Po Chung, co-founder of DHL International Asia-Pacific, discusses his "entrepreneurial life journey" and describes the attributes of a successful entrepreneur, particularly during what he calls "the first 10 yards". The Nation's Pichaya Changsorn reports.
Even if you have never been a business manager, you are already the manager of your own life, says Po Chung, co-founder of DHL International Asia-Pacific, who now teaches entrepreneurship at the University of Hong Kong.
"Every one of us is the entrepreneur of our own life," he told a group of students on a recent visit to Bangkok. "Nobody has lived your life before; you're the first one. So, you can do anything. You can start-up. You can manage [a business to become] a good asset or you can be as poor as you can be, not only in a money sense but also in a spiritual sense."
Chung, who co-authored the book "The First 10 Yards: The Five Dynamics of Entrepreneurship", was lecturing to about 40 students from 13 European countries who took part in the Asian University's "Summer University" programme.
"Many people are very rich in money but very poor in spirit," he said.
"Since life is an entrepreneurial journey and you're the entrepreneur of your life, by understanding, designing, creating and managing your journey, you can control your future."
Giving his life as an example of an "entrepreneurial life-long journey", Chung said his early life was not so affluent because his father lost his businesses during the Communist "liberation war" and the family had to escape from China to Macau. He had to drop out of school and went fishing for two years because his father ran out of money when he was in the third grade.
Then life became better. Chung moved to Hong Kong and was eventually able to join a well-known boarding school, St Stephen's College, and later went to Hong Kong University. He was doing well until he overslept and missed a history examination. His father then sent him to study at the University of the Seven Seas, which was actually a ship that hosted teachers and students who had to sail around the world while studying.
However, Chung had to change his university again because his father wanted him to study science subjects, instead of history or geography. So he signed up for fisheries management at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California.
Chung said that although he never practised fisheries management one day in his life. He was able to apply the knowledge he gained to his life's work.
"I stole shamelessly everything I knew about fisheries and used it in my businesses. I was able to make the 'cross over', and I've been stealing even since: when I talk with people, I asked them questions, [get them] to tell their ideas, and I convert [these] into my businesses."
The courier business was not his first job after graduation. He worked for Topper Toys, a toy manufacturer which he found gave little attention to its workers because "everything she had to do, she could learn in 15 minutes. So, if she didn't come to work, they could easily find someone to replace her.
"In courier services, you can't do that because the courier drives the truck and he's out for three hours. [And while he's out] he can decide either to smile or not to smile. It's not like in McDonald's, [where] everything is under one roof. If a staff member doesn't smile, his supervisor can see he doesn't smile. But if [the courier] doesn't smile, nobody at our company knows.
"So we have to make sure the courier is happy in his life when he walks into a customer's reception area. He has to remember the name of the lady at the reception desk, and pretty soon they will remember his name.
"We paid attention not only to how they were dressed, but made sure they were dating - I had to attend a lot of weddings," Chung said, with a grin.
The opportunity to launch the courier service came after two and a half years with Topper Toys. Chung had been promoted to operations manager, with responsibility for logistics and supply chain management. The skills and knowledge he gained from the toy firm readied him for the moment when Adrian Dalsey, a co-founder of DHL, flew to Hong Kong to offer Topper Toys a cutting-edge delivery service.
After only a few meetings, Chung succeeded in persuading Dalsey to fly back to his US headquarters and convince his partners to award Chung the rights to run DHL's business across the Asia-Pacific region. Chung began his entrepreneurial journey with DHL with US$50,000, only two customers, a secretary, no car and basically nothing else.
During DHL's first 15 years, from 1969-84, the firm expanded into 125 countries - or a new country every five weeks, on average. One of its key success factors was picking the right kind of employees.
"There was one formula in picking our people: we were hiring the kind of people we were willing to follow, others were willing to follow; others were willing to partner with."
Chung said DHL "scanned for viruses on the candidate's personal operating systems" such as their beliefs, values, behaviour, likes, dislikes, integrity and character.
"Basically, [it's about] who are you. Can people trust you? Are you unkind, unfair, shameless, corrupt, rude, a liar, unwise, disloyal, cowardly, a repeater of mistakes, or unforgiving? "
There was also another lesson: getting the right name is very important. Unlike some of its competitors, Chung said, DHL had an initial advantage because its name was easy to pronounce in any language.
"That's why, when I picked the names for my children, I made sure people could see them and were able to read them. Yet they are not common names."
Chung said entrepreneurs had to have a basic quality which he called a "sleep factor".
"Many people think about risk factors, and I admit risk taking is important. But you also have to be able to 'silo' your problems, [leaving yourself the capacity] to go to sleep, even when you get caught," he said, citing his own experience during an initial stage when he was arrested by the police for infringing the Hong Kong Post Office's exclusive right to carry letters in and out of the colony. DHL successfully defended the case.
"There are two things that business school cannot teach an entrepreneur: the first is focus, or 'staying with a problem until it gets done', and the other is passion. An entrepreneur must have enough of these two qualities," he said.
"We have also found that most business schools teach marketing, but do not teach selling. If you're an entrepreneur and you don't know how to sell, it won't work out, because you won't have money or anything else."
Also, Chung advised, don't take an MBA course.
"If you want to become an entrepreneur, don't study for an MBA. Do it [become an entrepreneur] first and come back to take an executive MBA later, because MBA [studies] fill you with all kinds of junk. It's wrong timing - like teaching you to drive when you're 60," he said.
"Me, Inc": Looking at life as a business
People regard as "business" only that part of life that involves money. But, in reality, everything is business, Chung said.
"Your life is business and you're the entrepreneur. You're in the business of providing personal services to anyone around you. You're your most important customer and supplier."
Chung suggested that his students write a "business plan" for their lives, taking into account the needs of their "customers" and "suppliers", who can be anyone from parents to offspring, siblings, friends, business partners or bosses, and all of their "suppliers".
"Consider what they want. Is it moral support, physical help, mental help, social help, advice, companionship, just being there...?"
He said the students' business plans should include a marketing plan for managing their "personal brand", which took into account their "service quality", as well as their tangible and intangible assets.
"The management team is you and your 'tribe', and the returns are 'psychic income' and 'emotional profit', he said.
Chung also urged students to give and take, while staying away from "net takers".
Ten pieces of advice, in hindsight
In concluding his lecture, Chung looked back on his years as an entrepreneur to offer 10 pieces of advice, in hindsight:
1. Spend time with your loved ones before they go away.
2. Follow my life's secret formula: understand, design, create and manage. Then you will control your future.
3. If you want to be an entrepreneur, don't get an MBA - get an EMBA.
4. Don't be in a hurry to get married, to either a spouse or a company. Ninety per cent of your misery or happiness will come from one person, so you want to know more about people in general before you select the one with whom you will spend the rest of your life.
5. Set up a life-long learning programme.
6. A bad break is not the end of the world.
7. Hustle while you wait: luck is when opportunity meets preparedness.
8. Leadership is about trust. Everything else comes second. People will follow you only if they know you will not hurt them.
9. If you don't want people to know about it, don't do it. Live by the golden rule: "don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal."
10. Live off your parents for as long as you can. Buy a house as a multigenerational effort. Property prices will continue to go up. You will need all the money you can make to do the things you would like to do in your life. There are three Fs for investors: friends, family and fools.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Companies utilise social sciences to fill tech jobs
The sprawling use of consumer technology is spurring the demand for new skills in the workplace, resulting in companies utilising social sciences to fill next-generation technology jobs, according to Gartner, Inc.
Gartner, Inc vice president and distinguished analyst, Kathy Harris said during the next five years, consumer adoption of technology will accelerate as individuals and groups become more comfortable and adept at using it to manage their family, social, and business relationships. Meanwhile, organisations will struggle to keep pace as they integrate rapidly changing behaviours and technology into an already established business culture and infrastructure.
To succeed in "consumerising" corporate technology, organisations will need new talent and skills that blend a deep understanding of the business, artistic talents in visual and social schemes that induce the desired behaviours and reactions from consumers' including expansive knowledge of how to invoke and leverage the power of Web technology and models.
"Many emerging jobs and roles will not simply specialise in one skill area,but will blend business, artistic and technical skills. Many of the needed technical capabilities originate in the social sciences and are aimed at usability and adoption of technology-related business services," Harris said.
These capabilities embody the notion of "action at the interface" between the enterprise and its markets or between business management and technology management.
Therefore, organisations are likely to shift the responsibility for leveraging technology outside centralised IT organisations and into the business units responsible for growth and innovation of revenue, products, and services.
