At FlySpaces, we talk to hundreds of companies every year who are expanding into the Philippines. Some are opening their first office. Some are scaling from 5 to 50 people. All of them face the same bottleneck: talent and workspace are treated as separate problems, but they're actually one problem.
A company comes to us saying, "We need office space for 10 people." We ask: "Are these 10 people already hired, or are you building the team as you go?" The answer tells the whole story.
If you're expanding to the Philippines, you need to solve talent and infrastructure together. An Employer of Record (EOR) handles the talent mechanics—hiring, payroll, compliance. Flexible workspace handles the infrastructure. But the decision about which EOR provider you choose directly affects what workspace you'll need, and vice versa.
This guide is for founders, operations leaders, and expansion teams who are serious about entering or scaling in the Philippines. We'll walk through EOR options, compare providers, and explain why the best expansions are the ones where talent strategy and workspace strategy are planned as a single decision.
We're a workspace platform. You might expect us to say: "Pick your office first, then find the people." That's not actually how successful expansion works.
Over the last few years, we've seen patterns in which companies scale sustainably and which ones stumble:
The ones that work: Companies that decide upfront how they'll hire (EOR, local company, or hybrid), then build their workspace model around that hiring strategy.
The ones that struggle: Companies that hire their first 3 people on ad-hoc arrangements (one person remote, one in a co-working space they found themselves, one in a shared office with a partner company), then spend months retroactively trying to create a cohesive team.
The struggling pattern is expensive and demoralizing. Your first hire works from home in a condo in Quezon City and feels isolated. Your second hire comes to your co-working space in BGC and wonders why there's no permanent team infrastructure. Your third hire is in Cebu and is essentially a solo remote worker. By month 6, you have a team that's scattered, culturally disconnected, and (because they're isolated) at higher risk of leaving.
The successful pattern is deliberate. You pick an EOR provider that matches your hiring tempo and team philosophy. That choice implies a workspace model. You move to execute both simultaneously.
Here's what we've learned: the decision about talent directly shapes the decision about workspace.
If you're using an EOR like Emapta and hiring senior, specialized talent (your first VP of Finance), you're probably doing 2–3 hires in the first year. You don't need a full office; you maybe need 2–3 dedicated desks in a professional co-working space, plus access to meeting rooms for client calls.
If you're using an EOR like BPOSeats and hiring customer support or operations teams, you might be doing 10–15 hires in the first year. You need consistent infrastructure, reliable internet, and a team nucleus. A full office, or at least dedicated hoteling space, becomes non-negotiable.
If you're using Zero-Ten Park's bundled model and hiring 8–12 mid-market generalists, you're getting both talent sourcing and workspace in one contract. Your team has a permanent home from day one; culture-building starts in week one of hire #1.
These aren't small differences. They compound. By month 12, companies that planned both variables together have cohesive teams that are actually productive. Companies that solved them piecemeal have teams that feel transactional and are burning through turnover.
Hiring a full-time accountant in San Francisco or London runs $80,000 to $120,000 per year in salary alone. The same role in Metro Manila—with equivalent experience and English fluency—runs $24,000 to $36,000 annually. That 63–70% reduction in labor cost is real, and it's why thousands of companies have already made the move.
But here's the hard truth: that savings only materializes if your hire actually stays. Onboarding friction, compliance missteps, cultural misalignment, and isolation burn through savings fast. An EOR absorbs that risk. They handle payroll in Philippine pesos, manage SSS and health insurance contributions, ensure you're compliant with local labor law, and provide the HR infrastructure to integrate your hire into your team.
The cost of getting this wrong—either through turnover or a labor audit—can erase years of savings in weeks.
The Philippines has a sophisticated, employee-protective labor code. Key-person visas, minimum wage variations by region, mandatory benefits, and rigid notice periods are not afterthoughts; they're legal requirements. A misstep can trigger Department of Labor fines, audit exposure, and reputational damage.
An EOR provider is licensed and insured to bear this risk. They are the legal employer; you are the operational supervisor. This distinction matters. When the Philippines Bureau of Internal Revenue has questions about payroll, they come to the EOR, not to you. When a labor dispute arises, the EOR's legal team is engaged, not your in-house counsel.
For companies without a Philippines-focused HR or legal function, this delegation of risk is not just convenient—it's essential.
Registering a local Philippine company—a corporation or sole proprietorship—takes 4 to 8 weeks and costs $2,000 to $5,000 in setup and legal fees. Your first hire is still months away.
