The best things you can do to earn a bigger a salary are:

1. Join an industry which pays well. Oil and gas, telecoms, banking and finance, IT, etc. If they don't earn it - they can't pay it out - which is why hospitality (generally) is pretty lowly paid.
2. Learn to sell yourself - that means learning to network, tapping into the resources of recruitment consultants, marketing your professional profile, etc.
3. Have a career plan. Where are you now? Where do you want to be? Without this - you are aimlessly wandering through life hoping for more cash rather than heading for it.
4. Develop specialist skills. If you want to run your own business - you need to be a generalist. If you want to work for someone and get paid - you need specialist skills. You do not have to go to university to develop such skills. There are millions of professional qualifications that can improve your career prospects dramatically.
5. Learn to ask for more money. Don't waste an opportunity and let an interviewer set salary expectations; learn to set your own in interviews. It is possible to push employers by 50% or more of their budget if you are the "perfect" candidate.

Very good points. They're also valid for about 80% of barang in Pp, incidentally.

Samouth wrote:

BawBawFett wrote:You could be "opening a can of worms" with this one!

Ok sir don't get me wrong. I always feel safe to speak and ask freely here. Every time i logged in CEO i felt like i was in another country surrounding by different people with different culture. I don't see any negative parts about this thread. It is not about racism.

I don't think he meant to imply anything truly negative, only that the subject was very large and had a lot of different aspects, and would trigger a lot of different (and sometimes conflicting) opinions. This making the question one that could unleash a lot more than any simple answers you may have expected.

wackyjacky wrote:This probably has nothing to do w/you Samouth, but here's my take. IMO, in SEA in general employers pretend to pay employees & employees pretend to work. Throwing bodies at the problem is counterproductive. Everyplace is overstaffed and due to low wages, most ignore customers, fuck around w/each other. or play on their phones. Most places 2 or 3 are doing nothing and 1 is working while customers wait. There are about 400% more employees than there would be in the West in service jobs & despite that, the service is far far worse. They make no money so the don't value their jobs. Stop over-staffing, make people actually work, & raise wages. Then the employee will probably value the job & actually do it. I was recently in a wine bar in BKK & there were 3 people at the bar, 7 bartenders (1 farang), maybe 5 in the dining room, & I couldn't get a drink. I had to get rude, stand up, & wave my arms. In SV at a joint on the beach there were 9 staff out front, the 2 of us were the ONLY customers, & they forgot to make or food ! Stuff like this happens to me almost daily. I've been all over the world and the service in CMB is the worst I've experienced anywhere.

I want to make this into a splash screen that shows when you enter the site it's so spot on. Sitting on one side of a bar doesn't qualify you to stand on the other and manage it.

1. Fire any staff for being useless is #1... and do it fast. Screw up once, warning. Twice, pack your shit. The economy is labor full, job short, and the required skills are minimal. Staff is very replaceable... probably overnight. And after 2 or 3 are dealt with like this... the rest will quickly snap into shape.
2. Don't employ anyone you can't fire. No family/friends of family/etc. Strangers only. Don't let your gf/spouse/etc become "familiar" and friendly with them. This will make enforcement much harder as they will see you as a peer instead of a boss. Keep yourself above them in all ways. This is very contrary to western employment where workers can be sociable and friendly with their boss, but you'll notice in most successful Asian countries/businesses the relationships work this way... there's a reason, it's cultural, don't try to get it - just follow it.
3. Pay a solid enough wage to add a little more value to 1 and 2. Losing a job in a country full of workers looking for one sucks, but losing a job that pays 15% over the market rate REALLY sucks.
4. Lock up phones in a box upon arrival, release them upon exit. I'd say 30% of the times I've had trouble getting service it was because someone was watching their phone instead of for customers.
5. Don't allow them to control the TV. This is 2 fold... one, it's a distraction like the phone. They're there to work, not watch TV. And two, western customers don't want to listen to/watch squawking khmer soap operas. Ideally put TVs where it's easy for customers to see and difficult for staff.