The company sees four new roles in technology related jobs. The first is Web user experience roles to effectively consume the applications and information delivered on the Web.
These roles range from user interface designers enabling users to work standalone or to self-serve without assistance,virtual-assistant designers who create Web beings that replicate the actions of a human being in providing agent services on the Web and interaction directors who produce Web conversations among multiple people or between people and Web beings in a structured Web environment.
The second, behavioural analysis roles are aimed at understanding and exploiting human behaviour on the Web and how it may mirror and differ from behaviours in the physical world.
Some key roles that will interpret and leverage human behaviour are Web psychologists who are becoming increasingly important to product development and marketing, community designers who are responsible for architecting organisation-owned communities, and Web and social network miners and analysts who focus on discovering, understanding and exploiting the social and behavioural dynamics of Web communities.
The third is information specialists who trace the origin, history and evolution of Web content. Their objectives range from providing the history of content or information to spotting fraudulent or modified images, audio files and texts.Information anthropologists may therefore contribute to legal analysis or to processes where intellectual property or information quality and integrity are at risk.
The fourth, digital lifestyle experts will aid individuals and groups (for example, executive management, technology or marketing teams) to become more digitally aware, connected, effective, and sophisticated. A digital lifestyle expert may also assist or stand in for their clients in their Web endeavours - defining target digital profiles, building out a digital image or personal brand - as well as helping wired users achieve the digital status they aspire to. As such, key roles will include digital personal consultants and personal brand advisers.
"The future is solidly connected to the Web and new work streams clearly need to arise to support this," said Harris.
Gartner, Inc vice president and distinguished analyst, Kathy Harris said during the next five years, consumer adoption of technology will accelerate as individuals and groups become more comfortable and adept at using it to manage their family, social, and business relationships. Meanwhile, organisations will struggle to keep pace as they integrate rapidly changing behaviours and technology into an already established business culture and infrastructure.
To succeed in "consumerising" corporate technology, organisations will need new talent and skills that blend a deep understanding of the business, artistic talents in visual and social schemes that induce the desired behaviours and reactions from consumers' including expansive knowledge of how to invoke and leverage the power of Web technology and models.
"Many emerging jobs and roles will not simply specialise in one skill area,but will blend business, artistic and technical skills. Many of the needed technical capabilities originate in the social sciences and are aimed at usability and adoption of technology-related business services," Harris said.
These capabilities embody the notion of "action at the interface" between the enterprise and its markets or between business management and technology management.
Therefore, organisations are likely to shift the responsibility for leveraging technology outside centralised IT organisations and into the business units responsible for growth and innovation of revenue, products, and services.
The company sees four new roles in technology related jobs. The first is Web user experience roles to effectively consume the applications and information delivered on the Web.
These roles range from user interface designers enabling users to work standalone or to self-serve without assistance,virtual-assistant designers who create Web beings that replicate the actions of a human being in providing agent services on the Web and interaction directors who produce Web conversations among multiple people or between people and Web beings in a structured Web environment.
The second, behavioural analysis roles are aimed at understanding and exploiting human behaviour on the Web and how it may mirror and differ from behaviours in the physical world.
Some key roles that will interpret and leverage human behaviour are Web psychologists who are becoming increasingly important to product development and marketing, community designers who are responsible for architecting organisation-owned communities, and Web and social network miners and analysts who focus on discovering, understanding and exploiting the social and behavioural dynamics of Web communities.
The third is information specialists who trace the origin, history and evolution of Web content. Their objectives range from providing the history of content or information to spotting fraudulent or modified images, audio files and texts.Information anthropologists may therefore contribute to legal analysis or to processes where intellectual property or information quality and integrity are at risk.
The fourth, digital lifestyle experts will aid individuals and groups (for example, executive management, technology or marketing teams) to become more digitally aware, connected, effective, and sophisticated. A digital lifestyle expert may also assist or stand in for their clients in their Web endeavours - defining target digital profiles, building out a digital image or personal brand - as well as helping wired users achieve the digital status they aspire to. As such, key roles will include digital personal consultants and personal brand advisers.
"The future is solidly connected to the Web and new work streams clearly need to arise to support this," said Harris.
General accused of abuse
Family values campaigner Rabiabrat Pongpanit is pressing for an investigation into a military general accused of sexually abusing a female navy officer.
Mrs Rabiabrat, a former Khon Kaen senator, said she was planning to petition the supreme commander, the defence minister and the prime minister to investigate a general attached to the Supreme Command who is accused of sexually abusing a female naval officer who holds the rank of lieutenant.
The 47-year-old officer had been abused by the general for four years, Mrs Rabiabrat said yesterday.
The name of the female officer has been withheld.
Mrs Rabiabrat said the general had threatened to expose the affair to the officer's husband if she refused to give in to the general's demands.
She said this prompted the female officer to lodge a complaint with police and bring the matter to her attention.
Mrs Rabiabrat said she would compile evidence including a copy of the police complaint and send them to the general's superiors as he will retire soon under an early retirement programme.
Mrs Rabiabrat said the general was a specialist attached to the Supreme Command and an alumnus of the Class 10 Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School.
A lawyer acting for the female officer said she would discuss her case tomorrow with prosecutors and social workers at Bang Khen police station.
Mrs Rabiabrat, a former Khon Kaen senator, said she was planning to petition the supreme commander, the defence minister and the prime minister to investigate a general attached to the Supreme Command who is accused of sexually abusing a female naval officer who holds the rank of lieutenant.
The 47-year-old officer had been abused by the general for four years, Mrs Rabiabrat said yesterday.
The name of the female officer has been withheld.
Mrs Rabiabrat said the general had threatened to expose the affair to the officer's husband if she refused to give in to the general's demands.
She said this prompted the female officer to lodge a complaint with police and bring the matter to her attention.
Mrs Rabiabrat said she would compile evidence including a copy of the police complaint and send them to the general's superiors as he will retire soon under an early retirement programme.
Mrs Rabiabrat said the general was a specialist attached to the Supreme Command and an alumnus of the Class 10 Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School.
A lawyer acting for the female officer said she would discuss her case tomorrow with prosecutors and social workers at Bang Khen police station.
Seven arrested for luggage theft
Security has been tightened in the luggage sorting area at Suvarnabhumi airport following the arrest of five employees and two security guards who have been accused of stealing more than 100 valuable items from passenger bags.
Torsak Ningsanont, deputy director of Suvarnabhumi airport, said security has been increased in the area to curb luggage thefts.
Airport authorities had asked officers at the Police Region 1 Bureau and Rachathewa police to investigate the thefts following numerous complaints. This led to the arrest of the seven on Sunday.
The five employees taken into custody were identified as Ruangwut Aromyen,27, Khanit Nikatanond,25, Nithat Jaemsri, 28, Thongchai Banyaem, 29, and Kraisorn Sirichom,25.
The two arrested security guards were Weerasak Kaewpa,31, of Chubb Aviation Security Co and Arthit Janthasen,35, of MPA Securitrust Co.
They are believed to have worked as a team.
More than 100 stolen items were seized from their houses. Among the items were 37 mobile phones, cameras, watches,notebook computers, gold bracelets and necklaces and banknotes.
Torsak Ningsanont, deputy director of Suvarnabhumi airport, said security has been increased in the area to curb luggage thefts.
Airport authorities had asked officers at the Police Region 1 Bureau and Rachathewa police to investigate the thefts following numerous complaints. This led to the arrest of the seven on Sunday.
The five employees taken into custody were identified as Ruangwut Aromyen,27, Khanit Nikatanond,25, Nithat Jaemsri, 28, Thongchai Banyaem, 29, and Kraisorn Sirichom,25.
The two arrested security guards were Weerasak Kaewpa,31, of Chubb Aviation Security Co and Arthit Janthasen,35, of MPA Securitrust Co.
They are believed to have worked as a team.
More than 100 stolen items were seized from their houses. Among the items were 37 mobile phones, cameras, watches,notebook computers, gold bracelets and necklaces and banknotes.
Pratt & Whitney to cut 1,000 US jobs
The jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney said on Monday that it would eliminate 1,000 jobs in Connecticut by 2011, transferring engine repair work to the southeastern state of Georgia and Asia in a cost-cutting move.
The subsidiary of United Technologies Corp will shut its Cheshire, Connecticut,plant by early 2011 and shift some operations from its East Hartford facility beginning in the second quarter of next year. Work will be moved to Columbus,Georgia, Singapore and Japan.
