Follow-the-sun handoff

How it works

One person writing a 7:01 a.m. Pacific brief is not a global follow-the-sun program. It is a two-node handoff. Templates beat heroics: what closed, what is stuck, what needs a U.S. decision by noon. Handoff defect rate is how you know the template failed. 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: 40 overnight tickets, 36 closed, four escalations with links and the last customer sentence. Standup is ten minutes, not a forensic excavation.

How it differs

Overnight coverage is the shift. Queue ownership is who holds the queue. Follow-the-sun operations is the multi-site version.

Common errors

Handoff by memory. Blaming ‘time zones’ for a blank note.

In practice

Treat Follow-the-sun handoff 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 follow-the-sun handoff 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.