Creating a happy working life for employees not only increases their efficiency but also boosts company sales.

This is one of the strongest philosophies of Medhee Jarumaneeroj, Proctor and Gamble Trading (Thailand)'s manager for marketing and corporate communications.

"I think a company's good performance depends mostly on good internal operations and its employees' admiration for the organisation," he says. "We have to encourage them to think that way."

So Medhee went about making Proctor and Gamble's employees happy. But his methods could tempt more conservative businessmen to believe they go too far.

He asked them a simple question: would you be happier if you could work from home one day a week? The outcome is that all 160 employees in Procter and Gamble's Bangkok office can choose one day a week to do so.

The company supports the programme by installing high-speed Internet access at employees' homes and pays telephone expenses. "We don't have an over-claiming problem because we trust each other," Medhee says.

Eight months after its launch, 80 per cent of the company's employees have joined the work-at-home programme. They must first choose which day they want to work away from the office, so that their absence fits in with their colleagues and ensures continuity of the company's operations.

An evaluation of working efficiency and employees' attitudes to their employer has shown that the programme works.

"Most of them [the employees] share the same view that the programme allows them to concentrate on work quality, and they are happier to work in a convenient place," Medhee says.

In his original plan to lift staff happiness and improve working efficiency there were three programmes: working from home, work-life balance and sport recognition.

After graduating with a master's in business administration from Assumption University, Medhee worked as an account executive for the advertising firm Oglivy and Mather. But after two years, he resigned.

"I love teaching," he says. "I thought I should be contributing things to society instead of continuing to work under pressure."

In 1999, Medhee began a new job as a lecturer in international marketing and consumer behaviour at Assumption University. But after teaching for a while, he felt his knowledge was not broad enough to properly help his students, so he decided to continue his studies.

He joined Procter and Gamble in 2000 after graduating with a master's in services in marketing from Thammasat University. He was promptly sent to Singapore, with the task of promoting the premium cosmetic SK-II, from Japan, in both Singapore and Malaysia.

His challenge was to lift SK-II to leadership among mass counter-sale cosmetics. In Singapore the brand was sold across only nine counters, and it quickly achieved No-1 position at six of them. The other three were not so easy, but finally SK-II edged out its competitors at all counters.

"I was very happy with that success because it was my first job at the company," he recalls.

In Malaysia, SK-II was trailing at only two of 27 counters, and in achieving his goal, Medhee found he enjoyed working seven days a week.

Walking from department store to department store, he conducted his own informal market survey. He talked not only with beauty advisers but also with customers, gaining first-hand information on both the market environment and consumer demands.

Medhee then joined with store managements to develop business plans and created marketing activities to boost sales.

"We tried to make the department stores feel like our partners, to help create a win-win strategy," he says. And win he did. After two years in Singapore, Proctor and Gamble was enjoying record sales.

Then, in 2003, he was recalled to Thailand to plan SK-II's sales in his home territory. He laid down a marketing plan for the brand, including focus-group studies. More than this, he was asked to take responsibility for all of Proctor and Gamble's products, totalling more than 20 brands, and to concentrate more on marketing research, marketing communication and corporate communication.

He drew up an internal development plan aiming to strengthen the company's own brand image as an "innovative" brand, touching life and improving it. The strategy seeks to bring the Proctor and Gamble brand closer to consumers and to improve their way of their life.

Sales of the SK-II brand are now growing faster in Thailand than in any other world market. It took only two years for SK-II to achieve the growth reached in Singapore in four years. Now, Medhee plans to achieve 22-per-cent growth every year, which is equal to the cosmetic's performance in Singapore and Malaysia.

Following Medhee's marketing plan, SK-II has taken a 5-per-cent share of the premium market, compared with the biggest player's share of 13 per cent.

"I'm impressed with the staff that works for the SK-II brand because, in four years since we launched the brand, there have been no resignations," he says.

Medhee is also playing a key role in promoting Proctor and Gamble's new focus on haircare, skin care, beauty care and conditioners.

"We lost our first place in the market for beauty-care products to our major rival, and we are reclaiming it with a good marketing result," he says.

Despite outstanding success as a marketing man, Medhee still wants to be a lecturer, but now thinks he will wait until his retirement. He also wants to continue studying for a doctorate, but has been put off by a professor's comment that his character and thinking methods are unsuitable for an academic.

He wants to see Thai business management gain wider recognition in Asia.

Achara Pongvutitham

The Nation