The only way that we can keep highquality jobs in Connecticut is to remain competitive, react to dynamic market conditions and position the company for long-term success, it said.
Pratt & Whitney, which is suffering from declines in airline demand, employs 35,000 workers worldwide, with 11,000 in Connecticut. A spokesman said the net loss of jobs companywide was unclear as work is moved out of the state, pri-marily to cut labour costs.
In deciding to terminate the jobs in Connecticut, Pratt & Whitney rejected an offer that the Machinists union valued at more than $80 million in wage and other concessions and a state plan proposing $100 million in economic assistance over five years.
The company said the two proposals failed to come up with $53.8 million needed in annual and recurring savings to avoid shutting the two operations.
The subsidiary of United Technologies Corp will shut its Cheshire, Connecticut,plant by early 2011 and shift some operations from its East Hartford facility beginning in the second quarter of next year. Work will be moved to Columbus,Georgia, Singapore and Japan.
The only way that we can keep highquality jobs in Connecticut is to remain competitive, react to dynamic market conditions and position the company for long-term success, it said.
Pratt & Whitney, which is suffering from declines in airline demand, employs 35,000 workers worldwide, with 11,000 in Connecticut. A spokesman said the net loss of jobs companywide was unclear as work is moved out of the state, pri-marily to cut labour costs.
In deciding to terminate the jobs in Connecticut, Pratt & Whitney rejected an offer that the Machinists union valued at more than $80 million in wage and other concessions and a state plan proposing $100 million in economic assistance over five years.
The company said the two proposals failed to come up with $53.8 million needed in annual and recurring savings to avoid shutting the two operations.
UK women way behind men in the pay and bonus stakes
Women at some of Britain's top banks and finance companies take home bonuses five times smaller than their male colleagues, according to a government-commissioned study released recently.
The average annual bonus for women was nearly 2,900 pounds (Bt159,000) compaed to about 14,500 pound for men, the report carried out by the Equality and Human Rights commission (EHRC) said.
The findings come after finance ministers from the Group of 20 largest and fastest-emerging economies called at the weekend for "global standards" on pay but stooped short of backing calls for bonuses to be capped.
The survey of 44 companies employing almost a quarter of the workforce in the sector also found that most women starting new jobs in finance companies received olower salaries than men.
The difference in pay for men and women of comparable seniority in firms surveyed was 39 per cent, rising to 47 per cent for total earnings when bonuses, overtime and performance-related payments were taken ibto account.
The study also showed that fewer than half the companies were making an effort to address the pay gap, with just one in four undertaking a pay audit to ensure women were not paid less than men.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the EHRC, said: "The financial sector has the potential to play a central role in Britain's recovery but it has to address this shocking disparity of rewards. "By bringing down arbitarary bariers, and changing practices that, intentionally or not, inhibit women's success, financial firms have the chance to boost morale, bring on new talent and maximise the potential of their existing employees."
Harriet Harman, Britain's minister for women and equality, said: "We cannot tackle discrimination if it is hidden which is why I asked the commission to produce this report.
The average annual bonus for women was nearly 2,900 pounds (Bt159,000) compaed to about 14,500 pound for men, the report carried out by the Equality and Human Rights commission (EHRC) said.
The findings come after finance ministers from the Group of 20 largest and fastest-emerging economies called at the weekend for "global standards" on pay but stooped short of backing calls for bonuses to be capped.
The survey of 44 companies employing almost a quarter of the workforce in the sector also found that most women starting new jobs in finance companies received olower salaries than men.
The difference in pay for men and women of comparable seniority in firms surveyed was 39 per cent, rising to 47 per cent for total earnings when bonuses, overtime and performance-related payments were taken ibto account.
The study also showed that fewer than half the companies were making an effort to address the pay gap, with just one in four undertaking a pay audit to ensure women were not paid less than men.
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the EHRC, said: "The financial sector has the potential to play a central role in Britain's recovery but it has to address this shocking disparity of rewards. "By bringing down arbitarary bariers, and changing practices that, intentionally or not, inhibit women's success, financial firms have the chance to boost morale, bring on new talent and maximise the potential of their existing employees."
Harriet Harman, Britain's minister for women and equality, said: "We cannot tackle discrimination if it is hidden which is why I asked the commission to produce this report.
KEY STRATEGY EXECUTION LEADERSHIP SKILLS
One of the emerging issues in business today is how we begin to develop the leaders we need for the future. Yet the dilemma is that the future will only come by successfully executibg strategy with the leaders you have today! The following are what I call the 8D's that define the key strategy execution leadership skills to guide any organisation's current and future leaders.
A strategic leader must be able to:
Define strategy coherently through effective communication. This is not about publishing an organisation's strategic plan or making a Power Point presentation at a Town Hall meeting. It involves developing and telling a story that sticks kin the minds of each employee, consistently. Paint the picture with a visual map that illustrates how the business model drives value for the customers you serve, how you will compete over time, and the strategy execution capabilities required to win.
Diagnose improvements by sponsoring and building a continuous improvement in the management process. Resist taking a "fire-fighting" approach to deal with performance issues after they've come up. Instead, periodically determine the system constraints to resolve core organisational performance issues, especially in your implementation systems and capabilities. Organisational theorist Eli Goldratt calls this the leadership commitment to POOGI (Process Of Ongoing Improvement).
Deliver results by honing quality decision-making as an organisational competence. Ensure that your management teams are clear about how quality decisions are made in the company. Results are achieved through effective decision-making by all employees when making the myriad decisions necessary during execution. A leader's job is to teach others how to think and make good decisions for the enterprise based on its culture, strategy and problem-solving processes.
Drive change using management practices such as integrated execution planning and deliverable-based change leadership. Change is so fundamental to modern business that I begin my planning and leadership workshops with this quote from Darwin: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change". The illusive pursuit of an adaptive enterprise can only evolve when the organisation can only evolve when the organisation understands both how change occurs and how to actually plan and execute it. It requires a systemic approach to understanding the nature of change inside a complex system, to create the necessary change in people, systems, processes, policies and technologies.
Devote resources to creating "people sustainability". Energise and develop valued employees through appreciative recognition, effective performance management design and professional development. One of the primary reasons people leave a company is dissatisfaction with the relationship they have with their direct supervisor. In exit interviews, salary is usually ranked lower than many other issues as to why people leave. Issue/opportunity/recognition management is one of a leader's vital people management skills.
Demonstrate passion for your values to model the culture you want to see in your company. Posting printed reminders about the company's values in all the meeting rooms won't cut it. It takes acute awareness that a leader's actual behaviour is the biggest indicator of what a company values. People are 10 times more likely to follow what you do versus what you say! Start with developing and implementing a clear culture strategy for the leaders of your organisation. Organisational cultural intelligency may be the most effective competitive weapon you have as it guides how you will execute your strategy.
Discover the power of facilitative leadership for better problem-solving, creativity and innovation. Don't let the wisdom of the group go uptapped by telling people what to do even when you think you have the right approach or solution. Learn to facilitate engaged conversations so everyone can contribute and own responsibility for creating, planning and executing their work with a higher defree of confidence and commitment. This collaborative leadership skill is becoming imperative in resolving complex challenges, creating innovative products and services, and managing highly diversified enterprises. It could arguably be the best risk management intervention you will ever do.
Develop a leadership pipeline and transitions to build the capacity for future managers and leaders. Set aside time for coaching and succession planning at key levels of the organisation's management structure! As I have stressed in my book and previous articles, what makes a leader's job difficult is having to balance working "on" the business [developing people, systems, etc] with working "in" the business [serving customers every day]. The challenge is to create a management system where working in the business doesn't precluse quality time to build your leadership and managerial pipeline as well as your own leadership skills.
Focus on these D's as the indispensable leadership development areas to help you master the ability to execute your strategy and forge a competitive and sustainable enterprise.
WILLIAM MALEK is strategy execution practice leader, APMGroup and co-author, Executing Your Strategy, Harvard Business School Press, 2008. The APMGoup has been helping build high-performance organisations in Thailand since 1992.
A strategic leader must be able to:
Define strategy coherently through effective communication. This is not about publishing an organisation's strategic plan or making a Power Point presentation at a Town Hall meeting. It involves developing and telling a story that sticks kin the minds of each employee, consistently. Paint the picture with a visual map that illustrates how the business model drives value for the customers you serve, how you will compete over time, and the strategy execution capabilities required to win.