5 steps and I'd be willing to bet the service levels would skyrocket.

OrangeDragon wrote:

Samouth wrote:

BawBawFett wrote:You could be "opening a can of worms" with this one!

Ok sir don't get me wrong. I always feel safe to speak and ask freely here. Every time i logged in CEO i felt like i was in another country surrounding by different people with different culture. I don't see any negative parts about this thread. It is not about racism.

I don't think he meant to imply anything truly negative, only that the subject was very large and had a lot of different aspects, and would trigger a lot of different (and sometimes conflicting) opinions. This making the question one that could unleash a lot more than any simple answers you may have expected.

I am sorry BawBawFett.

OD:

With regard to point 1.

I question if you have ever run a hospitality business in Cambodia. Especially in SHV. It is not nearly as simple as you make out.

Staff is the biggest headache. Finding good staff with half way decent English with half a brain is very difficult. Even if you offer more than 20% above going rates it has no effect.

Pay them more and expect them to actually work and they quit because they work too hard often happens with the new hires.

Good staff are like gold and just as hard to find.

Yes there is a surplus of labour, but most have limited experience, limited ability to think and an even more limited desire to actually do work.

To the OP.

You are probably paid well for a Khmer, but way under what the barangs earn.

Act and work like a native and be paid like one.

I agree with logos as to education, but I feel this is more important to get the first job rather than for advancement.

Once you have a job, employers are more interested in experience rather than your grades.

On the job experience is mostly about learning and then practising what you have learned. Then mastering new skills and tasks which increase you ability and worth.

Good English at near native level helps a lot.

Saying "can" rather than "can not".

Taking responsibility for your actions helps. Forgetting about face is a big plus.

Admit when you need help rather than muddling through and doing an incompetent job. This means that the task will not be a disaster and you will learn. A good employer will prefer this over having to get the job done twice or fixing then mess up which can snowball later.

Actually doing things they way the employer wants/instructs rather than your way helps too. If you want to do it a different way, talk it over with the boss, you may well find out why doing it your way will not work.

In summary, learn lots on the job, get good experience, show your worth, show you can do the job of a barang (and largely think like one) and you will be more likely to earn close to a barang salary for the job.

LaudJohn wrote:OD:

With regard to point 1.

I question if you have ever run a hospitality business in Cambodia. Especially in SHV. It is not nearly as simple as you make out.

Staff is the biggest headache. Finding good staff with half way decent English with half a brain is very difficult. Even if you offer more than 20% above going rates it has no effect.

Pay them more and expect them to actually work and they quit because they work too hard often happens with the new hires.

Good staff are like gold and just as hard to find.

Yes there is a surplus of labour, but most have limited experience, limited ability to think and an even more limited desire to actually do work.

And then on the flip side... once your staff know you value them like gold they get to be the boss. Hell, hire a few incompetent ones on purpose just to the others can see you sack someone now and then and keep that fear or it happening in them.

SHV is a bit of an exception to the rule though, as with every barang owning a bar/guesthouse/etc or two it reverses the labor surplus status... they know they can go get a job at one of the other 60 bars up the street.

Start hiring barang backpackers instead... they'll do slave labor if it means getting to extend their stay another 2 months.

a barang will ALWAYS earn more than a khmer (comparable position, company etc) simply for the reason that they are deployed.

working abroad earns more by default.

strange, that nobody here mentioned this...?

Samouth, my fiancee makes more than a lot westerners. Plus benefits. But she does work 50hours + per week, sometimes more when contracts call for a deadline to be met. Always half to full day Saturdays. But her boss seems to treat her well.

She earned all of it herself and I'm proud of her. I know she will do great I'm my native country.

My fiancee works for a medium sized construction company (Khmer owned, rags to riches story with the owner). They build small rural bridges and roads. She's the General Manager/queen-of-all-trades at the company.

Her Bachelor degree is a B.s in Computer Science. So that is a good example of how she's worked her way up to a position within an industry that is 0% related to her degree!