With an EOR, your first offer can go out 2 to 3 weeks after signing the agreement. The EOR already has the compliance infrastructure; they just add your new hire to their payroll system. Speed matters when you're trying to capture a strong candidate or meet a launch deadline.
And here's the part most guides miss: EOR lets you scale your workspace gradually.
When you open a traditional office lease in Manila (or Cebu, or Davao), you're committing to 12–36 months of rent for a specific amount of space. If you hire faster than expected, you outgrow the space. If you hire slower, you're paying for empty desks.
EOR providers—especially bundled providers like Zero-Ten Park—let you scale incrementally. You're not signing a lease; you're buying seats month to month. You add 3 people this quarter, 4 next quarter, and your workspace cost scales with headcount. No vacant desks. No lease lock-in.
An EOR provider does three things:
They do not manage your team's work or report structure. You are the manager; the EOR is the legal employer. You set deadlines, performance expectations, and day-to-day direction. The EOR ensures the relationship is legally sound and tax-compliant.
EOR is not staffing. A staffing agency finds people for you; an EOR onboards people you've decided to hire. Some EORs also offer recruitment services, but that's an add-on, not the core model.
EOR is not outsourcing. Outsourcing means handing off a whole function—"build this software module" or "manage our customer support channel"—to an external company. An EOR hire is your employee, reporting to you, executing your strategy. They just happen to be on the EOR's legal payroll.
EOR is not cheaper than running a local company. An EOR charges a management fee (typically $100–$250 per employee per month) on top of salary. A local company has setup costs but lower per-employee overhead. For small teams (under 10 people), EOR is almost always cheaper. For teams over 20–30 people, the math shifts; at that point, many companies transition to opening a local subsidiary.
EOR is not forever. Successful companies use EOR as a bridge. Once you have 30–50 employees, the cost-benefit of a local entity improves. A strategic EOR provider will actually help you with that transition rather than resist it.
This is the part that separates smooth expansions from chaotic ones.
Your EOR choice encodes a hiring philosophy. That philosophy has direct implications for how your team will work together:
These aren't neutral choices. They affect hiring velocity, culture formation, onboarding success, and eventually, retention.
Most EOR providers are separate vendors. You hire Emapta for compliance and they supply recruitment help. You then independently source workspace—whether that's a dedicated office, a co-working membership, or a hybrid arrangement.
The advantage: you can optimize each vendor independently. You get Emapta's vetting process and you get to choose workspace based on your team's actual work style.
The disadvantage: you're managing two vendor relationships, two contracts, two monthly invoices, and zero integration. If your hire arrives at 9 AM on day one, where do they sit? Do they have a desk? Is there an onboarding plan? Is anyone expecting them? These aren't EOR's problem (they do payroll) and they're not the co-working space's problem (they just rent desks). They're your problem.
Bundled providers like Zero-Ten Park solve this coordination gap. Everything is one contract, one vendor, one monthly cost ($350/person/month). Your hire gets a desk, orientation materials, a local team contact, and a workspace when they arrive. There's integration.
This matters more than it sounds, especially for first hires. A new employee's first week sets the tone for whether they feel like they've joined a company or rented a desk.
Here's the math:
Separate vendors:
EOR: $180–$220/month per employee
Workspace (co-working): $250–$350/desk/month (if you use it consistently)
Total: $430–$570/person/month
Plus: coordination, onboarding complexity, higher first-30-day churn
Bundled (Zero-Ten Park):
For small teams (5–10 people), bundled is often cheaper and simpler. For larger teams (30+), the bundled premium may push you toward separate vendors and eventually a local company.
Zero-Ten Park is the leading example of a bundled EOR + workspace model in the Philippines. Understanding their approach clarifies why bundled solutions are gaining traction.
When you expand to a new country, you're managing multiple parallel decisions:
These decisions are interdependent. But most vendors only own one piece. Your EOR doesn't care where your team sits. Your co-working provider doesn't care about payroll. You're left to be the coordinator.
Bundled providers force clarity upfront. When you sign with Zero-Ten, you're saying: "We're hiring X people in the next Y months. They'll have workspace, payroll, and local HR support from day one. We're building a team with a physical nucleus, not a distributed collection of remote workers."
That clarity eliminates a whole category of operational friction.
Zero-Ten's pricing is transparent: $350 per employee per month, all-in. This covers:
For a 10-person team, that's $3,500/month. No per-hire fees. No onboarding surprise charges. No workspace overage fees.
