Has anyone setup an office in Pattaya or surroundings, what's your experience?

[dennis123]

I'm considering opening an office in Pattaya or nearby, however I've read many negative experiences with Thai staff, people that claim there staff isn't showing up however these stories mostly come from restaurant owners and such so that's a complete different class of working people, often uneducated.

The people I'd be seeking would have to have a university degree of some kind, perhaps they have another mentality?

What I also fear is that if there is no active Thai partner involved that I might not get much respect as a sole farang owner, I have no idea if this is true or that it's between my ears. Sure respect has to be earned but well, can't have an office full of chatting people as soon as I leave and that nothing gets done.

Maybe I'm just thinking overly negative, maybe not, no idea what to expect really. I did own a bar for a short while with all the drama involved like staff stealing and what not but I suppose that's a different type of people. However Pattaya doesn't attract the best that Thailand has to offer so perhaps it would be better to start an office in Sattahip or Chonburi?

Would love to hear your experience!

[KittenKong]

An office doing what?

The limited experience I have had with Thai staff from being on my condo building committee just makes we want to never have any sort of business contact with them in any way ever again. Truly horrible.

[dannywla]

Thai personnel will never be truly loyal to a foreign run business. They will steal and not show up for work, if it was a Thai run business they would show up to work and are less likely to steal. So best of luck as no matter,how much you pay them, you're going to find it very difficult and frustrating to proceed and succeed. You probably now that anyway, right?

[dennis123]

An office doing what?

The limited experience I have had with Thai staff from being on my condo building committee just makes we want to never have any sort of business contact with them in any way ever again. Truly horrible.

I plan to offer web services like web design, SEO, as well as affiliate marketing.

[dennis123]

Thai personnel will never be truly loyal to a foreign run business. They will steal and not show up for work, if it was a Thai run business they would show up to work and are less likely to steal. So best of luck as no matter,how much you pay them, you're going to find it very difficult and frustrating to proceed and succeed. You probably now that anyway, right?

I've worked with a lot of freelancers from India/Bangladesh and it's been a huge disaster, think of people from Freelancer / oDesk / Elance, you name it.

In Thailand I assume I could be more picky in terms of education, work experience, references.

What I've also noticed is that when hiring freelancers you explain it once, or twice or ten times and it go's all well for a short while, than all of a sudden all the classical beginner mistakes start to happen again, I suspect they start to outsource the work to a family member without proper training. When having people in my own office that wouldn't be possible so there are some benefits of course.

But my biggest fear is loyalty indeed, as I simply don't feel much for spending most of my time in the office, when I leave the work should continue as usual.

Maybe I could build in some reward system that will motivate them, any thoughts on that?

[Basil B]

Story I heard many years ago but probably still true today, any well educated Thai will come from a well to do family, certainly not from your Isan rice farming community, and will at some stage just walk out when ordered by their family to take up a position in the family business.

[dennis123]

Story I heard many years ago but probably still true today, any well educated Thai will come from a well to do family, certainly not from your Isan rice farming community, and will at some stage just walk out when ordered by their family to take up a position in the family business.

Reasonable point though likely not too applicable to Pattaya where many people funded their study by working in a bar.

I get the feeling that if I want to pull this off I should start an office outside of Pattaya.

This whole Thai/foreign company thing with 4 employees, can that be part timers as well or would I then need 8 people working 20 hours/week vs 4 people fulltime? I'm thinking that if I would start an office near a university I can have a good stream of affordable employees working for me that might likely stay for the entire duration of their study. Most of my work is no rocket science, the university degree requirement that I mentioned earlier is just to filter down on the applicants.

[KittenKong]

If I was doing this (and it would be one of the last things I would ever want to do) I think that I would work from home and would employ 4 Thai cleaners to satisfy the work permit requirements.

That way I would have the cleanest condo in Pattaya and the very best workforce in Thailand: me working alone.

[dennis123]

If I was doing this (and it would be one of the last things I would ever want to do) I think that I would work from home and would employ 4 Thai cleaners to satisfy the work permit requirements.

That way I would have the cleanest condo in Pattaya and the very best workforce in Thailand: me working alone.

