relevant or even real. Differentiating fact from opinion is another one of those obvious steps but everyone often misses out on it when you are deep into the process of solving a problem. It’s worth hitting the brakes and breaking down the problem and solution.

	Problem	Solution
Fact	The problem should be based on solid data, maybe customer feedback or some other data analytics	A solution that arises from analysing the facts of the problem. A quantifiable improvement is preferable
Opinion	What the developers believe the problem is	An opinion about the solution may be a source of new problems or ideas

Moving from the problem to a solution is what Kiro calls a Hero’s Journey. Using the facts of the problem, developers need to use their imagination to model the solution. The next step is to design the model and then implement the solution. Often the implementation brings up new problems and the cycle begins again. (If you were wondering, the name comes from the Star Wars protagonist, Luke Skywalker, who was faced with the problem of saving the galaxy, then he met Yoda, and finally used the Force to save Princess Leia and bring freedom and peace to the galaxy. Kiro is quite the sci/fi fan).

heros_journey_web_1024

This marked the end of the learning material that Kiro taught us. After this, we talked about models specific to PayrollHero and practised tackling them. An interesting exercise was to build a simple model, say a delivery system, and throw scenarios at it to see where the model breaks. The entire team enjoyed the brain teasers but more importantly, it helped us look at our product with fresh eyes and a different angle to approach our pipeline ideas.

The next few days are all about using DDD for some rigorous introspection and using the new learning as a foundation for future ideas. We also got the entire team to spend some time together with each other and our new interns. We went out for lunch, dinner and drinks. It was a great experience for both developers and non-technical members of the team. Overall, we learned that modeling can and should be used to make decisions, both for R&D and sales and marketing. It was not just about app development, it was a new way of thinking and building on ideas and executing them. While we are constantly improving our methods and changing our approach, we want the PayrollHero team to stay on their feet and continue being awesome consistently.

PayrollHero Team at Domain Driven Design Workshop Singapore

PayrollHero Singapore Payroll Team

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Special Employment Credits in Singapore

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

pablo (2)

The Special Employment Credit was introduced in 2011 in order to provide tax credits for employers who employ low-wage Singaporean senior citizens. The time period in which the SEC is implemented is between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2016. The last SEC payout will be on March 2017.

There are three main criteria in order to apply for the SEC. The employee must be:

a Singaporean citizen
aged over 50
earning less that $4000 a month

In the year 2015, the Government decided to increase credit rates in order for companies to cope with the increase in CPF contributions. Credit offered by the government is 8.5% of the employee’s monthly wages for employees aged between 50 and 65. For employees over 65 years of age, the credit is 11.5% of monthly wages. These rates apply till December 31, 2015. The schedule for credit is given below:

SEC for the month ($) for employers who hire Singaporeans
Income of employee/month ($)	between ages 50 and 65	over age 65
500.00	42.50	57.50
1000.00	85.00	115.00
1500.00	127.50	172.50
2000.00	170.00	230.00
2500.00	212.50	287.50
3000.00	255.00	345.00
3250.00	191.25	258.75
3500.00	127.50	172.50
3750.00	63.75	86.25
>= 4000	0.00	0.00

The rates for 2016 have not been announced. The Singapore government has not specified whether these rates will remain or be reverted back to the old credit rates.

SEC Payments

SEC payments are made on a retrospective basis. For the months between January and June, SEC payments will be made in September. For months between July and December, SEC payments are made the following March. A company will qualify for SEC payments only after the necessary CPF contributions have been made. To check the contribution schedule for CPF and for more details on CPF payments, check out our blog post. Payments are made via GIRO. For companies without GIRO, a cheque will be sent. An important point to note that SEC is taxable.

To find out the absolute value of credit that your company will receive, you can click on the SEC calculator here. For more details on SEC, you can find FAQs here.

Foreign Worker Levy in Singapore: Changes to the Levy From July 2015

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

Singapore Foreign Worker Levy The Ministry of Manpower in Singapore has implemented a quota on the total number of foreign employees that you can hire. If your company exceeds the quota, you will have to reorganize your workforce in order to meet the requirements. You can find out what is your company’s quota on foreign employees here.