Compare that to the separate-vendor path:
Zero-Ten's bundled model saves ~$1,500/month for this team size—and more importantly, it eliminates the coordination tax.
When workspace is bundled with EOR, a few things happen that don't happen with separate vendors:
Structured onboarding. Your hire knows where to go on day one. There's a workspace, a team contact, onboarding materials. Compare that to: "You're hired via EOR, please source your own co-working space and we'll reimburse you."
Immediate cultural connection. Your hire meets other employees on day one. Even if most of your team is remote, the few who come to the office start building social bonds immediately. Isolation (one of the top reasons offshore hires leave) is harder to fall into.
Legitimacy in the local market. A Philippines-based company with a physical office and local staff is credible to clients and partners. A fully remote operation, even if legally sound, feels provisional.
Flexibility as you scale. If you're adding 2–3 people a month, bundled workspace scales with you. You're not renegotiating lease terms or hunting for co-working memberships; your capacity grows automatically.
These seem like small things. They compound into the difference between a team that feels cohesive and one that feels transactional.
Here's how the major EOR and staffing providers stack up. Pricing and service details change; verify directly with providers for current offerings.
Best for: Companies that want predictable, all-in pricing and a single vendor relationship; teams that value physical presence and local expertise; expansion-stage companies (5–30 people).
The play: Zero-Ten operates on the premise that software alone doesn't solve the hard parts of Philippines hiring. Their model combines EOR administration with mandatory office access. Their team is Philippines-native; they understand local labor nuance, wage boards, and hiring conventions.
What's included:
Pricing: $350/month per employee, including EOR, workspace, and HR support.
Pros:
Cons:
Workspace angle: This is the primary advantage. Your workspace is included and scales with headcount. As you grow from 5 to 15 people, you're not renegotiating lease terms or hunting for co-working space; it's automatic.
Verdict: If you're hiring 5–30 people and want simplicity, local expertise, and a cohesive team from day one, Zero-Ten's bundled model removes the vendor-management complexity that kills smaller operations. The integrated workspace component is what justifies the all-in pricing.
Best for: Companies hiring for C-level, senior engineering, or highly specialized roles; organizations prioritizing ethics and transparency; expansion-stage companies making strategic hires (1–5 senior roles).
The play: Emapta positions itself as a dedicated staffing partner, not a transactional EOR. They claim access to the "top 1%" of Philippine talent and back it with a 98% employee retention rate. They're a Certified B Corporation, signaling alignment with ESG and ethical employment standards.
Pricing: Typically 20–25% of annual salary (compared to EOR's flat fee).
Pros:
Cons:
Workspace angle: You're hiring senior specialists; they may be remote or split time. You'll likely use flexible co-working (FlySpaces listings in BGC or Makati) for occasional office days rather than dedicated desks.
Verdict: If you're hiring your first VP of Engineering or CFO, Emapta's vetting process justifies the premium. For your fifth customer support hire, it's overkill.
Best for: Operations-heavy teams requiring high accountability, redundancy, and in-house IT support; companies comfortable with monitoring tools; expansion-stage companies (10–50 people) in customer support, data entry, or operations roles.
The play: BPOSeats invests heavily in physical infrastructure—fiber-optic ISP redundancy, 24/7 in-house IT support, and proprietary time-tracking tools. They see the office as the competitive advantage, not the afterthought.
Pricing: Competitive with market; typically $200–$250/month for seat + EOR services. "Free 1st Month" trial available.
Pros:
Cons:
Workspace angle: BPOSeats provides office infrastructure as part of their service. Your team has dedicated workspace with redundant internet, backup power, and IT support. This is critical for operations-heavy teams that can't afford downtime.
Verdict: If your team is doing data-intensive work, customer support, or operations roles where accountability and system uptime are business-critical, BPOSeats' infrastructure investment pays for itself. For remote designers or strategists, the overhead is friction.
Best for: Distributed, remote-first teams; companies prioritizing employee wellness and engagement; organizations that value cultural fit over physical presence; expansion-stage companies (5–50 people) with remote-heavy models.
The play: Remotify is a Certified B Corporation that tackles remote work's primary weakness: isolation. They use an "INSPIRE" culture framework, offer quarterly happiness analysis for every employee, and provide practical support (laptop procurement, birthday cakes, mental wellness counseling).
Pricing: Competitive with standard EOR; typically $180–$220/month.
