You can staff the roles holding your business back without paying New Zealand wages for work that doesn't need to sit in Auckland or Christchurch. We place experienced Philippine professionals and set their hours to your business day. The briefing, the standards and the account management stay with our Australian team.
Yes. You can hire directly or through an employer of record, which is how we do it. Manila is four hours behind you in winter and five in summer, so we set the shift to your business day. Your team member is online when you are.
This is the biggest gap of any market we work in, so here it is plainly. Manila runs UTC+8 all year with no daylight saving. New Zealand runs UTC+12 in winter and UTC+13 from late September to early April.
New Zealand, winter (UTC+12)
9:00am to 5:00pm
Manila (UTC+8)
5:00am to 1:00pm
New Zealand, daylight saving (UTC+13)
9:00am to 5:00pm
Manila (UTC+8)
4:00am to 12:00pm
Manila, all year (UTC+8)
No daylight saving
Manila (UTC+8)
Four hours behind you in winter, five in summer
We set working hours to match your business day, not Manila's. The overlap is complete, and you're not waiting overnight for anything.
That means a 5am start in winter and a 4am start during daylight saving. We're not going to dress that up. It's early, it's a real ask, and it's factored into how the role is scoped and what it pays. We work through it with you on the strategy call so you know exactly what you're asking of someone before anyone is hired.
The one thing in your favour is stability. New Zealand and Australian daylight saving run on roughly the same calendar, so the offset doesn't shift around the way it does for a Sydney client watching two clocks move independently. Set the roster once and it holds.
The Philippine outsourcing industry was built serving American clients, and American hours mean Manila night shifts. Roughly 9pm to 6am is the long-standing pattern, and a large share of experienced Philippine professionals have spent years working it.
A New Zealand schedule is an early start rather than a night shift. The day begins before dawn and finishes around midday, which leaves the afternoon, the evening and a normal social life intact. Sleep happens at night.
It's a bigger ask than an Australian role and a smaller one than an American role. We say that to candidates during recruitment, in those words, because someone who agrees to a 4am alarm in principle and meets it in practice are two different things and we'd rather find out before the placement than after.
What that gets you is a team member who chose the role with the hours in front of them. That's a better predictor of whether they're still with you in two years than anything on a CV.
Electricians, plumbers, builders and landscapers lose work to the phone ringing out while everyone's on the tools. A team member handling booking, quoting follow-up, job scheduling and invoice chasing from the start of your day means the enquiry that came in at 7am gets a reply at 7:05am.
Accounting practices, law firms and advisers carry a pile of process work that never touches professional judgement. Client onboarding packs, document collection, chasing outstanding information and practice management data entry all move well, and they move first thing in your morning.
Production is what goes offshore first. Building campaigns in the platform, cutting assets to spec, scheduling content, pulling client reports together and chasing the approvals that hold everything up. Your strategists keep the thinking and stop spending Friday exporting screenshots.
Physio, psychology and dental practices run on a booked diary. Reception coverage from the moment your day opens catches the early callers, and recall lists, referral chasing and rebate processing get worked through while your practitioners are with patients.
This is the part worth reading twice. Under an employer of record arrangement, your team member is employed in the Philippines by our Philippine entity. They're covered by Philippine employment law, paid through Philippine payroll and managed under a Philippine contract. They're not your employee in New Zealand, so New Zealand employment obligations don't attach to that person the way they would to a local hire.
The categories a New Zealand employer carries for a local hire and that sit outside this arrangement include KiwiSaver employer contributions, ACC levies, annual leave and public holiday entitlements under the Holidays Act, and PAYE administration. We're naming the obligations, not quantifying them. If you want numbers, get them from your accountant, because your situation is yours.
One more thing to raise early. Our standard client agreement is governed by New South Wales law. That's not a problem for most New Zealand clients, but it's yours to know about up front, so bring it up on the strategy call.
We publish and invoice in Australian dollars. Every price on our pricing page is the price a New Zealand client pays, with no separate tier and no local loading.
Conversion sits with your bank, so check what your provider charges on international payments before you set a budget. Some are far worse than others, and it's the sort of thing you'd rather know in week one.
Your team member sits in the Philippines. Account management, briefing and quality control are handled by our Australian-based team, and New Zealand clients work with that same team. There's no New Zealand office and no local staff, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
What that means in practice is that the person who scopes the role, writes the brief and checks the work is a senior operator who has done the work before. Support is heavy in the first weeks and gets lighter as you get better at leading a remote team member. That's the point of it.
Yes. New Zealand businesses hire Philippine team members either directly or through an employer of record. We use our Philippine entity, so the person is employed there under Philippine law and you get a single monthly invoice. Working hours are set to your business day, so the overlap with your team is complete.
Manila sits on UTC+8 all year. New Zealand runs UTC+12 in winter and UTC+13 during daylight saving, so your team member is four or five hours behind you. We set their shift to your business day rather than Manila's, which means a 9am to 5pm New Zealand day starts at 5am in Manila in winter and 4am in summer.
Not in the same way. New Zealand and Australian daylight saving run on roughly the same calendar, so the gap between Manila and New Zealand shifts once at each end of the season and holds steady in between. You set a roster and it stays workable for months at a time.
Under our employer of record arrangement the person is employed in the Philippines by our Philippine entity. New Zealand employer obligations like KiwiSaver contributions, ACC levies, Holidays Act leave entitlements and PAYE administration attach to your local hires, not to this arrangement. Your accountant can confirm how it applies to your specific situation.
We publish and invoice in Australian dollars. That's the same rate card every New Zealand client sees, with no separate pricing tier. Your bank handles the conversion at whatever rate applies on the day, so it's worth checking what your provider charges before you budget.
No. Your team member sits in the Philippines and your account management, briefing and quality control are handled by our Australian-based team. New Zealand clients work with that same team. Our standard client agreement is governed by New South Wales law, so raise that on the strategy call if it matters to you.
Book a strategy call and we'll map the work leaving your business first, the hours it needs covered, and what it costs to run properly.