Lol kind of expensive don't you think, mininmum wage is 300 baht/day or 7800 baht/mo (at least that's what most earn at 7/11), multiply by 4 employees that's a monthly cost of 30k+, would be cheaper to get a Thai Elite visa.

But yeah I get your point, thing is however that I do need staff and it's a hell to work wtih those freelancers online, not sure if Thai staff would be a greater hell lol.

Edited September 20, 2015 by dennis123

[BillyBobThai]

Some 20 yr ago, my wifes company had a plant in Mexico and she had an oppertunity to observe these folks in action. This was a factory setting with over 500 employees. If the employee decided not to go in for work, he would send in a replacement.

This could be an older man or woman or some full size kid who had quit school. She said that every day was a cluster <deleted>>.

[KittenKong]

If I was doing this (and it would be one of the last things I would ever want to do) I think that I would work from home and would employ 4 Thai cleaners to satisfy the work permit requirements.

That way I would have the cleanest condo in Pattaya and the very best workforce in Thailand: me working alone.

Lol kind of expensive don't you think, mininmum wage is 300 baht/day or 7800 baht/mo (at least that's what most earn at 7/11), multiply by 4 employees that's a monthly cost of 30k+, would be cheaper to get a Thai Elite visa.

I suppose it all depends on your budget. When I used to work in Europe I charged 80-100EUR an hour so I would have had no problem covering the cost of a few Thai employees. But if you are selling something to the Thai market then your income would probably be much less.

Certainly I would prefer to buy a Thai Elite visa than to run a business here. No question about it.

[bartender100]

I thought this sort of thing was done online? who walks into an office these days for this sort of thing?

"I plan to offer web services like web design, SEO, as well as affiliate marketing"

Get in the cue, but good luck seems like you know what your doing, hope someone is checking your "copy", there their

Your not going to get a university grad for B300 a DAY, more like B20,000 a month

[dennis123]

I thought this sort of thing was done online? who walks into an office these days for this sort of thing?

"I plan to offer web services like web design, SEO, as well as affiliate marketing"

Get in the cue, but good luck seems like you know what your doing, hope someone is checking your "copy", there their

Your not going to get a university grad for B300 a DAY, more like B20,000 a month

I know that but the other user talked about shill employees just for the sake of a work permit, so hence my mention of minimum wage.

The office is not meant as a place for people to walk in, well maybe for high-end clients though they likely expect that we visit them instead, it's merely a place for my staff to work from for reasons mentioned in few of my other posts.

I know what I'm doing yes and aff. marketing is the backup strategy that never failed me, great way to keep the staff busy in case we don't attract enough clients and a guaranteed income provider so it would be impossible to fail with such setup. Been there done that bla bla

Edited September 20, 2015 by dennis123

[Srikcir]

"a sole farang owner"

No, you would be a 49% owner with a 51% Thai owner.

[dennis123]

"a sole farang owner"

No, you would be a 49% owner with a 51% Thai owner.

Officially when registering a company yes, but there are ways around it with nominees/shareholders, not exactly sure how that works but that's what we got lawyers for right. I believe I could even setup some (offshore) LLC's that function as share holders or whatever they call it. It's all about entities and companies are an entity of their own.

Edited September 21, 2015 by dennis123

[NanLaew]

Without really knowing if the rented office is going to solve the 'cat herding' aspect of working with freelancers, I think the OP should trial the working environment at one of the coworking offices already in Pattaya. Renting an office, like any property, will have minimum-tenure restrictions and if it looks like a shambles after a couple of months, the OP could be out of pocket for early lease termination fees and the like.

Edited September 21, 2015 by NanLaew

[KittenKong]

Officially when registering a company yes, but there are ways around it with nominees/shareholders, not exactly sure how that works but that's what we got lawyers for right.

You would have to be much braver than I am to trust a lawyer in Thailand.

[dennis123]

Officially when registering a company yes, but there are ways around it with nominees/shareholders, not exactly sure how that works but that's what we got lawyers for right.

You would have to be much braver than I am to trust a lawyer in Thailand.

Well for one I would definitely NOT use a foreign lawyer lol, I bet most of you are familiar with Mr Drummond

Anyhow it's quite easy to protect digital assets so if someone tries to screw me over they leave empty handed.