In addition to the quota, the foreign worker’s levy applies to any company that employs foreigners with Work Permits. The quota depends on the industry. From July 2016 the rates for the levy will change. Here is the complete schedule of foreign worker levy changes. The levy needs to be paid via GIRO on the 17th of the next month. In case your company is still in the process of applying for GIRO, you may pay by other methods by the 14th of the next month. Here are the details for paying the levy.

This is the schedule for the services sector:

S Pass
Tier	Sector Dependency Ratio (DR)	Current Levy Rates ($)	New Levy Rates ($) From July 1 2016
Basic Tier	<10%	315	330
Tier 2 (Services)	10-15%	550	650
Tier 2 (Other Sectors)	10-20%	550	650

Work Permit
Tier	Sector Dependency Ratio (DR)	Current Levy Rates ($) (R1/R2)	New Levy Rates ($) (R1/R2) From July 1 2016
Basic Tier	<10%	300/420	300/420
Tier 2 (Services)	10-25%	400/550	400/550
Tier 2 (Other Sectors)	25-40%	600/700	600/700

The Skilled Workers’ Levy rates are lower than regular foreign workers’ levy. It applies for workers who have years of experience and meet the academic qualifications specified by the Ministry of Manpower. The forms and requirements for applying for the skilled workers’ levy are posted here.

Do note that there are certain work permit requirements that the MoM has posted. In addition to the regular requirements, foreign workers in the retail and F&B sector need to obtain level 4 of the Workplace Literacy listening and speaking assessments conducted by the Workforce Development Agency (WDA). You can register for the assessments through the CES online booking portal.

Customer Happiness Tools – Being Ridiculously Client Focused

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

Customer happiness is essential to everything we do at PayrollHero. One of our favourite catchphrases is “ridiculously client focused”, which means that we want to devote our resources towards making our clients happy. Everything else is secondary. And we aren’t the only ones with that perspective.

Over the last week, the PayrollHero team has been traveling all over the world. While spending an unnatural amount of your time in airports, you can’t help but notice the little things that pique your interest. The pictures that you see are from the London and Dublin airports, where customer feedback stations have been installed. Whether the feedback is about security, bathroom cleanliness (as in the case of Singapore’s Changi airport) or customer service, the idea behind these tools is to ensure that the customer experiences the best that we have to offer.

Dublin Airport Security Feedback

London Airport Security Feedback

The customer feedback tool can be extended to any service. Restaurants, retail stores, bathrooms, anything that involves customer interaction. With data analytics, you can do more than just find out how your outlet is performing. You can reward those who make it happen.

In that vein, PayrollHero created the TeamClock customer feedback tool. Imagine this: the sports apparel retail store you own is visited by a customer five minutes before it is time to shut down. While any other employee would request the customer to return the next day, this employee – let’s name him Bob – decided to let the customer in. Over the next 30 minutes, the customer went through your store and made the biggest purchase of the week, while Bob patiently helped him. While walking out, the customer spent a few seconds on the iPad sitting on your counter, typing out comments about the best customer service he has ever received.

Using the Xray Insights app, you noticed that a particular outlet received excellent customer feedback. With a closer look, you realized that the same employee – Bob – has been consistent with winning awesome feedback from customers. Not only do you have information about how well that outlet is doing, you also know who has contributed towards that outlet’s success.

This makes for an easy and efficient way to reward reliable employees. With data to back you up on how capable your employees are, you can make decisions on whom to promote, to manage other staff or simply reward at the end of the week. This approach allows your employees to be ridiculously client focused as well.

So this is what we have been working on at PayrollHero. The customer feedback tool is currently in beta stage. We will keep you posted with updates and changes that we introduce to the app. Till then, we hope the feedback you are receiving helps you identify the Bobs that make your outlet ridiculously client focused.

Want to get the PayrollHero Customer Feedback tool for your business? Reach out to us today and we would be pleased to speak further about how we can get your establishment setup to gather real time data.