Thailand's Workforce Research

Our tool helps develop high-performing teams, provides AI and Human coaching, leverages insights into people analytics, and enhances talent development. One of the services we offer is a Culture Map, which can accurately measure and inform organizational culture by detailing working populations' unique motivations within countries.

The Thailand Culture Map study is a groundbreaking and insightful analysis of the unique culture of the Thailand working population. It is a statistical deep-dive into what drives and motivates people at work and the basis of work culture. 

S&P Global explains how the recovery of Thailand's international tourism sector provides opportunities for considerable growth in the country's economy. The number of international tourists reached 11.15 million in 2022, which is still much lower than its 2019 peak of 39.8 million.¹ 

Currently, the state of economic recovery is moderate, but as tourism, private consumption, and rising energy import costs continue to increase, there is great potential for Thailand's economy.¹ Additionally, over the next decade, Thailand's economic outlook looks promising as the country is forecast to grow from USD $500 billion in 2022 to USD $860 billion in 2032.¹ 

At F4S, many of our high-growth ventures, enterprises, partners, and business owners leverage our Thailand Culture Map to hire, retain talent, and maximize the support and performance of their Thai workers and teams. 

We help address the challenge of entering this new market and building a workforce that understands Thailand's working population's different work styles and motivations.

Research on Thailand's business culture

In our research, we identified the top five motivations for Thailand's working population. These motivations demonstrate Thailand’s preference filters; where they derive the most energy, and what they feel most empowered to work on. Successful businesses can leverage this awareness to enhance synergy and businesses within Thailand.

Thai people's top motivation is Seeing, showing that they gain confidence in decision-making predominantly through images, observations, inspections, and other visual representations. Thai people will be most energized when conversations, experiences, or reports are accompanied by visual inputs such as video, graphs, or images. When helping inspire confidence in Thai team members, it will be beneficial to include visuals that accompany information, as opposed to written information or discussions alone.

Ranked second in the top five motivations, Thai people orient themselves to the Present time period. Thai people prefer a pragmatic and realistic approach, being highly focused on their actions and decisions' immediate impact and implications. For Thai people, the present time is the vehicle for caring for the future. They will base their decisions on ‘here and now’ information, such as what they hear, feel, or see.

Third in the top five motivations, Thai people focus on Concept. When engaging in projects or tasks, they prioritize having a clear thesis, with an interest in analyzing and building a theoretical framework before organizing resources and taking action. When approaching tasks, Thai people prefer to take an analytical approach instead of immediately diving into action and planning.

Ranked fourth in the top five motivations, when it comes to work interests, Thai people pay the most attention to Information, preferring to be well-informed. They prioritize knowing the right information and where and how to get it. When working with Thai people, provide opportunities to discover, research, collect, and interpret information in projects.

Ranking fifth in the top five motivations, Achievement shows that Thai people’s preferred leadership style is influencing others with successful performance and achieving challenging work or business outcomes. Thai people will most often thrive when acknowledged for their or their team’s contribution to achieving goals or objectives. To inspire and maintain confidence in Thai People, ensure a high degree of recognition and ambitious objectives within their role.

Doing business in Thailand

Thailand's culture is benchmarked against F4S' two Success Factor Models. Our Starting-up Success Factor model provides awareness of the entrepreneurial talents of Thai people and the potential to facilitate a stronger startup ecosystem. Our Scale-up Success Factor model highlights the motivations to grow and scale up a business. Our research found several motivations that, through targeted strategies, can cultivate stronger entrepreneurial skills, improve business growth, and produce successful business practices.

Thailand’s working population’s motivation scores indicate that Thailand is especially suited for business building and aligned to the success of mature-stage ventures. In terms of profitability, business longevity, and success in obtaining investment, Thailand’s working motivations match many of the motivational trends observed in our research. 

Thai people’s strengths include their preference to reference external data, gather feedback and follow a trusted, tried, and proven process with some energy for considering alternative options or possibilities. Thai people are motivated by starting something new, planning and organizing, looking ahead, and working directly with the financials.

Blind spots identified in the Scaling-up Success Factor model present opportunities for further growth, adaptability, and business longevity. These include a high preference for Depth, an attitude best summed up as ‘attention to detail’ was attributed to early and mature- stage venture failure. And a low focus on Goal Orientation, Internal Reference, Convinced Automatically, and Breadth. Increasing motivation for these attitudes would benefit Thai people in setting goals, motivating teams, building trust, and seeing things from a wider, global perspective.

Thailand’s working population’s motivation scores indicate an opportunity to invest in fostering entrepreneurial mindsets. Enabling early-stage ventures to increase their potential for success and preventing business failure. Thai people demonstrate alignment with successful early-stage ventures’ openness to creating new possibilities, being future-orientated, owning their personal power, taking on challenges, and having an interest in the financials.

In addition to these motivations in which Thai people have strengths, there are opportunities to learn from blindspots, which are specific motivations found to have significance in venture success. Cultivating a higher focus on Initiation and Breadth will better support early-stage ventures in Thailand to move from idea to action quickly, with the ability to see the big picture from a global and macro perspective. Lowering the preference for Structure and Depth allows for agility and fosters an entrepreneurial mindset.   

These findings display an opportunity for foreign investment activity and increased business activity within startups, government bodies, commercial banks, businesses, and other private entities. All of these factors can be instrumental to enhancing the Thailand economy by building greater entrepreneurial skills, leveraging their alignment to build businesses, informing direct investment choices, and utilizing the talents of Thai workers.

How the F4S Thai workforce research supports your business in Thailand

Using the F4S tool enables leaders to understand Thailand's business culture, which can improve collaboration, onboarding, foreign investment choices, and overall productivity within organizations. It also enables enterprises and governments to strategically position Thailand for global partnerships, innovation, funding, and upskilling of entrepreneurial talent. This would benefit various industries, foreign entities, business services, international organizations, insurance companies, government departments, commercial banks, and large and small businesses.

Through this research, we can identify the cultural undertones of doing business in Thailand and educate international businesses and cultures on how to work, communicate and build relationships with Thai people. This could help foreign nationals, companies, and private entities work optimally with Thailand's workforce. Funders, VCs, and accelerators can adapt this research to identify or cultivate talent early on, and improve the quality of programs offered to facilitate the growth of entrepreneurial mindsets, resulting in more startups and successful investments. It can also turn Thailand into an economic powerhouse where commercial banks, government incentives, and business and foreign country investment foster a supportive business environment.

Through the application of evidence-based research, this research could leverage the current talents of Thai people and foster a more robust entrepreneurial and business ecosystem.