Pros:
Cons:
Workspace angle: Remotify is designed for distributed teams. You probably won't need dedicated office space; instead, you might use FlySpaces co-working memberships for occasional collaboration or client meetings. Workspace is optional, not core.
Verdict: If you're building a fully distributed, timezone-flexible team and you believe culture and wellness are your retention edge, Remotify's model is worth the comparison. It's not for companies that want a physical team nucleus.
Best for: Companies concerned about high early-stage turnover; organizations without dedicated HR bandwidth; expansion-stage companies making their first 5–10 hires; companies learning as they go.
The play: Penbrothers identified a real problem: 63% of companies struggle during the first six months of offshore hiring due to poor integration, not lack of skill. They solve it with "180-Day Hypercare"—a structured onboarding process with bi-weekly reviews, proactive problem-solving, and clear progression from "Foundation" to "Autonomy."
Pricing: Competitive with standard EOR; includes intensive onboarding premium.
Pros:
Cons:
Workspace angle: Penbrothers focuses on onboarding success, not workspace provision. You'll need to source co-working or office space independently. The good news: with their structured onboarding, your hire is less likely to leave due to isolation, so you have time to get the workspace model right.
Verdict: If you're making your first 3–5 offshore hires and you lack internal HR expertise, Penbrothers' intensive onboarding removes a major risk vector. Once you hit 10+ employees, you're likely to have internal processes that make Hypercare redundant.
Best for: Tech and product companies hiring for AI-adjacent roles; organizations building for automation; expansion-stage companies (3–30 people) with specialized, future-focused skill needs.
The play: Booth explicitly hires for the AI era—professionals they call "Agentic Operators" who can manage and direct AI systems, not just execute tasks. Their BoothOS platform offers a single dashboard for hiring, payment, and team management. Pricing is simple: Staff Compensation + Fixed Management Fee, zero hidden markups.
Pricing: Transparent; management fee on top of salary (varies by role).
Pros:
Cons:
Workspace angle: Booth is designed for distributed, outcome-focused teams. You probably don't need dedicated office space; co-working access for occasional collaboration is sufficient. Workspace is a secondary consideration.
Verdict: If you're building an AI-powered product and you need engineers and operators who understand AI direction, not manual execution, Booth's model aligns with your future. For traditional hiring, it's overspecialized.
At FlySpaces, we've worked with hundreds of companies at every stage of Philippines expansion. The pattern we see over and over: your EOR choice predicts your workspace needs, and your workspace setup determines your talent success.
When you decide to use Zero-Ten Park (bundled EOR + office), you're encoding a decision: your team has a physical nucleus. They come to an office. They build culture in person. They're not a Zoom-only operation.
When you decide to use Remotify (remote-first, culture-focused), you're encoding the opposite: your team is distributed. They work from home or co-working spaces. Physical location is incidental.
When you decide to use Emapta (premium, senior talent), you're encoding a middle ground: you have a few strategic hires who may be part-time in an office, part-time remote.
These aren't neutral choices. They have cascading effects:
Here's a decision that most companies get wrong: they pick an office model based on lease terms and square footage, not based on talent strategy.
The mistake: "We'll start with a 3-person hot desk in co-working, then upgrade to a dedicated office once we hit 10 people."
The problem: Your team members are scattered across multiple co-working spaces (or some at home). There's no cohesive "FlySpaces Philippines team"—just a collection of people who work for the same company. Retention suffers because people feel like contractors, not team members.
The right approach: Your EOR choice determines your office choice.
One pattern we see frequently: companies start in Manila, then expand to Cebu. Or they hire in both Manila and Davao simultaneously.
Managing separate offices in separate cities is expensive if you're on a traditional lease. You sign 3-year leases in each city; you're locked into paying for space you may not fill.
Bundled EOR + workspace providers like Zero-Ten solve this elegantly. Your team can span Manila, Cebu, and Davao, using local hubs as needed. You scale per-city without lease commitment. Your team in Cebu has a local office but isn't locked into a 3-year commitment if you decide to contract.
This flexibility is invisible until you need it. Then it's invaluable.
Here's what we've learned that doesn't make it into most EOR guides: your first hire's first week determines whether your expansion succeeds.
Your first hire's experience shapes:
The difference between a first hire who has a welcoming office, an orientation plan, and team context... vs. a first hire who works from home, is handed a laptop, and figures it out themselves... is enormous.
This is why bundled EOR + workspace models (like Zero-Ten) have higher first-hire success rates. Your hire arrives to a workspace that's ready, an office culture that exists, and a local team that's expecting them.