Diagnose improvements by sponsoring and building a continuous improvement in the management process. Resist taking a "fire-fighting" approach to deal with performance issues after they've come up. Instead, periodically determine the system constraints to resolve core organisational performance issues, especially in your implementation systems and capabilities. Organisational theorist Eli Goldratt calls this the leadership commitment to POOGI (Process Of Ongoing Improvement).
Deliver results by honing quality decision-making as an organisational competence. Ensure that your management teams are clear about how quality decisions are made in the company. Results are achieved through effective decision-making by all employees when making the myriad decisions necessary during execution. A leader's job is to teach others how to think and make good decisions for the enterprise based on its culture, strategy and problem-solving processes.
Drive change using management practices such as integrated execution planning and deliverable-based change leadership. Change is so fundamental to modern business that I begin my planning and leadership workshops with this quote from Darwin: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change". The illusive pursuit of an adaptive enterprise can only evolve when the organisation can only evolve when the organisation understands both how change occurs and how to actually plan and execute it. It requires a systemic approach to understanding the nature of change inside a complex system, to create the necessary change in people, systems, processes, policies and technologies.
Devote resources to creating "people sustainability". Energise and develop valued employees through appreciative recognition, effective performance management design and professional development. One of the primary reasons people leave a company is dissatisfaction with the relationship they have with their direct supervisor. In exit interviews, salary is usually ranked lower than many other issues as to why people leave. Issue/opportunity/recognition management is one of a leader's vital people management skills.
Demonstrate passion for your values to model the culture you want to see in your company. Posting printed reminders about the company's values in all the meeting rooms won't cut it. It takes acute awareness that a leader's actual behaviour is the biggest indicator of what a company values. People are 10 times more likely to follow what you do versus what you say! Start with developing and implementing a clear culture strategy for the leaders of your organisation. Organisational cultural intelligency may be the most effective competitive weapon you have as it guides how you will execute your strategy.
Discover the power of facilitative leadership for better problem-solving, creativity and innovation. Don't let the wisdom of the group go uptapped by telling people what to do even when you think you have the right approach or solution. Learn to facilitate engaged conversations so everyone can contribute and own responsibility for creating, planning and executing their work with a higher defree of confidence and commitment. This collaborative leadership skill is becoming imperative in resolving complex challenges, creating innovative products and services, and managing highly diversified enterprises. It could arguably be the best risk management intervention you will ever do.
Develop a leadership pipeline and transitions to build the capacity for future managers and leaders. Set aside time for coaching and succession planning at key levels of the organisation's management structure! As I have stressed in my book and previous articles, what makes a leader's job difficult is having to balance working "on" the business [developing people, systems, etc] with working "in" the business [serving customers every day]. The challenge is to create a management system where working in the business doesn't precluse quality time to build your leadership and managerial pipeline as well as your own leadership skills.
Focus on these D's as the indispensable leadership development areas to help you master the ability to execute your strategy and forge a competitive and sustainable enterprise.
WILLIAM MALEK is strategy execution practice leader, APMGroup and co-author, Executing Your Strategy, Harvard Business School Press, 2008. The APMGoup has been helping build high-performance organisations in Thailand since 1992.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Migrant health care a critical issue
In Tak province, caring for migrant workers and their families is straining the provincial hospital toits limits, while in some border provinces many apparently go without needed treatment By Erika Fry
When Mae Sot General Hospital first ran out of space a few years ago,hospital staff pitched tents and dragged out old beds. Since then, the problem hasn't improved - the crowded conditions have become more frequent and new beds have been permanently stationed in the hospital corridors. They are seldom empty.
But beds are hardly the extent of the hospital's resource problems. The hospital has a skeleton staff of five Burmese migrants serving as health workers and translators who assist Thai health personnel, but because of labour regulations they are technically employed as domestic workers. The Ministry of Labour limits migrant workers to low-skill work in the agricultural, manufacturing, fisheries or domestic sectors.
The waiting room is invariably crowded,and hospital personnel are overworked. Last year the hospital ran a 50 million baht deficit.
The reason for this debt is well known,and a subject on the minds of hospital administrators, public health officials, NGO staff and a number of Thai patients who ask their doctors why they must treat patients from Burma - the rising cost of providing health care to Mae Sot's migrant population.
Dr Patjuban Hemhongsa, chief medical officer for Tak province, home to Mae Sot and 30 formal points of entry on the ThaiBurma border, looked exasperated when asked about the issue. He called Tak "a perfect place for so many problems we can't solve refugees, stateless, displaced persons and a continuous flow of illegal migrants. There is no budget or system to care for them".
Dr Supakit Sirilak, director of the Bureau of Policy and Strategy for the Ministry of Public Health (Moph), agrees that migration has increased the burden on Thailand's health services and manpower, and added challenges to the disease surveillance and outbreak control system. He also acknowledges that the burden is one that can't be ignored.
Under his nine-year watch in Tak province,the public health system has initiated a number of programmes to target migrant populations and increase their access to medical services.
These included a migrant health worker and volunteer programme, as well as an ini-tiative targeting malaria."The security of the country is security in the health of the people living in it, no matter if they are Thai or not,"said Dr Supakit.
Indeed, these migrant populations, who tend to live in cramped and unsanitary conditions, are often those most vulnerable to disease outbreaks and severe medical problems. Yet because of their mobility, they are also the most difficult to treat.
Dr Supakit spoke of concerns over outbreaks of cholera and emerging diseases like meningococcal meningitis in the border areas.
Tuberculosis, a disease once thought to have been largely conquered in Thailand,now has a strong and increasingly threatening presence in the form of drug-resistant strains along the border. Handfuls of cases of multidrug resistant and extremely drug-resistant forms of the disease have been detected in recent years.
Tuberculosis is a special concern among migrant populations because of the intensive six-month regimen needed to treat the disease.
Health workers speak of challenges in getting migrant patients to complete treatment - often they will begin to feel better and stop coming while at other times, they simply disappear.
In one case a worker being treated was learned to have been arrested and placed in the Immigration Detention Centre. Because of bureaucratic obstacles, it took the NGO nearly two weeks to get him the drugs he needed.
Yet, while many public health workers and officers at Moph agree with Dr Supakit's sentiments, there remains a disconnect between ideology and financing.
"Moph allocates money according to provincial headcounts, which exclude migrant populations. Hospitals cannot request extra budgets, and the government cannot allocate it. You can't spend money you don't have,"Dr Patjuban said.
The reasons for the rising costs are not as clear-cut as they might seem. While there have long been migrants in the border province - in Mae Sot and surrounding districts the Burmese population is estimated at more than 400,000- there hasn't always been hospital debt.
In 2005 and 2006, Mae Sot General Hospital actually earned enough revenue through the Compulsory Migrant Health Insurance (CMHI)scheme to cover the medical costs of both registered and unregistered migrant patients,said Dr Ronnatrai Ruangweerayut, the hospital's deputy director.
He blames the shortfalls that have arisen since largely on the decreasing number of registered workers, a problem which is as much the making of policy makers as it is of Mae Sot's migrants.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Labour,85% of migrant workers living in Thailand in 2004 were registered and insured.Workers pay an annal fee of 1,900 baht for a health screening and insurance that entitles them to health care similar to that available to Thai citizens.
The registration rate has fallen precipitously ever since - only 30% of migrant workers were registered in 2007- because of the restrictive nature (it had been closed to new workers) of the registration programme. Dr Ronnatrai estimates that only 20% of Mae Sot's migrant population is now registered.This figure is bound to increase, as the government opened registration to new migrants earlier this year.
However, the Thai government's recent promise to permanently close the border suggests a likely continuation in the pattern of decline in terms of registration.
As the number of registered migrants has fallen, so too has revenue from CMHI. Hospitals now have a fraction of the income generated through the insurance programme to care for a growing, or at least equal, number of migrants. Revenue collected from CMHI fell from 800 million baht in 2005 to 500 million baht in 2006. At the same time, fewer migrants are entitled to care and more are likely to face out-of-pocket health expenses they cannot afford.
The amount of health services provided free of charge to Burmese rose from nearly 44 million baht in 2006 to 49 million baht in 2008.
Before the advent of universal healthcare coverage in Thailand in 2001, hospitals used the income generated from out-of-pocket payments to fund care for those who could not afford it. With that income no longer available, hospitals and provinces are on their own. Dr Ronnatrai said his hospital has already burned through its past savings and has appealed, along with the Moph, to the government to allocate an additional budget to provinces with large stateless and migrant populations. Their requests have been denied.PROVINCIAL DIFFERENCES While Tak struggles with swelling health care costs, many provinces - some also with large migrant populations - continue to generate significant income through CMHI. Samut Sakhon and Rayong provinces, hubs for migrants working in the Thai fishing and manufacturing sectors, both generated nearly 10 million baht in revenue in 2006 through the insurance scheme, even after covering the costs of services that uninsured and unregistered workers could not afford.
