Career Development Throughout Working Life

APEC Forum on Human Resources Development

Sustainable Career Development throughout Working Life

By

Areeya Rojvithee

Deputy-Director General

Department of Skill Development

Ministry of Labour, Thailand

Introduction

1. This paper was written for APEC Forum on Human Resources Development

“Sustainable Career Development throughout Working Life”, organized by Ministry of Health,Labour and Welfare and the Overseas Vocational Training Association, Japan during 14th-16th November 2007 at Chiba, Japan.

1. The content of this paper consists ofdefinition, state of the problems, policies on human resources development (HRD), Skill Development Promotion Act, Occupational Promotion Act, role of Ministry of Education, Department of Employment and the establishment. Some cases study presented and ended with the conclusion and recommendation.
2. The information in this paper based on the paper named:

(1)The “Competence Development as Workplace Learning in Thailand” written by Dr. Patcharawalai Wongboonsin and Ms. Areeya Rojvithee for ASEM Research Seminar organized by Leopold-Franzens-University of Innsbruck, Institute of Educational Sciences, Austria during 25 – 27 September 2006.

(2)APEC Forum on Human Resources Development : Increasingly Vital Role of Enterprises in HRD,Chiba, Japan 6 – 8 December 2006.

DEFINITION

4. Career Development is a part of Organizational Development (OD) which looks at how individuals manage their careers within and between organizations and how organizations structure the career progress of their memberscan be tied in to succession planning within some organizations. This definition means to people who are working in any organization. But in broader sense, career development means to the process of identifying and implementing career activities that cause change for the purpose of growth. Furthermore career development is the progression through a sequence of jobs, involving continually more advanced or diverse activities and resulting in wider or improved. Career development can be done through education and training both formal and informal, through work experiences, job networking or formal courses, etc.

5. Businesses used to partner with employees to carry out employees’ career planning and development. Times have changed. Now, businesses are coming to view career development primarily as the employee’s responsibility. As the world of work is rapidly changing, employers are interested in hiring people who can demonstrate their skills, abilities, competencies and have right attitude in working. Hence, there are special training courses organized by academics, professional association, distance learning, website, career services, E-manual for career development, etc., to help people to develop goals, strategies to progress in their career.

STATE OF THE PROBLEMS

6. Globalization, rapid development of technology and high competition on international trade make each business struggle for survival. The main factor that can help businesses to survive is the quality of human resource. So, the human development has never been as important as it is in today. The Thai government realized those pressures and also the Thai society is lacking of skill workforce and approaching the aging society, lacking new entrants to the labour market. Hence, various policies on education, training and life long learning / training for employability have been issued for developing knowledge, skills and competencies of people.

POLICY ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT (HRD)

The Policies of the Government related to HRD can be considered from:

Policy on Skill Development

7.The policy on HRD can be considered from the policies of the National Economic and Social Development Plan, the current government policy and the policy of the Minister of Labour, and the Labour Development Plan 2007 which is the guideline for implementation.

The 10th National Economic and Social Development Plan A.D 2007 - 2011

8.The vision of Thailand is to develop the country to be the green and happiness society through the King’s Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy. The content deals with Human Resources Development are :

To develop the quality of people and the Thai society to be the wisdom and learning society.

To develop the potential, competency and skills of people to cope with the competitiveness of the country by increasing knowledge and skills for working such as analytical skill, innovation, problem solving, decision-making, team working, ethics and working discipline for working with the new technology as well as increasing productivity.

Set up the system of learning and training that can be working with new technology. Networking from the basic to the professional level, and link between government, private sector, and the community for the labour development. Organizing short courses training, promote inplant training, workplace learning, and the learning centre. Set up the system that match the skills or competency to the wage structure. The skill training should be extended to the vulnerable people who are employees or self-employed people.

Policy of the Current Government

9.Labour is the vital basis for the economic sector which should be strengthen by the cooperation of workers, public and private sectors on knowledge and skill development and development of the quality of workforce in all levels to have high productivity and wage as the level of national skills standard. Promote the employment, supplementary occupation, labour protection labour relations, occupational, safety and health, the social security and the welfare of the workers.

Labour Development Plan A.D. 2007

10.Ministry of Labour (MOL) has vital role on economic and social development, especially on increasing the potential and competency of the total workforce 37.87 million persons to have good quality of life and stay happily in the society.

The Mission of the Ministry of Labour are employment promotion, skill development, protection of the working conditions, occupational safety and health, promotion of industrial relations, and promotion of the social security scheme. The Ministry is extending scope of protection to the people in the informal sector and also preparing the measure for the aging people who are increasing year by year.

