Core overlap hours

How it works

Design two hours, not eight. East Coast mornings can kiss Philippine evenings before 10 p.m. Pacific mornings barely kiss Philippine dayside. Put decisions in the overlap. Put production outside it. If overlap requires NSD, say so in the offer. 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: 7-9 a.m. Eastern vs 7-9 p.m. PHT, two hours, no NSD. That is a usable overlap. Adding 10-11 p.m. PHT adds NSD.

How it differs

Locked hours are the full shift. Follow-the-sun handoff is the written pass when overlap is near zero.

Common errors

Scheduling four ‘quick’ overlap meetings that consume the whole evening.

In practice

Treat Core overlap hours as a week-one operating object. Write the hours and the next Philippine holiday on the same page as the job brief. If this word would change pay or coverage that week, lock it before the interview. 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 core overlap hours 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.