Hiring
Backfill
Backfill is a later hire into the same seat after the original person and any guarantee restaff are gone.
How it works
Treat it as a new search with a possibly updated brief. Do not reuse a six-month-old slate. Retention after regularization is how you avoid living in backfill. For a U.S. company hiring one Filipino teammate, write this into the brief, the employment contract, and the peso payroll file before the start date. Slack habits do not override the Labor Code, BIR, or NPC. If the local employer of record holds the paper, they run the statutory step; you still owe a clean operating definition so the seat does not fail in week three. Put a number on the example when you budget loaded cost, because a nameless allowance always returns as a December surprise or a missed SLA.
Example: EA leaves month 11. Backfill slate uses the same scorecard plus a note about why the last one quit.
How it differs
Bench is unused supply. Replacement search is inside the window.
Common errors
Installing a temp contractor forever and calling it a backfill in progress.
In practice
Treat Backfill as a week-one operating object. Put this on the scorecard or the start-date checklist. If it only appears in a pitch deck, it will not survive week one. Write an owner - founder, local employer, or worker - and a date you will look at it again: first cutoff, first holiday, or first miss. If nobody can show a contract clause, a payslip line, a calendar block, or a checklist box, you do not have backfill yet. You have a conversation. Convert the conversation before the person starts, while changing the deal still costs a paragraph rather than a resignation. Re-read the worked example above against the actual hire in front of you. If the numbers in that example cannot be swapped for this seat’s pesos, hours, and start date, the brief is still unfinished.