[dennis123]

Without really knowing if the rented office is going to solve the 'cat herding' aspect of working with freelancers, I think the OP should trial the working environment at one of the coworking offices already in Pattaya. Renting an office, like any property, will have minimum-tenure restrictions and if it looks like a shambles after a couple of months, the OP could be out of pocket for early lease termination fees and the like.

Great advice that I've thought of myself as well yes There's this cospace in Jomtien and someone PM'd me that's setting up a similar thing in/near Pattaya.

When I make use of that I wouldn't even register a company, just completely off the books to see how it go's, they could work on existing projects.

As a matter of fact it wouldn't be such a bad idea to keep renting at such places, yes you pay a bit more but it would take away the opportunity for them to only have fun as there's this thing called 'social' control by others working in the same space, mostly foreigners I would assume so tough to turn it into a party whent the boss is gone

[boldface]

From my personal experience..... don't do it. In Bangkok is a different matter and little problems there, but here in Pattaya.... save yourself the hassle. My worst experience of it all that still grates me is when two of the thais I had employed, during probation period, just didn't turn up for work. After a while of not being able to contact them I assumed they had drifted off after payday in typical fashion. But no! They had gone to the labour department and put in for severance payment despite the fact that they never turned up for work and disappeared. These were Uni educated 30 yr olds. One had the shits up because I had told her to pull her socks up (lazy basically, playing facebook all day) and the other was a weakling and talked into leaving by all accounts. So anyway, my lawyer told me I did not have to pay them and that they would go with me to the meeting in the labour department, and for 10k they sat and told me that I would have to pay them. Probation periods count for nothing here by the way... Also, because they had both started in the middle of the month, it was not the 1 weeks notice as per their contract for probation I had to pay.;.. it was not even one month.. it was 6 weeks worth. Both of them. Ahhh but its water under the bridge now. I would have made about 300% more money personally if I had simply stayed on the marriage visa, and worked through my HK firm, from my front room.

To get an idea of if you can actually get the staff you would need to hire, get yourself a free trial from Jobsdb and stick an advert up Also do the same with www.pattayajobcentre.com. Remember though, the best Thais tend to gravitate towards Bangkok.

Good luck with what ever you decide, and if you need any office equipment, like a Panasonic PBX phone system with all the phones and wires, PM me...

[dennis123]

From my personal experience..... don't do it. In Bangkok is a different matter and little problems there, but here in Pattaya.... save yourself the hassle. My worst experience of it all that still grates me is when two of the thais I had employed, during probation period, just didn't turn up for work. After a while of not being able to contact them I assumed they had drifted off after payday in typical fashion. But no! They had gone to the labour department and put in for severance payment despite the fact that they never turned up for work and disappeared. These were Uni educated 30 yr olds. One had the shits up because I had told her to pull her socks up (lazy basically, playing facebook all day) and the other was a weakling and talked into leaving by all accounts. So anyway, my lawyer told me I did not have to pay them and that they would go with me to the meeting in the labour department, and for 10k they sat and told me that I would have to pay them. Probation periods count for nothing here by the way... Also, because they had both started in the middle of the month, it was not the 1 weeks notice as per their contract for probation I had to pay.;.. it was not even one month.. it was 6 weeks worth. Both of them. Ahhh but its water under the bridge now. I would have made about 300% more money personally if I had simply stayed on the marriage visa, and worked through my HK firm, from my front room.

To get an idea of if you can actually get the staff you would need to hire, get yourself a free trial from Jobsdb and stick an advert up Also do the same with www.pattayajobcentre.com. Remember though, the best Thais tend to gravitate towards Bangkok.

Good luck with what ever you decide, and if you need any office equipment, like a Panasonic PBX phone system with all the phones and wires, PM me...

Thanks a ton for sharing this experience, it's always something here in Thailand isn't it? I wonder if the probation period would've been invalid if the employer was a Thai instead of a foreigner.

If I had to summarize it quickly the majority of the people with university degrees are a bunch of spoiled brats from wealthy families that don't necessarily need to work to be able to eat.

