As a member country and partner within the ASEAN Economic Community, Thailand needs to keep appraised of human resources innovations and changes taking place in other member countries. We can thereby maintain our competitive advantage and potentially learn from the experience of neighbour countries.
Such recent examples include professional conversion programs under schemes introduced by Singapore’s labour management authorities, now being expanded by additional financing.
Increasingly rapid, progressing technologies in every field of endeavour, in almost every country in the world, are overwhelming the capabilities of even experienced professional workers, as well as lower level workplace operatives. We have already entered a world of e-commerce, e-industry and, in fact, e-living and e-everything. Some professions are becoming obsolete, while new professions are emerging. Continuous professional development and training helps, and is essential for the public and private sectors to remain competitive, locally and internationally. Many professional bodies require regular attendance at updating programs and seminars in order to maintain the right to use qualification designations. In particular, legal, accounting and engineering professional associations provide and insist on these schemes, while best practice employers normally offer time allocation and funding to facilitate such attendance. But SMEs are often unable to afford the time or money for such upgrading, and only richer governments can offer training free or subsidised, together with wage substitution for professionals or workers taking time off from paid employment for training.
Furthermore in many situations occurring nowadays, it is not so much a question of upgrading skills, but rather of changing profession or occupations in mid-stream careers.
Thus in the rail industry, conversion from steam locomotives to electric or diesel electric systems meant retraining engine drivers and finding new jobs for firemen. In-some countries, with careful planning, this modernisation process was a smooth conversion. In others it resulted in acrimonious disputes, strikes and job-losses. In a few cases, the firemen had to be retained as surplus assist drivers: firemen without fire.
Some older workers are simply unable to adapt to new technologies, and some business and industry sectors have themselves either to adapt fundamentally or disappear like dinosaurs.
The Singapore government has recognised these issues, and set up a funded conversion program to assist professionals, managers, executives and technicians to adapt to the new working environment, and even start new careers, in new or expanding industrial or business sectors.
The Singapore Workforce Development Agency is expanding this program with a special S$40 million (1 billion baht) program to assist workforce members with obsolescent skills to undertake courses enabling them to train and transfer into alternative occupations. This funding will not only pay for course fees, but even offer salary support during training. It is fully recognised that, however motivated workers may be, to retrain and move jobs, family responsibilities may make this impossible without financial support, which only government can provide.
With the growing mismatch between skill supply and demand, this “human re-engineering” service has become an urgent necessity. This particularly applies to older workers, who may be declared redundant, and be unable to find new jobs using existing skills.
For Singapore, this can become an even more urgent necessity, because of economic slowdown. This trend has been clearly identified by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower, which keeps a close watch on industrial and employment trends. Thailand lacks up-to-date statistics and information on trends, especially forecasts of the future outlook. Neither the public nor the private sectors are as aware as their Singapore counterparts, of what is happening, how to handle the challenges, and, most particularly, how to pay for remedial action.
Singapore, by contrast, has already established 31 professional training programs in 14 different sectors, to be expanded to at least 20 sectors. The course programs are not only theoretical, but include practical internships to provide on-the-job experience.
In addition to the course program, there is an expanding series of job fairs, workshops and promotional activities to help workers at all levels to increase awareness of labour, skill and career opportunities. A pilot Professional Conversion Program was first set up in 2007, so far helping over 7,000 career transformations, with an average of 1,500 program graduates now being assisted every year. However, with the new funding, along with Singapore’s ageing society, and the rapid acceleration of technological transformation, the program will need to be developed to reach more candidates in more sectors in coming years.
In these ways, Singapore is determined to stay ahead, but also to minimise the social fallout from the technological age. How Thailand can match Singapore’s initiatives, with career transformation hardly recognised, let alone implemented, is an important issue for human resource policy makers and industry managers to consider and effectively manage.
Christopher F. Bruton, 45 years in Thailand, is Executive Director of Dataconsult Ltd, a local consultancy. He can be reached at chris@dataconsult.co.th. Dataconsult’s Thailand Regional Forum provides meetings, seminars and extensive documentation to update business on present and future trends.