For the Security of the Nation Ministry of Labour has also control the working of migrant workers both legal and illegal approximately 1 million people.

MOL also look after overseas Thai workers who are working abroad 500,000 people.

The content of skill development appears in the Labour Development Plan of Ministry of Labour in the strategy for providing and development of the Quality of the workforce as following :

• Making Manpower Development plan.
• Acceleration the recruitment and development workforce to have qualification to be relevant to the demand of establishments.
• Acceleration the workforce development to acquire knowledge,working competency and skill as the demand of the labour market.
• Increasing yield or productivity for the agriculturist.
• Development the establishments for the quality of the workforce.
• Development the labour market system.
• Management of the migrant workers.

11. All those policies implemented by line ministries that are responsible for the policy such as Ministry of Education, Higher Education, Labour, Interior and Industry, etc . The Government has primary responsibility for education, pre-employment training and training the unemployed and people with special needs.The social partners play a significant role in further training and particularly employers in work-place learning and training. Individuals are expected to make use of education, training and Lifelong Learning.

SKILL DEVELOPMENT PROMOTION ACT B.E.2545 (A.D.2002)

12.Skill development has never been as important as it is in today’s globalizing world, where technology dictates rapid changes to the way in which skills are acquired, new skills developed and existing skills upgraded. Thai government considers that human resource is the main asset of nation and should be continuously developed on par with the development of socio-economic and technology to be high quality resource.

There is a need to rethink and broaden the notion of lifelong education and training. Not only must it adapt to changes in the nature of work, but it must also constitute a continuous process of forming whole human beings – their knowledge and aptitudes, as well as the critical faculty and ability to act. It should enable people to develop awareness of themselves and their environment and encourage them to play their social role at work and in the community.

Thai government has clear policy on human resources development considering that the best strategy to develop workforce is in the workplace, so the vital role of enterprises on human resources development has been recognized and the Skill Development Promotion Act B.E.2002 has been issuing for encouraging enterprises to provide training, upgrading skills, knowledge and competencies for employees and for those who are not employees. And also encourage private sector to set up and register with the DSD their own training centers for workplace learning and training.. The incentives have been provided to enterprises by deduction the cost of training 200 percent from the annual tax payment. The compulsory measure has been applied for the establishments that have at least 100 employees have to provide training for the employees at the rate of 50 percent of the total number of employees, if not the employer have to pay contribution to the Skill Development Fund approximately 480 baht per head per year for the number of untrained employees. Further more the establishments gain other benefit under this Act such as exemption tax of the training machines, bringing experts or trainers to train their workers. Free charge of water and electric fees. The Thai fiscal year started from the October to September, according to the DSD,2,919,719 workers were trained in the workplaces during October 2006 – September 2007(Labour Information for Administrators, September 2007).

Draft of Occupational Promotion Act B.E…

13. The Cabinet approved the draft of the Occupational Promotion Act proposed by Ministry of Labour as at the meeting on 12 June 2007. In accordance with official procedure the draft Act is on process to get consideration from the National Legislative Assembly.

Occupational Promotion Act in Brief

The following is the significant content of the draft Act:

• To promote the setting up individual’s experience documentation;
• To provide the proficiency classification and appropriate wages rate of occupations in line with proficiency classification;
• The Act provides recognize system in occupational trades;
• The Occupational Promotion Fund is set up in order to promote occupational development of people.
• The Act provides privilege incentive such as tax exemption for those enterprises involve in the scheme by employing proficiency certified employees and affording the wages according to the level of their competencies, skills.
• For those who would like to employ and be employed in the particular occupational trades which might be harmful to public safety, should apply skill license for working in that trade and the license should be renewed every five years.

Benefit to Public

14. Once this new Act enters into force, employers, employees, training institutes, and public will gain benefit from the Act. Since the Act is used as the tool to promote a better employment system by providing qualified employees for employers, better job opportunities for employees, appropriate human resource development direction and framework for training institutes, therefore public as a whole will mostly gain benefit from such Act.

15. This Act will promoted the career development of employees in the workplace and for experienced people that have no qualification to have guarantee system for their knowledge, competencies to work and gain suitable wages for their capabilities.

ROLE OF MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

16. Ministry of Education has main responsibility on providing career guidance for students to choose their career during their schooling system in order to make decision in the higher education.