It sounds a bit similar to the behavior of my latest boyfriend, who started to act all like a 'madam' the more gold he was wearing. A job at Tesco/Big C/HomePro was way below his status but when threatening to lower his monthly contribution he decided he would start working at a massage parlor. Yeah <deleted> right, there's the door, bye bye.

If I have to describe my work it's very repetitive/boring while accuracy is immens important, due to the accuracy conflicts quickly arise.

Ok some real eye openers in this thread, thanks everyone!

For the record: I have a pretty short temper, as some might have noticed already so that likely won't contribute to the success of starting an office here either.

Yeah I'm convinced this won't work out as expected so I call the whole idea off, might give it a try on a very small scale if I happen to run into someone with computer skills and no degrees at a coworking space but as a way to gain a work permit it sounds like a bad idea.

I once told a friend it's good that I work with freelancers that are far away from me or I likely would've killed some already, they truly drive me mad at times lol.

[marinediscoking]

Thai personnel will never be truly loyal to a foreign run business. They will steal and not show up for work, if it was a Thai run business they would show up to work and are less likely to steal. So best of luck as no matter,how much you pay them, you're going to find it very difficult and frustrating to proceed and succeed. You probably now that anyway, right?

i have been running a business here for 13 years now and I would have to disagree with your statement 100%. Were you running a bar or gogo?

Thai's still have a class system here and the affluent thai's still expect their staff to be subservient to them and will never be equals and treat them as such. Most of my staff have worked for me for 8 years plus and I consider them as family members and treat them as such.

To the OP: If you want to keep them you need to know how to handle them, don't try to control them by fear or berate them when they make mistakes, that is the fastest way to lose them. I have probably sacked 10 for stealing (mostly trying to overcharge customers) over the years. I have probably gone through 200 to 300 staff since starting so expect turnover as thai's have to go home or move for various reasons. I always try to allow this for the good staff and hire part time staff in their absence. For your business if you want uni ed. staff I would say you need to start them at 12 to 15K per month. Also you mentioned LLC there are no LLC's here only LTD's if you are American set up a treaty of amity company and you won't need thai partners on paper.

Be ready to pay a minum of 15K a month in taxes and accounting fee's as well as 20k for year end tax no matter if you show a profit or not.

[boldface]

From my personal experience..... don't do it. In Bangkok is a different matter and little problems there, but here in Pattaya.... save yourself the hassle. My worst experience of it all that still grates me is when two of the thais I had employed, during probation period, just didn't turn up for work. After a while of not being able to contact them I assumed they had drifted off after payday in typical fashion. But no! They had gone to the labour department and put in for severance payment despite the fact that they never turned up for work and disappeared. These were Uni educated 30 yr olds. One had the shits up because I had told her to pull her socks up (lazy basically, playing facebook all day) and the other was a weakling and talked into leaving by all accounts. So anyway, my lawyer told me I did not have to pay them and that they would go with me to the meeting in the labour department, and for 10k they sat and told me that I would have to pay them. Probation periods count for nothing here by the way... Also, because they had both started in the middle of the month, it was not the 1 weeks notice as per their contract for probation I had to pay.;.. it was not even one month.. it was 6 weeks worth. Both of them. Ahhh but its water under the bridge now. I would have made about 300% more money personally if I had simply stayed on the marriage visa, and worked through my HK firm, from my front room.

To get an idea of if you can actually get the staff you would need to hire, get yourself a free trial from Jobsdb and stick an advert up Also do the same with www.pattayajobcentre.com. Remember though, the best Thais tend to gravitate towards Bangkok.

Good luck with what ever you decide, and if you need any office equipment, like a Panasonic PBX phone system with all the phones and wires, PM me...

Thanks a ton for sharing this experience, it's always something here in Thailand isn't it? I wonder if the probation period would've been invalid if the employer was a Thai instead of a foreigner.

If I had to summarize it quickly the majority of the people with university degrees are a bunch of spoiled brats from wealthy families that don't necessarily need to work to be able to eat.

It sounds a bit similar to the behavior of my latest boyfriend, who started to act all like a 'madam' the more gold he was wearing. A job at Tesco/Big C/HomePro was way below his status but when threatening to lower his monthly contribution he decided he would start working at a massage parlor. Yeah <deleted> right, there's the door, bye bye.

