How To Make Your Thai Workers Committed To Their Jobs?

[greenpower4ever]

We have employed a few Thai staff for sales positions, however, I find that they are not so committed to the company. How do you make them work harder for you beside basic pay, sales incentives, petrol allowance are given?

[kevinbkk]

Do something with them. Take them out for a dinner once in a while, go traveling (including their kids, husband, wife etc) over a weekend to nice places like Kanachaburi or the like, offer yearly and monthly special bonus or something like that.

Some of our staff are even shareholder and we made for all (from the maid to the manager) of our 30+ staff a private health insurance including cash saving (not only the standard social insurance) beside some other things. The office environment is very relaxed, sick days are paid, holiday are paid with extra money, special Sonkran and Christmas bonus, the basic salary is higher as usual and others.

Office staff not work on weekends and if a girl get a baby, she can take a fully paid holiday for a year. Some of them even work from home in the past during the "baby year", which is fairly easy with online access to our office servers. We had this 3 times during the last 7 years and all 3 girls came back to the office and continued working as usual after one year.

We got very happy staff, most of them are with us 10 years and more. And the best is, they are available for the company when we need them, they are very loyal and everyone is very happy.

We are a service and maintenance company in the industrial machine field.

Edited May 10, 2010 by kevinbkk

[garyh]

Getting sales people motivated is hard no matter where they come from. Finding people with a fire in their belly is not easy but the best formula, keep in mind the best sales people are not normally the ones that look and talk the way you may think. Smaller and easier to achieve rewards can be a good place to start.

[IanForbes]

Kevin and Gary both touched on good points. It is a difficulty throughout the world. But, one thing I've noted is a happy staff are ones who will stick around. Good people are worth all you can pay them and a little bit more. Poor staff should be let go the moment they start to slack off.

But, Thai people (and other Asians) are a little different than westerners. "Face" is very important to Thais and you can't insult them and expect good results... even if the insult is accidental. Thais don't take well to being "badgered". They may not say anything, but they'll quit at the first opportunity.

However, as Gary pointed out, sales people are a different brand of cat and not everyone is cut out for being a sales person... even with training. It's like the bar girls. Three or four gals in the same bar will all be of equal beauty, but one gal will get all the customers and keep them happy.