A Question About Having Thai Employee'S

[livinthailandos]

I'm not really sure exactly

a. where to post this

b. how to really explain my question

c. I think this question more or less go out only to people who have had or have now thai employee's working for them

My question is this if you have to break down into 2 categories on expectations of thai employee's and the reality would it be possible

A. Expectation of Thai Employee working with you or in your company

B. The reality of the thai employee who works with you.

I look forward to hearing your feedback and experiences on dealing with thai staff.

[Ulysses G.]

Some of my employees are truly amazing, some are average and some are mediocre - I would guess, just like any place else.

[Kwasaki]

" Ulysses G." has it covered already I would say.

I can only speak from my friend wife point of view who has only girls working in her restaurants.

Ans to Ques. A. Employing them she expects them to work enthusiastically and be helpful and polite to customers.

To show care and cleanliness of the restaurant, not to get complacent. She rewards the ones who do.

Ans to Ques.B. Some of the Thai girls work hard and like to stay working at the restaurants, some dream of getting a restaurant themselves, some leave because they get a better offer from another restaurant, some leave to go and work for someone else because they don't have to work so hard, some get the sack for misdemeanor's, some are just totally useless are told to leave.

[zaphodbeeblebrox]

Expect to fire most of them. Best to do it quickly, before they gain entitlement to separation pay. Reward the good ones and you will have loyal workers.

[Valjean]

My background; worked for a multi-national, a team of about 25 all Thai. Now my own company, team of 18, 14 Thai, 4 Americans. This advice might be more applicable for office workers. No experience outside of that.

All things being equal, hire women. Of my 14 Thais, 13 are women and the guy is at the absolute bottom of my stack rank. You may have a legal Thai company, but what you really have is an American (insert your country) company in Thailand. You bring your business style and culture to the enterprise. I hire fairly fresh college graduates, young women. I train. I've just found that they are more adaptable and harder working in these situations.

The more experience the Thai, man or woman, has working in all Thai businesses the less suitable they will be. It's not a right or wrong. Just a big adjustment to western working style. If you need experience, they should have it working for foreign bosses. The ones you want are the ones that won't work for a Thai-style boss any more, they have gotten used to and like the western style (note there are western style Thai managers because of their experience). I'm sure this applies to a restaurant as much as an office.

I don't fire most like zaphodbeeblebrox, but I do fire fast. I interview very carefully. Now that I have a good team every candidate has to interview with 2-4 of the best Thai's on the team. That helps a lot, they want their team to be good and people who will fit in. You do need to encourage and coach that saying negative things about a candidate is OK, sometimes you need to read between the lines.

For whatever reasons, cultural or education, most Thai's don't come to the job with great problem solving skills. It's not fear of hard work, or laziness or lack of intelligence. It's just a lack of understanding and experience in how you break down a problem and find solutions. Again, the more western experience, in work and education, then people learn this. And some have a natural talent. But I'd say this was top frustration until I calibrated my expectations. I try to teach, but I give bite size projects or problems. I was thinking today while swimming laps at the gym what a problem solving training program might look like. I've done introductory 6 Sigma training - there are methodologies. Anyway that's another thought...

Make your work place sanook. It's the key to success and building a great team that will work hard, long hours, be loyal and not think about money only. You need to work on this all the time, you want sanook maak, maak. I can't stress this enough.

In the end I expect the same things of a worker anywhere; hand work, attention to quality, good work habits, respect to me and their co-workers, a positive attitude and a willingness to learn. I've learned to adapt and adjust, as have my Thai team, but I haven't lowered my standards one iota.

For what it is worth...

Edited November 28, 2010 by Valjean