If I have to describe my work it's very repetitive/boring while accuracy is immens important, due to the accuracy conflicts quickly arise.

Ok some real eye openers in this thread, thanks everyone!

For the record: I have a pretty short temper, as some might have noticed already so that likely won't contribute to the success of starting an office here either.

Yeah I'm convinced this won't work out as expected so I call the whole idea off, might give it a try on a very small scale if I happen to run into someone with computer skills and no degrees at a coworking space but as a way to gain a work permit it sounds like a bad idea.

I once told a friend it's good that I work with freelancers that are far away from me or I likely would've killed some already, they truly drive me mad at times lol.

Thai labour law trumps all contracts, no matter who the employer is. Also, farangs are covered by it as well, and they can make claims and be treated just the same. What scuppered me was that whilst I was sitting at work thinking they had both buggered off and I would never hear from them again, they were both sat with the old dear in the labour office, crying, making friends, taking her snacks for a couple of days so by the time I turned up with the lawyer, I was stuffed. Although the rule of thumb is that if they do not show up, they don't get paid, if they actually go to the LD, they will be able to claim notice money.

As for the Uni part, that is not true at all. Certainly at some places like Assumption Uni they will be a fair amount of silver spoon wasters, but on the whole, they are from poor or middle class families who sacrifice and work very hard to get their degrees. My ex wifes sister got a full scholarship to Kasert University (they could not afford it otherwise) and she would travel on a public bus 2 hours there and back from Yannawa, more or less 6-7 times a week. They put in considerably more hours than the average farang at Uni would.

You do need to be patient though - shouting and balling at people here is not ideal, and putting them under pressure to perform is tantamount to making them lose face.

[PattayaPhom]

As the business model could be done anywhere in the world, try somewhere else. It really is impossible to hire staff that work and stay believe me. You also have all the WP and restrictions on working here...go to Cambodia or anywhere but here.

[dennis123]

Thai personnel will never be truly loyal to a foreign run business. They will steal and not show up for work, if it was a Thai run business they would show up to work and are less likely to steal. So best of luck as no matter,how much you pay them, you're going to find it very difficult and frustrating to proceed and succeed. You probably now that anyway, right?

i have been running a business here for 13 years now and I would have to disagree with your statement 100%. Were you running a bar or gogo?

Thai's still have a class system here and the affluent thai's still expect their staff to be subservient to them and will never be equals and treat them as such. Most of my staff have worked for me for 8 years plus and I consider them as family members and treat them as such.

To the OP: If you want to keep them you need to know how to handle them, don't try to control them by fear or berate them when they make mistakes, that is the fastest way to lose them. I have probably sacked 10 for stealing (mostly trying to overcharge customers) over the years. I have probably gone through 200 to 300 staff since starting so expect turnover as thai's have to go home or move for various reasons. I always try to allow this for the good staff and hire part time staff in their absence. For your business if you want uni ed. staff I would say you need to start them at 12 to 15K per month. Also you mentioned LLC there are no LLC's here only LTD's if you are American set up a treaty of amity company and you won't need thai partners on paper.

Be ready to pay a minum of 15K a month in taxes and accounting fee's as well as 20k for year end tax no matter if you show a profit or not.

I'm from Holland so what I meant was to register an LLC in the US and a firm in Hong Kong as well (or some offshore Belize type of thing) and pass the shares to these two companies after set up, that's possible right?

is it correct that if I want to fire someone I always have to pay an additional 4-8 weeks salary, depending whether it's early or late in the month? Eg if I fire them on the 30th of the month I only have to pay them for 4 weeks (the month following), and if I fire them on the 1st of the month I have to pay them till the end of the month thereafter, eg almost 8 weeks?

I spoke with some people that have a degree and 12-15k starting salary sounds fair indeed.

Though I have a short temper you won't hear me yelling after 2 or 3 times, but if the same mistakes continue it means that they just don't listen or just don't care and that pisses me off big time and they will know it!

