Feeling Guilty

[lazeeboy]

I make it a policy in my business to offer financial help to staff members.

This means that if a staff member has been with our business for a certain period of time he becomes eligible to borrow money from the business. We treat this transaction as any financial institution would. They sign a contract that agrees to terms of repayment, interest, and surety.

If they leave the business for any reason the terms of the loan do not change.

Staff who have borrowed money do leave. They do not always go to other jobs. Their payments fall behind. We send the debt collectors after them. (usually a member of the local police force who keeps 30% of the received monies for his after hours work)

So I had two staff who left, fell behind in their payments, and had the police arrive to collect.

These two genius's thought they could raise the money owed by, you guessed it, selling drugs. Today the police busted them, with traficable qty's of yaba. They will probably spend 2 - 5 years in prison.

They have both called my office for assistance.

When working for me they were both reasonable staff members with good de-meanors. (They are both in their late teens, early twenties)

Should I help them?

The bail surety alone is over 200K Baht.

Feelings?

Soundman.

the money you lent them probably financed the drugs let them rot

[Tony Clifton]

We won't even advance money on salaries anymore, unless there's an urgent medical emergency or it's needed for their children's education. One employee went as far as claiming she had cancer when she was treated for bronchitis. She is now permanently treating her "illness" in the comfort of her home while wearing the gold chain purchased with money given to her for medication.

[Brucenkhamen]

It sounds like it's not worth your while trying to be a caring employer and offer loans to your staff. Is that something that's expected of Thai family business owners? If not you're better off not doing it.

It's not as if there aren't alternatives, you can write them references for the bank, and there are plenty of pawn shops around.

[bino]

But then staff would come to make their case to you, borrow a few thousand baht, & leave the next day, with out actually having earn't enough for you to deduct it from their final pay. One off case who cares? multiply it by 10 or more and its suddenly a lot of money.

That,s why we have gone down the path of official contracts, interest & guarantors - all enforcable in court. Since doing this we have had very few bad debts - especially in comparisson with the previous system.

If you want to see the loan contract - it is a very simple form book - available from most stationary stores. Send your secretary to buy one. Worth a look even if you don't go for the idea.

You're right in that we could get done this way... If an employee gets paid on Monday and then borows a month's pay on Tuesday, and vanishes on Wednesday.

Fortunately for me, our organization is small... 8 people total, and only one has ever needed the loan option. She's our offfice manager and a single mother. She needed the extra $ to get her daughter into a good school, and I had absolutely no problem with this. She is a great employee, who we trust and don't expect to leave any time soon. (Hopefully!) She says that this is the best job she has ever had!

But- I will take your advice, and get future employees to sign an enforceable promissory note in addition to our existing one month maximum policy.

Thanks for the input!

Bino

[soundman]

But then staff would come to make their case to you, borrow a few thousand baht, & leave the next day, with out actually having earn't enough for you to deduct it from their final pay. One off case who cares? multiply it by 10 or more and its suddenly a lot of money.

That,s why we have gone down the path of official contracts, interest & guarantors - all enforcable in court. Since doing this we have had very few bad debts - especially in comparisson with the previous system.

If you want to see the loan contract - it is a very simple form book - available from most stationary stores. Send your secretary to buy one. Worth a look even if you don't go for the idea.

You're right in that we could get done this way... If an employee gets paid on Monday and then borows a month's pay on Tuesday, and vanishes on Wednesday.

Fortunately for me, our organization is small... 8 people total, and only one has ever needed the loan option. She's our offfice manager and a single mother. She needed the extra $ to get her daughter into a good school, and I had absolutely no problem with this. She is a great employee, who we trust and don't expect to leave any time soon. (Hopefully!) She says that this is the best job she has ever had!

But- I will take your advice, and get future employees to sign an enforceable promissory note in addition to our existing one month maximum policy.

Thanks for the input!

Bino

Cheers!!!

When you find good staff, hang on to them, but be careful not to spoil them. They are few & far between.

I would like to add that for the first two years of doing business in thai, our organisation kept a staff of between 4 - 8 employees. Problems were few & infrequent. Problems you have read about in this post & others that I have written only really began when our staff base went over 25 people. Cliques form, gossip abounds, testosterone takes over, juniors follow bad advice from seniors & the list goes on.

Not enough eyes on the floor. But who can afford 3 levels of supervision?

One very important reason as to why I have started posting on the forum is to hear the many different aspects of the foreigner doing business in thai.

Sorry this is a bit tongue in cheek but as I try to learn from my own mistakes, it seems better to observe others making a mistake & learn from that. (doesn't hurt the wallet as badly) My repentance to that way of thinking is to post my mistakes so that others may learn as well.

Thank you,

Soundman.

[khunandy]

Soundman,

I can only refer to my own experience with young guys, drug dealing and loans. I used to employ a number of apprentices and one by one they all blew their apprenticeships, friends and credibility by venturing into dealing speed (ya ba).

The ironic thing was that money I had lent two of the guys as a good employer (I thought ) was actually used to finance their venture into the drug market, I wonder if your loan was used by your men to enter the market?

To cut a long story short I bailed them out, still gave them employment and tried to council them, I really liked these guys but bit by bit I had no option to cut the strings as they repeatedly let me down. After I toughened up and gave them up as a dead loss my workshop was broken into and a lot of gear stolen, they were not the sharpest pins in the packet and got busted, charged etc.

Fast forward 5 years and I ran into one them and he was clean, employed and had a stable relationship, he told me the other guy had been jailed repeatedly, been cut off from his family and "wasn't all there" after getting a flogging for unpaid drug debts. The guy who was doing ok confessed he was ashamed about the theft (s) but told me that it is a very slippery slope and you would rob your family and friends without a second thought to either pay a debt or score some drugs if you were a user yourself.

I would leave these guys of yours to pay thir dues and top up their prison accounts through a third party if you want them to have an easier time of it while in jail.

Remember , the loan may have allowed them to enter the market place and they started to treat you with contempt.

Khun Andy

Edited March 7, 2007 by khunandy