You can't buy culture from an EOR. But you can architect conditions where it's more likely to form. Integrated workspace is one of those conditions.
Here's what the first 12 months actually look like. Plan for it.
Talent side: You sign the EOR agreement. Within 2 weeks, your first job postings go live. The EOR's recruitment support (if included) or your own outreach generates candidates. First-round interviews happen in week 3–4. Offer goes out week 5. Start date: week 7–8.
Workspace side: If you're using Zero-Ten or another bundled provider, your first hire walks into a workspace with orientation materials, a desk, and a team to meet (even if it's just a manager visiting from abroad). If you're using a separate EOR, you're sourcing co-working space or having them work remote during onboarding.
By end of month 2, you have 1–2 people live, payroll is running, and you know whether your first hire is a culture fit.
Typical cost to this point:
Critical success factor: Your first hire should not feel isolated. If they're remote from day one, with no office context, you're already fighting churn. Bundled models solve this by design; à la carte EOR requires deliberate workspace planning.
You've learned from hire #1. Hire #2 and #3 come faster. By month 4, you have a small team. This is when the real work happens: integrating them into your product work, establishing communication norms, and assessing whether Philippines hiring is actually working for your operation.
Office setup matters here. If your team is scattered (some at home, some at co-working), they start to feel disconnected. If they're in a single space, culture builds faster.
Typical cost this period:
Critical success factor: By month 6, your team should feel cohesive. They should have inside jokes, know each other's work, and be proactively helping each other. If they're still siloed and transactional, your retention will suffer in months 7–12.
You now have 5–10 people. You know it's working. The decision point: do you stay with EOR, or do you open a local Philippine entity?
For most companies, EOR remains the right choice until you hit 20–30 employees. But some companies—especially those hiring heavily in a single city—find that opening a local company reduces per-employee cost and increases control.
Strategic EOR providers (Zero-Ten, Penbrothers, Kaptan) actually help with this transition rather than resist it. They can advise on the legal and financial mechanics of moving from EOR to a local subsidiary.
Typical cost this period:
Critical success factor: By end of month 12, you should be able to answer: Is this team sustainable? Are people staying? Are we hitting our productivity targets? If yes, you're ready for year two and potential transition to a local entity. If no, you need to diagnose whether it's a hiring problem (EOR choice), a workspace problem (office setup), or a strategy problem (wrong roles for Philippines market).
This is the decision matrix. Use it to narrow your options.
| Decision Factor | Zero-Ten | Emapta | BPOSeats | Remotify | Penbrothers | Booth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per employee/month | $350* | $180–$250 | $200–$250 | $180–$220 | $200–$250 | Varies |
| Integrated workspace | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Best team size | 5–30 | 1–10 (high-skill) | 10–50 | 5–∞ | 5–15 (first hires) | 3–20 (tech) |
| Hiring tempo | Fast (8–12/year) | Slow (2–4/year) | Fast (15–20/year) | Medium (5–10/year) | Moderate (5–8/year) | Medium (6–10/year) |
| Hands-on HR support | High | High | Medium | Medium | High | Low |
| Remote-first fit | Low (office-centric) | Medium | Low (office-required) | High | Medium | High |
| Monitoring/accountability | None | None | High | None | Medium | None |
| Specialization | General | Senior/specialist | Operations | General | Onboarding | Tech/AI |
| Local presence | Strong (PH-based) | Medium | Strong (PH-based) | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Workspace implication | Included; scales with hires | Separate (co-working likely) | Included; infrastructure-heavy | Separate (optional) | Separate; must plan | Separate (optional) |
*Zero-Ten's $350 includes EOR + workspace; others are EOR only
Early-stage (exploring market, 1–5 hires):
Best choice: Penbrothers (structured onboarding reduces risk) or Emapta (if you're hiring senior talent).
Why: You need guidance more than you need cost savings. Penbrothers' intensive onboarding and Emapta's vetting process remove risk for your first hires.
Mid-stage (committed to market, 5–20 hires):
Best choice: Zero-Ten Park (if you want simplicity and integrated workspace) or Remotify (if you're remote-first).
Why: You know what roles work and can hire at scale. Bundled solutions (Zero-Ten) are cost-effective and simplify coordination. Distributed models (Remotify) work if you've committed to remote culture.
Growth-stage (scaling team, 20–50 hires):
Best choice: BPOSeats (if operations/support-heavy) or Booth (if tech-heavy) or start evaluating local entity setup.