[dennis123]

Thai labour law trumps all contracts, no matter who the employer is. Also, farangs are covered by it as well, and they can make claims and be treated just the same. What scuppered me was that whilst I was sitting at work thinking they had both buggered off and I would never hear from them again, they were both sat with the old dear in the labour office, crying, making friends, taking her snacks for a couple of days so by the time I turned up with the lawyer, I was stuffed. Although the rule of thumb is that if they do not show up, they don't get paid, if they actually go to the LD, they will be able to claim notice money.

As for the Uni part, that is not true at all. Certainly at some places like Assumption Uni they will be a fair amount of silver spoon wasters, but on the whole, they are from poor or middle class families who sacrifice and work very hard to get their degrees. My ex wifes sister got a full scholarship to Kasert University (they could not afford it otherwise) and she would travel on a public bus 2 hours there and back from Yannawa, more or less 6-7 times a week. They put in considerably more hours than the average farang at Uni would.

You do need to be patient though - shouting and balling at people here is not ideal, and putting them under pressure to perform is tantamount to making them lose face.

Ah ok it started to sound a bit more like the rule than the exception.

Anyhow, opinions are quite divided, guess have to just try it off the books with some people to see how it go's and decide from there. Everyone is different of course.

[marinediscoking]

Opening an offshore company won't work here if you want a physical office presence with staff. You would open yourself up for too much potential legal trouble. I have not found examples of other expats hiring contract staff working on commission, again opening up labor problems down the road. Doesn't seem to work the same as back home.

I've never had problems with the labor department as I have sacked them with just cause but it could still possibly happen. I believe 3 months severance pay is required from day of termination to sack someone no reason but I may be wrong.

[dennis123]

Opening an offshore company won't work here if you want a physical office presence with staff. You would open yourself up for too much potential legal trouble. I have not found examples of other expats hiring contract staff working on commission, again opening up labor problems down the road. Doesn't seem to work the same as back home.

I've never had problems with the labor department as I have sacked them with just cause but it could still possibly happen. I believe 3 months severance pay is required from day of termination to sack someone no reason but I may be wrong.

You misunderstand me, the offshore construction is only used to get the Thai shares in hand so that I fully own the company.

When you register a Thai company you need 2 Thai shareholders right, and they own 51%, well you can have these shares moved to different entities, eg offshore companies so that 49% of shares are personally owned by me, say 25,5% owned by my LLC with a virtual office in the US and another 25,5% owned by my virtual company in Hong Kong, just to name something.

To avoid paying too much tax I could even invoice from those seperate companies for certain services. Eg: I could say my Hong Kong company is my SEO provider and my LLC fullfills my content needs, that would be a little bit shady though as both have shares in the Thai company, no idea if that could cause legal trouble but I'm sure a lawyer can advice on that.

Anyhow it would be an ideal situation to protect assets and pay minimum tax.

Edited September 21, 2015 by dennis123

[marinediscoking]

Opening an offshore company won't work here if you want a physical office presence with staff. You would open yourself up for too much potential legal trouble. I have not found examples of other expats hiring contract staff working on commission, again opening up labor problems down the road. Doesn't seem to work the same as back home.

I've never had problems with the labor department as I have sacked them with just cause but it could still possibly happen. I believe 3 months severance pay is required from day of termination to sack someone no reason but I may be wrong.

You misunderstand me, the offshore construction is only used to get the Thai shares in hand so that I fully own the company.

When you register a Thai company you need 2 Thai shareholders right, and they own 51%, well you can have these shares moved to different entities, eg offshore companies so that 49% of shares are personally owned by me, say 25,5% owned by my LLC with a virtual office in the US and another 25,5% owned by my virtual company in Hong Kong, just to name something.

To avoid paying too much tax I could even invoice from those seperate companies for certain services. Eg: I could say my Hong Kong company is my SEO provider and my LLC fullfills my content needs, that would be a little bit shady though as both have shares in the Thai company, no idea if that could cause legal trouble but I'm sure a lawyer can advice on that.

Anyhow it would be an ideal situation to protect assets and pay minimum tax.

For something like this I would recommend speaking to indo siam group in bangkok and ask for steve. They set these kind of things up and I use them when I need to procure special licenses that local layers aren't capable in doing.

[Rimmer]

A post discussing boy bars has been removed