Dr Supakit says the discrepancies are due to the particularities of each province. Tak has far more unregistered workers than registered ones, while that gap is not as great in Samut Sakhon and Rayong. Uninsured workers in these provinces, where wages are higher,may also be more able to pay out-of-pocket medical costs than those in Tak.
Just as hospital exemption payments for unregistered migrants have increased over the years, so too have out-of-pocket health payments made by migrants. Nationally, hospital exemptions in 2006 cost 170 million baht, while out-of-pocket costs by unregistered migrants totaled 120 million baht. In addition,registered migrants contributed 493 million baht through the CMHI scheme. This data includes only 47 provinces.
Any surplus income earned through the system is used, at the discretion of individual hospitals or provinces, to subsidise the costs of providing care to unregistered migrants and stateless people. In most cases, this income exceeds the costs of exempted payments and theoretically is intended for outreach to migrants in the community.
Though this is the expectation, it's hard to know what becomes of this surplus funding. Reports of populations covered and revenue collected through the CMHI scheme have been incomplete and inadequate, despite the fact that the Moph requests all provinces to report their data to the central office.
In 2007, only nine provinces submitted data - four of these are sites of IOM-Moph migrant health projects - down from 65 in 2004 and 46 and 47 in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
"There is no real enforcement of the penalty for those that don't do it," said Dr Nigoon Jitthai, programme manager of International Organisation of Migration's (IOM) Thailand Health programme, which since 2003 has collaborated with the Moph on a Migrant Health Program.
Meanwhile, figures which have been reported vary widely and attract questions on their own.
"The governance and management of the funds is being questioned by everybody, as it seems that it lacks transparency. Many NGOs have tried to find out how the funds are managed and how exactly the funds are spent,without success. To be honest, no one knows how the surplus is used," said Dr Nigoon.
Dr Supakit agrees that reporting has been a problem, and has for several years been working to establish a Migrant Health Management Information System to better monitor migrant health financing and population data.
The surplus funds in many provinces suggest to Dr Nigoon that the public health services - even those in Mae Sot - to which registered workers are entitled through CMHI,are vastly underused. Data from the Moph show that from 2004-2006, registered migrant workers were half as likely to visit public health centres as other insured patients insured migrant workers averaged less than one visit per year, while Thais under the universal coverage plan seek services an average of 2.5 times per year.
Dr Nigoon says this under-utilisation is due to several factors, including fear of local authorities - even those that are registered tend to feel this way - a lack of awareness of their coverage, long working hours, long journeys to health care facilities, restrictive employers, and perhaps, as a consequence of all of these, the preference to self-medicate.
She says the self-medication is unfortunate as migrants may lose money for inappropriate treatment, health providers may miss health developments within migrant populations,and in cases of infectious diseases, the chronic misuse of antibiotics etc can cause drug resistance.
Available data continues to show that migrants under the CMHI scheme are most likely to seek treatment when health cases are quite severe and require in-patient care.
While Dr Supakit calls CMHI an effective system for those it covers, he acknowledges there are some locations where there may not be adequate translators or cultural help for migrant workers to feel comfortable in accessing it. Those who are not covered by CMHI - stateless persons and illegal migrants - present the complications.
Accordingly, he recommends that policy makers adopt a system that will facilitate migrant workers into insurance schemes."The more they are insured, the better health insurance can survive."
While this year's influx of one million migrants into the registration system should buoy, or further bloat, hospitals' CMHI accounts, the increase will not resolve the disparities and gaps within the funding system.
A handful of NGOs and international organisations like IOM continue to pitch in, in areas where service is most patchy. These efforts are often specifically targetted to provide TB services or HIV/Aids prevention, though others more broadly address the migrant community's health needs. IOM, for example,funds several community health posts and the training and service of migrant health workers.
A health worker in a post in Tak's Thasong Yang district - a young Karen woman whose family has lived in Thailand for more than 40 years, but lacks Thai citizenship - attends the health needs of her village's 884 members,sometimes around-the-clock as her home is next to the health post, providing basic care.
Much relief also comes from Mae Sot's Mae Tao Clinic, an internationally-funded operation that in 2006 had a caseload of 80,000 and expended 55 million baht in health services to Burmese patients. Half of these came from Burma for treatment.
While the Moph and provincial health offices have recently absorbed some programmes once supported by IOM, in a nod for sustainability, much of the external assistance comes with an expiration date, and provides neither a complete nor permanent fix.
Dr Patjuban grapples with how to keep the population of Tak healthy, and his public health services financially solvent."The shortages impact the whole system. We need more human resources, more equipment.It's an insufficient budget."
While Tak province receives assistance for funding migrant health care from a handful of NGOs, the inequalities of the migrant health care system and lack of assistance from the government get to him.
"For education, its not a problem. The resources are allocated," he says, referencing the Education for All programme that, at least theoretically, provides education to Thais and non-Thais."Why more funding for education, but none for health?" he asks.
He sees no light at the end of the tunnel,and having given up on on his own government turns to another."The strain on our system is great. We need Burma to improve."
When Mae Sot General Hospital first ran out of space a few years ago,hospital staff pitched tents and dragged out old beds. Since then, the problem hasn't improved - the crowded conditions have become more frequent and new beds have been permanently stationed in the hospital corridors. They are seldom empty.
But beds are hardly the extent of the hospital's resource problems. The hospital has a skeleton staff of five Burmese migrants serving as health workers and translators who assist Thai health personnel, but because of labour regulations they are technically employed as domestic workers. The Ministry of Labour limits migrant workers to low-skill work in the agricultural, manufacturing, fisheries or domestic sectors.
The waiting room is invariably crowded,and hospital personnel are overworked. Last year the hospital ran a 50 million baht deficit.
The reason for this debt is well known,and a subject on the minds of hospital administrators, public health officials, NGO staff and a number of Thai patients who ask their doctors why they must treat patients from Burma - the rising cost of providing health care to Mae Sot's migrant population.
Dr Patjuban Hemhongsa, chief medical officer for Tak province, home to Mae Sot and 30 formal points of entry on the ThaiBurma border, looked exasperated when asked about the issue. He called Tak "a perfect place for so many problems we can't solve refugees, stateless, displaced persons and a continuous flow of illegal migrants. There is no budget or system to care for them".
Dr Supakit Sirilak, director of the Bureau of Policy and Strategy for the Ministry of Public Health (Moph), agrees that migration has increased the burden on Thailand's health services and manpower, and added challenges to the disease surveillance and outbreak control system. He also acknowledges that the burden is one that can't be ignored.
Under his nine-year watch in Tak province,the public health system has initiated a number of programmes to target migrant populations and increase their access to medical services.
These included a migrant health worker and volunteer programme, as well as an ini-tiative targeting malaria."The security of the country is security in the health of the people living in it, no matter if they are Thai or not,"said Dr Supakit.
Indeed, these migrant populations, who tend to live in cramped and unsanitary conditions, are often those most vulnerable to disease outbreaks and severe medical problems. Yet because of their mobility, they are also the most difficult to treat.
Dr Supakit spoke of concerns over outbreaks of cholera and emerging diseases like meningococcal meningitis in the border areas.
Tuberculosis, a disease once thought to have been largely conquered in Thailand,now has a strong and increasingly threatening presence in the form of drug-resistant strains along the border. Handfuls of cases of multidrug resistant and extremely drug-resistant forms of the disease have been detected in recent years.
Tuberculosis is a special concern among migrant populations because of the intensive six-month regimen needed to treat the disease.
Health workers speak of challenges in getting migrant patients to complete treatment - often they will begin to feel better and stop coming while at other times, they simply disappear.
In one case a worker being treated was learned to have been arrested and placed in the Immigration Detention Centre. Because of bureaucratic obstacles, it took the NGO nearly two weeks to get him the drugs he needed.
Yet, while many public health workers and officers at Moph agree with Dr Supakit's sentiments, there remains a disconnect between ideology and financing.
"Moph allocates money according to provincial headcounts, which exclude migrant populations. Hospitals cannot request extra budgets, and the government cannot allocate it. You can't spend money you don't have,"Dr Patjuban said.
