Roy Tang

Locals will have a tendency to fawn over Westerners who come to the country, so at least at the start you might feel like you can do no wrong.

Locals are also a lot less… direct than Westerners and if there are problems they may dance about the issues a bit for fear of looking bad. You might need to be less direct with any criticism than you’re used to with Westerners. And some might have difficulty talking to you if they aren’t confident in their English (most Filipinos will be able to speak/understand English to some extent, but not everyone will have decent grammar etc)

And there’s a strong sense of power distance in the company, so they might be a bit afraid of you especially if you are perceived as being “higher in the food chain”.

Going out with them for meals and maybe treating them every once in a while (don’t let them get used to it) would be good ways to become accepted as part of the group. But that power distance may be difficult to breach.

All of these are generalizations of course, not all locals are like the above (I consider myself an exception - I’m quite direct even when talking to foreigners), so YMMV.