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Hours
Overnight coverage
Overnight coverage is a Philippines seat whose productive hours fall while the U.S. team is off the clock. The work is the queue that would otherwise sit until morning: inbox, tickets, books, research, the jobs that.
Also called hours you are asleep, PH overnight seat
Philippine Time sits on UTC+8 all year. It does not spring forward. A founder in Los Angeles (PDT, UTC−7) is 15 hours behind. A founder in New York (EDT, UTC−4) is 12 hours behind. When it is 6:00 p.m. Tuesday in Los Angeles, it is 9:00 a.m. Wednesday in Manila. When it is 7:00 a.m. Wednesday in Los Angeles, Manila is already at 10:00 p.m. Wednesday. That gap is the product, if you design for it. It is a payroll problem if you ignore it.
How it works
You pick one of two clocks and write it into the brief before the first interview.
Clock A: the person works Philippine days. The U.S. team sleeps. The queue is clean by 7:01 a.m. Pacific. Handoff is a written note, not a standup. This is the cheap version of overnight coverage because most of the shift sits outside the Labor Code night window.
Clock B: the person works U.S. evenings so they can sit in Slack live. A large share of that shift falls between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in the Philippines. Article 86 then adds at least 10% of the regular wage on those hours. You also buy night-shift health load, family friction, and a thinner candidate pool. Say that on the first call. Do not discover it on day three.
Example: a five-person U.S. support team closes at 5:00 p.m. Pacific. Overnight tickets average 40 per night. One Filipino owner on Clock A clears 32 to 36 of them before the U.S. morning standup, and leaves four escalations with a one-paragraph brief. First-response time on those 40 tickets drops from 14 hours to under two. The loaded monthly cost of that seat is not “salary in Manila.” It is salary, 13th month, statutory shares, tools, and whatever night premium you actually triggered.
How it differs
A time zone split is the map. Overnight coverage is the operating choice you make on that map. Night differential is the cash premium for hours inside 10:00 p.m.-6:00 a.m., not a synonym for “they work while we sleep.” Follow-the-sun is a handoff system between two awake teams. One PH seat writing a morning brief is not a follow-the-sun program. A dedicated seat can run dayside Philippine hours and still be overnight coverage for the U.S. company. The seat is dedicated. The coverage is overnight. Do not collapse those two words.
Common errors
Hiring a “VA” and then asking them to join every Pacific standup. That is Clock B dressed as Clock A. Paying a dayside peso rate for a graveyard U.S. shift. Treating 6:00 p.m.-9:59 p.m. Philippine time as night differential. It is not. Article 86 starts at ten.