Philippines’ Workforce Research

These insights improve talent acquisition, talent development, help resolve conflict, develop high-performing teams, and promote cross-cultural interaction. Using our motivational assessment, we can create a culture map detailing the unique motivations of the working population of countries and business workforces.

The Philippines Culture Map is a groundbreaking study, providing a never-before-seen lens into the motivations, attitudes, and behaviors of the Philippines' working population. It is a statistical deepdive into the Filipino working culture, representing many unseen or yet-to-be-discovered talents unique to the Philippines. 

Built on 20 years of evidence-based research in the field of cognitive science, a Culture Map can provide detailed information on how to leverage, strategize and better understand new opportunities for the Filipino workforce. This data can be applied across all verticals of the Philippines, including government, business, entrepreneurship, investment, industry, and education, to inform decisions for the future of economic growth and development.

S&P Global forecasts that as the Philippines' economy continues to grow rapidly, the country's total GDP will increase from USD $400 billion in 2021 to USD $830 billion in 2031.¹ By 2034, S&P Global predicts that the Philippines will become one of the Asia-Pacific region's one trillion-dollar economies, joining China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan, and Indonesia.¹ 

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

We help address the challenge for businesses entering this new market and building a workforce understanding the Philippines' working population's different work styles and motivations.

Research on the business culture in the Philippines

In our research, we identified what we call the top five motivations for the Filipino working population. These motivations demonstrate Filipinos’ 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 business within the Philippines.

Filipinos’ top motivation is Concept, meaning they prioritize developing a fuller understanding by starting with a thesis or hypothesis to build a strategy before taking action. Filipinos are energized by a clear purpose or an understanding of ‘why’ they are doing a task. When assigning a task or project to Filipinos, always provide the context, including the theory behind the decision, for them to feel comfortable moving into action.

Seeing, or a focus on visuals, ranked second in the top five motivations of the Philippines' working culture. This shows that Filipinos gain confidence from visual inputs in decision-making. Most Filipinos enjoy in-person meetings, video calls, presentations, graphs, and other visual aids to help them feel confident in decision-making. For example, when needing to understand commercial figures and statistics within the business, an accompanying visual would be helpful to increase understanding of the information.

Present, or focus on the here and now, ranked third. This means Filipinos’ ideas, inspiration, and energy are drawn from the present moment. To maintain motivation and inspiration, Filipino team members will want to focus on what is happening in the present and how they can make an immediate impact on their projects.

Evolution, or being motivated to gradually and incrementally improve over time, ranked fourth in the top motivations. When dealing with change, Filipinos feel most comfortable working with something already existing and improving it over time instead of having radical or no changes. Many Filipinos will stay motivated in a role for 5-7 years before requiring or seeking change. 

Consistency, or the motivation to double or triple-check information for accuracy, ranked fifth in the top five motivations of the Philippines' working culture. Filipinos place great importance on the accuracy of the information and working within certainty. Offering regular reassurance and confirmation will be essential to build confidence when working with Filipino team members.

Philippines' business landscape

Our Starting-up Success Factor models provide awareness of the entrepreneurial capacities of Filipinos 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 can cultivate stronger entrepreneurial skills, improve business growth, and produce successful business practices.

The Filipino working population’s motivation scores in the Scaling-up Success Factor model indicates that the Philippines is especially suited for successful business building and aligned to the success of mature-stage ventures. In terms of profitability, business longevity, and success in obtaining investment, the Philippines’ working motivations match many of the motivational trends observed in our research. Of note is Filpinos’ focus on considering Alternatives, being energized to make continuous improvements, and trying something completely new with a forward-thinking approach to how today’s decisions can affect the future.

Blindspots identified in the Scaling-up Success Factor model present opportunities for further growth, adaptability, and business longevity. High motivation for Depth or high attention to detail was attributed to early- and mature-stage venture failure. Similarly, a low focus on Initiation, Internal Reference, and Breadth is considered a blind spot for both startup and scale-up phases. This means they are potential leverage points that, with awareness and conscious effort to improve, can become tremendous conduits for transformative change in business culture and business services.

The results for the Starting-up Success Factor model demonstrate key motivations that align with entrepreneurship. The strengths aligning with the model involve a motivation for being in a position of direct influence on projects, solving problems, and understanding the ‘why’ behind projects. Fostering energy for working with business financials, making decisions based on internal criteria, rapidly turning ideas into action, and moving quickly with big-picture thinking can increase the potential for early-stage venture success.

These findings portray an opportunity for foreign investment and successful businesses to build greater entrepreneurial skills, leverage their alignment to scaling businesses, and utilize the talents of their Filipino workers.

How our research supports your business in the Philippines

Using the F4S tool enables leaders to understand the Philippines' population's working culture and motivations, which can improve collaboration, onboarding, and overall productivity within organizations. This could include various industries, foreign businesses, business services, international organizations, government departments, and large and small businesses. This awareness creates opportunities to guide business decisions with the Filipino working culture in mind, increasing the likelihood of success. 

The Philippines’ working population’s motivation scores indicate that there is an opportunity to invest in fostering entrepreneurial mindsets. This enables early-stage ventures to increase their potential for success and prevent business failure.

Entrepreneurial mindsets require a high focus on commercialization, confidence in decision-making, starting fast, and using a big-picture focus to grasp complex concepts quickly. Business owners can foster this mindset by providing opportunities for Filipinos to increase mindsets for working with Money and Internal Referencing in Decision Making, Initiation to turn ideas into action rapidly, and moving quickly with Big Picture thinking without needing details. 

Lowering the preference for Structure and Depth correlated with early venture failure in our research, would allow for increased agility and contribute to developing entrepreneurial talents. Fostering these mindsets can enhance the development of a vibrant culture that prioritizes moving fast and making a difference.

As entrepreneurial mindsets are related to being an Intrapreneur, utilizing entrepreneurial skills in a large organization, high-growth venture, or corporation, they are immensely useful to any stage of your business. Business leaders can also utilize current talents for scaling businesses and awareness of the motivations of the Filipino workforce to improve the hiring and onboarding of talent in the Philippines, enhance team formation and bonding, and improve Filipino colleagues’ overall performance and productivity.