The reasons for the rising costs are not as clear-cut as they might seem. While there have long been migrants in the border province - in Mae Sot and surrounding districts the Burmese population is estimated at more than 400,000- there hasn't always been hospital debt.
In 2005 and 2006, Mae Sot General Hospital actually earned enough revenue through the Compulsory Migrant Health Insurance (CMHI)scheme to cover the medical costs of both registered and unregistered migrant patients,said Dr Ronnatrai Ruangweerayut, the hospital's deputy director.
He blames the shortfalls that have arisen since largely on the decreasing number of registered workers, a problem which is as much the making of policy makers as it is of Mae Sot's migrants.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Labour,85% of migrant workers living in Thailand in 2004 were registered and insured.Workers pay an annal fee of 1,900 baht for a health screening and insurance that entitles them to health care similar to that available to Thai citizens.
The registration rate has fallen precipitously ever since - only 30% of migrant workers were registered in 2007- because of the restrictive nature (it had been closed to new workers) of the registration programme. Dr Ronnatrai estimates that only 20% of Mae Sot's migrant population is now registered.This figure is bound to increase, as the government opened registration to new migrants earlier this year.
However, the Thai government's recent promise to permanently close the border suggests a likely continuation in the pattern of decline in terms of registration.
As the number of registered migrants has fallen, so too has revenue from CMHI. Hospitals now have a fraction of the income generated through the insurance programme to care for a growing, or at least equal, number of migrants. Revenue collected from CMHI fell from 800 million baht in 2005 to 500 million baht in 2006. At the same time, fewer migrants are entitled to care and more are likely to face out-of-pocket health expenses they cannot afford.
The amount of health services provided free of charge to Burmese rose from nearly 44 million baht in 2006 to 49 million baht in 2008.
Before the advent of universal healthcare coverage in Thailand in 2001, hospitals used the income generated from out-of-pocket payments to fund care for those who could not afford it. With that income no longer available, hospitals and provinces are on their own. Dr Ronnatrai said his hospital has already burned through its past savings and has appealed, along with the Moph, to the government to allocate an additional budget to provinces with large stateless and migrant populations. Their requests have been denied.PROVINCIAL DIFFERENCES While Tak struggles with swelling health care costs, many provinces - some also with large migrant populations - continue to generate significant income through CMHI. Samut Sakhon and Rayong provinces, hubs for migrants working in the Thai fishing and manufacturing sectors, both generated nearly 10 million baht in revenue in 2006 through the insurance scheme, even after covering the costs of services that uninsured and unregistered workers could not afford.
Dr Supakit says the discrepancies are due to the particularities of each province. Tak has far more unregistered workers than registered ones, while that gap is not as great in Samut Sakhon and Rayong. Uninsured workers in these provinces, where wages are higher,may also be more able to pay out-of-pocket medical costs than those in Tak.
Just as hospital exemption payments for unregistered migrants have increased over the years, so too have out-of-pocket health payments made by migrants. Nationally, hospital exemptions in 2006 cost 170 million baht, while out-of-pocket costs by unregistered migrants totaled 120 million baht. In addition,registered migrants contributed 493 million baht through the CMHI scheme. This data includes only 47 provinces.
Any surplus income earned through the system is used, at the discretion of individual hospitals or provinces, to subsidise the costs of providing care to unregistered migrants and stateless people. In most cases, this income exceeds the costs of exempted payments and theoretically is intended for outreach to migrants in the community.
Though this is the expectation, it's hard to know what becomes of this surplus funding. Reports of populations covered and revenue collected through the CMHI scheme have been incomplete and inadequate, despite the fact that the Moph requests all provinces to report their data to the central office.
In 2007, only nine provinces submitted data - four of these are sites of IOM-Moph migrant health projects - down from 65 in 2004 and 46 and 47 in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
"There is no real enforcement of the penalty for those that don't do it," said Dr Nigoon Jitthai, programme manager of International Organisation of Migration's (IOM) Thailand Health programme, which since 2003 has collaborated with the Moph on a Migrant Health Program.
Meanwhile, figures which have been reported vary widely and attract questions on their own.
"The governance and management of the funds is being questioned by everybody, as it seems that it lacks transparency. Many NGOs have tried to find out how the funds are managed and how exactly the funds are spent,without success. To be honest, no one knows how the surplus is used," said Dr Nigoon.
Dr Supakit agrees that reporting has been a problem, and has for several years been working to establish a Migrant Health Management Information System to better monitor migrant health financing and population data.
The surplus funds in many provinces suggest to Dr Nigoon that the public health services - even those in Mae Sot - to which registered workers are entitled through CMHI,are vastly underused. Data from the Moph show that from 2004-2006, registered migrant workers were half as likely to visit public health centres as other insured patients insured migrant workers averaged less than one visit per year, while Thais under the universal coverage plan seek services an average of 2.5 times per year.
Dr Nigoon says this under-utilisation is due to several factors, including fear of local authorities - even those that are registered tend to feel this way - a lack of awareness of their coverage, long working hours, long journeys to health care facilities, restrictive employers, and perhaps, as a consequence of all of these, the preference to self-medicate.
She says the self-medication is unfortunate as migrants may lose money for inappropriate treatment, health providers may miss health developments within migrant populations,and in cases of infectious diseases, the chronic misuse of antibiotics etc can cause drug resistance.
Available data continues to show that migrants under the CMHI scheme are most likely to seek treatment when health cases are quite severe and require in-patient care.
While Dr Supakit calls CMHI an effective system for those it covers, he acknowledges there are some locations where there may not be adequate translators or cultural help for migrant workers to feel comfortable in accessing it. Those who are not covered by CMHI - stateless persons and illegal migrants - present the complications.
Accordingly, he recommends that policy makers adopt a system that will facilitate migrant workers into insurance schemes."The more they are insured, the better health insurance can survive."
While this year's influx of one million migrants into the registration system should buoy, or further bloat, hospitals' CMHI accounts, the increase will not resolve the disparities and gaps within the funding system.
A handful of NGOs and international organisations like IOM continue to pitch in, in areas where service is most patchy. These efforts are often specifically targetted to provide TB services or HIV/Aids prevention, though others more broadly address the migrant community's health needs. IOM, for example,funds several community health posts and the training and service of migrant health workers.
A health worker in a post in Tak's Thasong Yang district - a young Karen woman whose family has lived in Thailand for more than 40 years, but lacks Thai citizenship - attends the health needs of her village's 884 members,sometimes around-the-clock as her home is next to the health post, providing basic care.
Much relief also comes from Mae Sot's Mae Tao Clinic, an internationally-funded operation that in 2006 had a caseload of 80,000 and expended 55 million baht in health services to Burmese patients. Half of these came from Burma for treatment.
While the Moph and provincial health offices have recently absorbed some programmes once supported by IOM, in a nod for sustainability, much of the external assistance comes with an expiration date, and provides neither a complete nor permanent fix.
Dr Patjuban grapples with how to keep the population of Tak healthy, and his public health services financially solvent."The shortages impact the whole system. We need more human resources, more equipment.It's an insufficient budget."
While Tak province receives assistance for funding migrant health care from a handful of NGOs, the inequalities of the migrant health care system and lack of assistance from the government get to him.
"For education, its not a problem. The resources are allocated," he says, referencing the Education for All programme that, at least theoretically, provides education to Thais and non-Thais."Why more funding for education, but none for health?" he asks.
He sees no light at the end of the tunnel,and having given up on on his own government turns to another."The strain on our system is great. We need Burma to improve."
THE VARYING DEGREES OF TRIUMPH
You wouldn't think much could come of a girl who grew up in Suphan Buri, moved to Samut Prakan at age 15 and spent four decades toiling in a clothing factory, but Jittra Kotchadej's destiny is bigger than that.
Jittra turned into a tenacious defender of workers' rights and, while she has plenty of admirers, she's earned a lot of enemies too.
Rude and vicious comments abound on Internet forums, thanks primarily to her audacious decision to publicly criticise the practice at cinemas of standing up during the Royal Anthem.
The 37-year-old also faces arrest for causing disruptions at Government House during a protest on behalf of dismissed co-workers.
Jittra's long-time employer, Triumph International (Thailand), sacked her on July 29 last year and the Labour Court subsequently agreed it had the right to do so.
She led the workers' union at the factory, whose parent company is best known for making women's undergarments.
Her firing followed an appearance on television for an interview. She wore a T-shirt with a message that referred to rising for the anthem before movies are shown. It said, "Not standing up is not criminal, and thinking differently does not constitute a crime."