ROLE OF DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT (DOE)

17. Department of Employment, Ministry of Labour has main responsibility on providing report on demand and supply of labour market information and also provide services on vocational guidance and employment services based on the labour market information.The service of DOE targeting to job seekers, informal sectors, self employment, students and people looking for part time job or supplementary occupation. The methodology is the aptitude test, psychiatric discovering, software program for self discovering for each occupation and profile of each occupation. From October 2006 to September 2007 there were 2,239,311 persons received the services of DOE.

ROLE OF ESTABLISHMENT

18. For people working in establishments especially in large and multinational enterprises have good system on career development in the workplace initiated by the CEO or the administrative level. In this paper presented two cases study of the Somboon Group and the Siam Cement Public Company Limited. ( detail appeared in the annex).

19.The Somboon Group Company

The Somboon Group Company is producing the automotive spare parts with 749 employees. The company issued the Competency Visa for all employees which was a new trend in Thailand. (See the process below).

Below exemplified the Competency Visa of each employee of the company.

Source: Somboon Group Company

The competency covered core and functional competency.

Core competency included commitment and skills: adjustment, interpersonal, communication, leadership, and occupational skill, etc.

Functional competency comprised of analytical skill, problem solving, hard-ware and computer software skills. The gap between required and existing skills of each employee was identified before training (See below charts). The charts and the above Visa were put together in a booklet form for evaluation and updated on a regular basis.

Source: Somboon Group Company

20.Siam Cement Public Company Limited (A Thai-Owned Company)[1]

Learning Organization in The Siam Cement Public Company Limited

Information on the Corporation

In 1913, His Majesty King Rama VI (Vajiravudh) issued a Royal Decree to establish the Siam Cement Company (SCC). The company was the first of its kind to manufacture and distribute cement, a fundamental constituent for construction, to play a leading role in the construction industry, which is of particular importance to a developing country such as Thailand at that time.

Today, SCC has evolved into the parent company of the Siam Cement Group, one of Thailand’s largest industrial conglomerates, with five business units: Cement, Petrochemicals, Paper & Packaging, Building Products, Distribution, along with two Holding Companies: Cement Thai Holdings which is a holding company for approximately 50 operations, most of which are joint-ventures and Property Group which itself is a holding company for nine other companies that specialize in property related management services.

Siam Cement is a domestic player in all core business. In Thailand, the company havecapacity shares of 41% for cement, 35% for ethylene, 36% for propylene, 42% for polyethylene aggregates, 25% for polypropylene, 44% for pulp, 46% for industrial paper and 21% for printing & writing paper.

Human Resource Development Philosophy

Technology, machinery and capital, these all-important factors in manufacturing have no meaning without people to control and manage them. Critical to producing products of the highest quality are energy, intelligence and commitment. For these reasons, the Group considers people to be the most valuable asset of all and constantly strives in every possible ways and means to cultivate the highest capabilities possible. This is clearly demonstrated in line with the Group’s “Belief in the value of the Individual”. The Group makes sure that employees are properly recruited, given appropriate compensation, and is well developed and motivated. The Group invests in people and treats them as members of the family, not merely as staff in the organization. Two percent of SCC budget is invested in employee education every year.

Process of Organization Development

1. To provide development and training programs for all employees regardless of their careers and professional skills.
2. Training activities are initiated continuously throughout the organization.
3. The Group regards development and training as an essential investment.
4. It is a prime responsibility of every affiliated company to initiate and support training activities.
5. All supervisors are responsible for administering training programs for their subordinates.
6. Employees participating in training courses are strongly encouraged to absorb knowledge and acquire modern techniques from these courses for their own as well as the company’s benefits.

The Group also had set guidelines on training programs. Employees are expected to be equipped with knowledge, skill and good attitude. They are trained according to the nature of their jobs, responsibilities and competency model. There are three training schemes.

Training Relating to Functional Skill

Training Relating to Conceptual Skill

Training Relating to Personal Skill

The first and the second training schemes are aimed at developing employees capacity to be the “smart people” while the third one is meant for employee to be the “good people” or develop good attitude towards others, towards supervisors and subordinates, company’s customers, enhancing team building capabilities, and also extend to morality in daily life.

The Group offers a promising career plan for every employee. A university graduate will easily reach a managerial level after 10 years of services. MDP (Management Development Program), and intensive 3-week program, is a training program for managerial level, its content includes marketing, finance, operational excellence, leadership and strategic management. Many outstanding professors from leading universities in USA are selected to conduct MDP courses each year. The success of the MDP of the Group has been well known in Thailand since 1980. Later on other organizations such as banks, manufacturing companies also provide the same kind of programs as the Group as an incentive for their managerial level employees. (MDP includes Information Resource Management, Leadership and change, Financial Management and Control, Production and Operations Management, Strategic Management.)