Improving Filipino restaurant management in Thailand to increase the wellbeing of Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs)

Individuals’ wellbeing can be greatly influenced by their surroundings and how they are treated by others. This research focuses in particular on how the design, customer-care, worker-care, and management aspects of Filipino restaurants in Bangkok can be refined for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), and others, to enable such businesses to have increased resilience and relevance in the new normal and beyond.This present research investigates how amplification of family values can be used to advantage, apply to create greater mutual benefit, and how through learning to care better for themselves, OFWs can care better for others, creating more resilient businesses and communities, and help build a brand ethos for Filipino restaurants within Bangkok.This research focuses on identifying the factors that affect the wellbeing of consumers and workers in a Filipino restaurant setting. With this in mind, design, management, worker-care and customer-care solutions were drafted after undertaking a critical literature review, multiple surveys, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), and interviews. The solutions that have been developed focus on biophilia and biophilic design, family-values, and the use of empathy to enhance wellbeing.It is proposed that by adopting these core wellbeing solutions, which also address other factors deemed important in the restaurant industry, Filipino entrepreneurs can create unique business identities that will be resilient in the new normal and beyond while also enhancing both brand identity and consumer appeal. It is further suggested that the findings and best practice suggestions made may also be applied to similar businesses overseas.