In the same interview she also shared her views on abortion.
Jittra was seen as having defamed Triumph, and, more to the point, at a time when the country was deeply divided between red and yellow ideologies.
"I went through the worst time of my life during the trial," she says. "I had no chance to speak for myself, to tell others that the allegations weren't true.
"At one point I considered running away. I just wanted to leave Thailand and find a new place to live. But then the truth hit me - that I didn't have the resources to spend my life overseas."
Jittra believes her firing was a deliberate attempt to weaken the Triumph union.
The company's decision was widely praised in online chat rooms, but Jittra's co-workers hailed her dedication to securing them more rights and benefits and staged a strike to get her reinstated.
After 45 days, however, they returned to their jobs, fearful they might lose them. Jittra was nevertheless assured of a modest living as a consultant to the union.
"They were in financial trouble because they had no income during the strike," Jittra says, "but they went back to work vowing to keep me in the union with their own money.
"It was great to see thousands of people fighting for me. They understood that my dismissal was a blow against the union."
In her advisory capacity, Jittra continues to attend protests. After Triumph let 1,959 workers go in June, the staff battled for re-employment.
Under Jittra's guidance, the union received Midnight University's Charoen Wat-aksorn Medal this year in recognition of its "success".
"We are strong," Jittra affirmed upon accepting the medal on August 23. "Nothing can bring us down."
Four days later she led more than 300 workers to Government House with a petition asking Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to investigate what they called Triumph's "unfair" dismissal of many employees.
When they were stopped from handing the petition directly to Abhisit, the workers shut down the road outside.
Police responded, without warning, by blasting the protesters for nearly an hour with long-range sound-generating devices intended to disturb them and drive them off.
Jittra and two other protest leaders were threatened with arrest for causing inconvenience.
"It's unfair," she lamented. "We're asking for justice, but the authorities treat us like this."
She's adamant that the union tries to avoid causing further problems in these politically unbalanced times, but because of the circumstances of her firing, Jittra has been caught up in the political wrangling.
Triumph employees around the world staged simultaneous rallies on August 26 to seek better terms, but those in Thailand waited until the next day because there was a red-shirt protest in Bangkok on the 26th, and they didn't want to be seen as supporting the anti-government red movement.
The political skirmishing here often requires such precautions, Jittra says.
Does she find any appeal in the red cause? Jittra insists she's fighting only for workers' rights.
"We are ready to work with either the reds or the yellows if they want to help us, as long as they don't try to drag us into politics."
Jittra turned into a tenacious defender of workers' rights and, while she has plenty of admirers, she's earned a lot of enemies too.
Rude and vicious comments abound on Internet forums, thanks primarily to her audacious decision to publicly criticise the practice at cinemas of standing up during the Royal Anthem.
The 37-year-old also faces arrest for causing disruptions at Government House during a protest on behalf of dismissed co-workers.
Jittra's long-time employer, Triumph International (Thailand), sacked her on July 29 last year and the Labour Court subsequently agreed it had the right to do so.
She led the workers' union at the factory, whose parent company is best known for making women's undergarments.
Her firing followed an appearance on television for an interview. She wore a T-shirt with a message that referred to rising for the anthem before movies are shown. It said, "Not standing up is not criminal, and thinking differently does not constitute a crime."
In the same interview she also shared her views on abortion.
Jittra was seen as having defamed Triumph, and, more to the point, at a time when the country was deeply divided between red and yellow ideologies.
"I went through the worst time of my life during the trial," she says. "I had no chance to speak for myself, to tell others that the allegations weren't true.
"At one point I considered running away. I just wanted to leave Thailand and find a new place to live. But then the truth hit me - that I didn't have the resources to spend my life overseas."
Jittra believes her firing was a deliberate attempt to weaken the Triumph union.
The company's decision was widely praised in online chat rooms, but Jittra's co-workers hailed her dedication to securing them more rights and benefits and staged a strike to get her reinstated.
After 45 days, however, they returned to their jobs, fearful they might lose them. Jittra was nevertheless assured of a modest living as a consultant to the union.
"They were in financial trouble because they had no income during the strike," Jittra says, "but they went back to work vowing to keep me in the union with their own money.
"It was great to see thousands of people fighting for me. They understood that my dismissal was a blow against the union."
In her advisory capacity, Jittra continues to attend protests. After Triumph let 1,959 workers go in June, the staff battled for re-employment.
Under Jittra's guidance, the union received Midnight University's Charoen Wat-aksorn Medal this year in recognition of its "success".
"We are strong," Jittra affirmed upon accepting the medal on August 23. "Nothing can bring us down."
Four days later she led more than 300 workers to Government House with a petition asking Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to investigate what they called Triumph's "unfair" dismissal of many employees.
When they were stopped from handing the petition directly to Abhisit, the workers shut down the road outside.
Police responded, without warning, by blasting the protesters for nearly an hour with long-range sound-generating devices intended to disturb them and drive them off.
Jittra and two other protest leaders were threatened with arrest for causing inconvenience.
"It's unfair," she lamented. "We're asking for justice, but the authorities treat us like this."
She's adamant that the union tries to avoid causing further problems in these politically unbalanced times, but because of the circumstances of her firing, Jittra has been caught up in the political wrangling.
Triumph employees around the world staged simultaneous rallies on August 26 to seek better terms, but those in Thailand waited until the next day because there was a red-shirt protest in Bangkok on the 26th, and they didn't want to be seen as supporting the anti-government red movement.
The political skirmishing here often requires such precautions, Jittra says.
Does she find any appeal in the red cause? Jittra insists she's fighting only for workers' rights.
"We are ready to work with either the reds or the yellows if they want to help us, as long as they don't try to drag us into politics."
RENEWED DEMAND FOR WORKERS SIGNALS RECOVERY
Northeastern Thailand is gearing up for economic recovery, as reflected in recent demand for 10,000-20,000 new factory workers in the region, Somchai Kijmeratsameeyothin, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries chapter for that region, said yesterday.
He told a seminar here entitled "Tackling the Global Crisis: Thailand's Future", held in commemoration of the 41st anniversary of the central bank's northeastern office, that foreign orders for electronics, garments and textiles had rebounded in the third quarter.
"The economic crisis has bottomed out in the Northeast. Many manufacturers laid off workers in the first quarter but have rehired them to cope with the increasing orders. The region should show improvement in the third and fourth quarters," Somchai said.
Still, he warned the resumption of orders might not hold steady and that manufacturers needed to be prudent in their hiring.
Importantly, they must lower costs, particularly for logistics. Industrial manufacturers are advised to band together for long-term survival, because then if orders exceed capacity, the larger players can pass on some of them to smaller players within the group.
Bank of Thailand (BOT) Governor Tarisa Watanagase told the seminar that the Kingdom's economy remained fragile even though the crisis had touched bottom.
She said while the economy had shown signs of recovery, with improvements in industrial production and domestic spending and a smaller contraction in private investment, sustainability depended on both internal and external factors.
"The Thai and the global economies remain volatile. Private companies must strengthen risk management and emphasise sufficiency," Tarisa said.
The Bank of Thailand expects the Thai economy to grow 3-5 per cent next year, with inflation at 1-2.5 per cent.
However, much depends on the recovery in the US, Europe and Japan, which together account for 32 per cent of Thailand's exports.
The Kasikorn Research Centre said employment figures had been improving each month since June, while the National Statistical Office said the unemployment rate fell from 1.4 per cent in June to 1.2 per cent in July.
He told a seminar here entitled "Tackling the Global Crisis: Thailand's Future", held in commemoration of the 41st anniversary of the central bank's northeastern office, that foreign orders for electronics, garments and textiles had rebounded in the third quarter.
"The economic crisis has bottomed out in the Northeast. Many manufacturers laid off workers in the first quarter but have rehired them to cope with the increasing orders. The region should show improvement in the third and fourth quarters," Somchai said.
Still, he warned the resumption of orders might not hold steady and that manufacturers needed to be prudent in their hiring.
Importantly, they must lower costs, particularly for logistics. Industrial manufacturers are advised to band together for long-term survival, because then if orders exceed capacity, the larger players can pass on some of them to smaller players within the group.
Bank of Thailand (BOT) Governor Tarisa Watanagase told the seminar that the Kingdom's economy remained fragile even though the crisis had touched bottom.
She said while the economy had shown signs of recovery, with improvements in industrial production and domestic spending and a smaller contraction in private investment, sustainability depended on both internal and external factors.
"The Thai and the global economies remain volatile. Private companies must strengthen risk management and emphasise sufficiency," Tarisa said.