Why: At this scale, you need specialized infrastructure (BPOSeats' IT and accountability, Booth's AI focus) or you're approaching the size where a local company makes financial sense.
Are you hiring 1–2 people per quarter, or 8–10 per quarter?
Slow, selective hiring (1–2/quarter): Emapta or Penbrothers. You can afford premium onboarding and vetting.
Fast, volume hiring (8–10+/quarter): Zero-Ten or BPOSeats. You need a provider who can scale quickly without losing quality.
Are your hires going to be office-based, remote, or hybrid?
Office-based: Zero-Ten or BPOSeats (both provide integrated workspace).
Remote: Remotify or Booth (both designed for distributed teams).
Hybrid: Any EOR works, but you'll need to source workspace separately.
Zero-Ten: Workspace is included. You don't choose; it's part of the contract. This is a feature if you want simplicity; a liability if you want fully remote.
Emapta: You'll likely use flexible co-working (search FlySpaces for Manila or Cebu options) for occasional collaboration, not dedicated space.
BPOSeats: Workspace is included as part of their infrastructure service. Your team has dedicated, tech-equipped space.
Remotify: Workspace is optional. You might use co-working for occasional meetings, but it's not core to the model.
Penbrothers: You source workspace independently. Their strength is onboarding, not office provision.
Booth: Workspace is optional; your team is designed to be distributed.
Before signing, run these checks:
Red flag: "We handle everything. You just work."
This usually means the EOR is minimizing transparency. EOR is not a black box; you should have visibility into payroll, compliance filings, and employee issues.
Red flag: Percentage-based pricing with no cap.
If they charge 20% of salary with no limit, their incentive is to increase your payroll, not optimize it. Prefer fixed-fee or capped pricing.
Red flag: No local HR team.
If questions about Philippine labor law go to an offshore support center, you're not getting EOR. You're getting a payroll processor. You need a local team with Philippines labor law expertise.
Red flag: "We provide EOR only. Workspace is your problem."
Not a red flag, exactly, but a coordination burden. You're managing two vendors. Plan for the operational complexity.
Red flag: "We can't help you transition to a local entity."
A good EOR provider helps you plan the eventual transition. If they're resisting, they're vendor-locking you, not partnering with you.
Questions to ask:
What happens if an employee files a labor dispute? You want to know the EOR's process, whether they have legal insurance, and how they protect you.
Can I scale from 1 person to 50 without switching providers? Some EORs become expensive at scale. Know the breakpoint.
What's included in the monthly fee, and what costs extra? Hidden onboarding fees, background-check fees, and termination fees eat into savings.
How do I eventually move to a local company? You should be able to ask this on day one and get a straight answer about transition mechanics and timeline.
Who's my point of contact for local employment law? You want a real person in the Philippines with labor law expertise, not a bot or a support ticket system.
If I choose EOR, what workspace do you recommend? A good EOR provider understands workspace needs and can guide you. They either provide it (bundled model) or recommend partners.
At FlySpaces, we see hundreds of companies expand to the Philippines every year. The ones that thrive are the ones that understand a simple truth: hiring in the Philippines is not just about cost. It's about building a team that stays, stays engaged, and stays productive.
And building that team is 50% talent strategy and 50% infrastructure.
Your talent strategy is your EOR choice. Who are you hiring? At what pace? What service level do you need? What does your team look like in month one, month six, month twelve?
Your infrastructure is your workspace strategy. Where will they work? Is it a physical nucleus or a distributed model? How do you onboard? How do you build culture?
The companies that get this right are the ones that decide both variables together.
If you choose Zero-Ten Park, you're saying: "We're hiring 8–12 mid-market generalists in year one. They work from a shared office nucleus. We're building a cohesive team, not a collection of remote workers." Workspace is included. Onboarding is structured. Culture forms naturally.
If you choose Remotify, you're saying: "We're hiring 5–10 people distributed across timezones. They work remote. We're building culture through engagement and wellness programs, not physical proximity." You source workspace separately (maybe none, maybe occasional co-working). Culture is asynchronous.
If you choose Emapta, you're saying: "We're hiring 1–2 senior specialists this year. They're autonomous. We're adding specialized expertise, not building a team." You source workspace for occasional collaboration. Onboarding is self-directed.
These aren't wrong choices. They're different choices. The trick is to make them consciously, upfront, and to let them shape everything else.
That's how you expand to the Philippines sustainably. That's how you build a team that stays.