The Bank of Thailand expects the Thai economy to grow 3-5 per cent next year, with inflation at 1-2.5 per cent.
However, much depends on the recovery in the US, Europe and Japan, which together account for 32 per cent of Thailand's exports.
The Kasikorn Research Centre said employment figures had been improving each month since June, while the National Statistical Office said the unemployment rate fell from 1.4 per cent in June to 1.2 per cent in July.
Workers in Sweden "knew risks"
One of four companies which secured jobs for Thai berry pickers in Sweden has admitted its employment contracts with the workers guaranteed them no legal or welfare protection.
Siam Royal Services Group Co said the contracts were simply a means to help the workers avoid the 32% income tax in Sweden.
Phimradee Mukkaew, manager of Siam Royal Services Group, said the workers were not her company's employees, but day labourers.
The workers' income was based on the number of berries they picked.
Ms Phimradee said the workers were told in advance of the working conditions in Sweden and the possibility of low berry yields, which was the problem the workers encountered.
There were not enough berries to pick due to unfavourable weather and many pickers were left without work. They borrowed money to finance their trips to Sweden and are now deep in debt.
Bunsong Kitsamret, director of the job seekers protection and inspection division at the Labour Ministry, said there was little legal recourse for the workers because they knew what they were getting themselves in to.
The workers could not sue the companies which took them to Sweden for breaching their contract, Mr Bunsong said.
Ms Phimradee denied her company had lured workers to Sweden. The workers went of their own free will.
A group of berry pickers who returned from Sweden empty-handed claimed they were lured into working there with promises of well-paid, dream jobs.
They demanded the companies give them a partial refund.
Ms Phimradee said the workers understood that when they arrived in Sweden they would have to pay 150 Swedish kronor (730 baht) a day for their accommodation, food and fuel, in addition to the 75,000 baht for their air ticket and health insurance which was paid to her company before leaving Thailand.
She said the employment contracts clearly stated that the employers in Sweden would arrange accommodation,food, fruit picking equipment, vehicles and fuel for the workers, and the cost would be deducted from their wages.
Ms Phimradee said those who lodged a complaint with the Labour Ministry were only a small group of workers, some of whom were not actually troubled by the low berry yield.
The last affected worker is expected to return next month.
Siam Royal Services Group Co said the contracts were simply a means to help the workers avoid the 32% income tax in Sweden.
Phimradee Mukkaew, manager of Siam Royal Services Group, said the workers were not her company's employees, but day labourers.
The workers' income was based on the number of berries they picked.
Ms Phimradee said the workers were told in advance of the working conditions in Sweden and the possibility of low berry yields, which was the problem the workers encountered.
There were not enough berries to pick due to unfavourable weather and many pickers were left without work. They borrowed money to finance their trips to Sweden and are now deep in debt.
Bunsong Kitsamret, director of the job seekers protection and inspection division at the Labour Ministry, said there was little legal recourse for the workers because they knew what they were getting themselves in to.
The workers could not sue the companies which took them to Sweden for breaching their contract, Mr Bunsong said.
Ms Phimradee denied her company had lured workers to Sweden. The workers went of their own free will.
A group of berry pickers who returned from Sweden empty-handed claimed they were lured into working there with promises of well-paid, dream jobs.
They demanded the companies give them a partial refund.
Ms Phimradee said the workers understood that when they arrived in Sweden they would have to pay 150 Swedish kronor (730 baht) a day for their accommodation, food and fuel, in addition to the 75,000 baht for their air ticket and health insurance which was paid to her company before leaving Thailand.
She said the employment contracts clearly stated that the employers in Sweden would arrange accommodation,food, fruit picking equipment, vehicles and fuel for the workers, and the cost would be deducted from their wages.
Ms Phimradee said those who lodged a complaint with the Labour Ministry were only a small group of workers, some of whom were not actually troubled by the low berry yield.
The last affected worker is expected to return next month.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Singapore to restrict flow of foreign workers
Singapore will restrict the flow of foreign workers as the global economic recession hits the city-state's robust growth, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said.
Singapore's annual economic growth slowed to just 1.1% in 2008, compared to around 8.2% between 2004-2007. The unemployment rate hit the highest level in five years for the export-dependent economy.
"We will not continue to admit people at this pace," Mr Lee said in a speech to students at Nanyang Technological University on Tuesday.
More than 100,000 foreign workers arrived in Singapore every year in the last few years as the economy boomed,taking the total number of foreigners to almost one million, Mr Lee said. Temporary residents and non-Singaporeans who take up permanent residency make up about 35% of the country's 4.84 million population.
Singapore's annual economic growth slowed to just 1.1% in 2008, compared to around 8.2% between 2004-2007. The unemployment rate hit the highest level in five years for the export-dependent economy.
"We will not continue to admit people at this pace," Mr Lee said in a speech to students at Nanyang Technological University on Tuesday.
More than 100,000 foreign workers arrived in Singapore every year in the last few years as the economy boomed,taking the total number of foreigners to almost one million, Mr Lee said. Temporary residents and non-Singaporeans who take up permanent residency make up about 35% of the country's 4.84 million population.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Technology to offer opportunities for all
Marx Melencio is totally blind due to a gunshot accident at the age of 23, but he turned his adversity into an opportunity.Grayscale started without any investment other than time, a couple of computers, an Internet connection,and a place that also acted as their home. It launched in Sept 2006 with four people and today there are 140 people working for the company. Most of them work at one of 11 satellite offices scattered across the Philippines.
Out of these 140 people, a few are visually impaired or totally blind, while some have other disabilities. Most disabled Grayscale employees work from home since Melencio believes mobility is the main issue of handicapped people in the Philippines.
The proprietor and operations manager of Grayscale Business Management and Consultancy Services noted that the financial crisis has allowed him to build a new department.Grayscale started out only with a content development department, but necessary growth and expansion has led to change. Grayscale now has a department which offers virtual assistance services to client corporations and businesses around the world.
He said technology useful for the day-to-day activities of disabled people around the world should be accessible to all disabled people, especially in developing countries.
Various training programs which would improve their skills and knowledge should also play a major role in improving the quality of their lives and their families. However, mindset training and lifestyle rehabilitation should not be taken for granted."In fact, I think it should be the starting point of empowering disabled people to become more productive."
He added that the policy and decision makers should provide employers with the necessary tools needed for hiring disabled people.
"Training programs for employers in terms of working with disabled people should also be provided by the government or NGOs," he said.
"Another thing would be to provide employers with certain benefits if they hire skilled disabled people,such as tax cut-offs and the like.
"The distributors of the technology, the tools and the knowledge needed by disabled people to find employment should make everything more affordable and accessible.
"A good starting point would be to make it known to disabled people that these tools, technology and training do exist and are available within certain areas of their countries."
Out of these 140 people, a few are visually impaired or totally blind, while some have other disabilities. Most disabled Grayscale employees work from home since Melencio believes mobility is the main issue of handicapped people in the Philippines.
The proprietor and operations manager of Grayscale Business Management and Consultancy Services noted that the financial crisis has allowed him to build a new department.Grayscale started out only with a content development department, but necessary growth and expansion has led to change. Grayscale now has a department which offers virtual assistance services to client corporations and businesses around the world.
He said technology useful for the day-to-day activities of disabled people around the world should be accessible to all disabled people, especially in developing countries.
Various training programs which would improve their skills and knowledge should also play a major role in improving the quality of their lives and their families. However, mindset training and lifestyle rehabilitation should not be taken for granted."In fact, I think it should be the starting point of empowering disabled people to become more productive."
He added that the policy and decision makers should provide employers with the necessary tools needed for hiring disabled people.
"Training programs for employers in terms of working with disabled people should also be provided by the government or NGOs," he said.
"Another thing would be to provide employers with certain benefits if they hire skilled disabled people,such as tax cut-offs and the like.
"The distributors of the technology, the tools and the knowledge needed by disabled people to find employment should make everything more affordable and accessible.
"A good starting point would be to make it known to disabled people that these tools, technology and training do exist and are available within certain areas of their countries."
Monday, September 14, 2009
NEW CHIEF BRINGS MARKETING EXPERTISE
Many fans of Starbucks coffee have been overjoyed with the series of promotions and marketing activities the coffee chain has rolled out during the past couple of months. And the US chain's new Thailand boss, Murray Darling, is in no less cheerful a mood.
"It's the best job, to run Starbucks in Thailand. It's a dream for me," he said.
Speaking to The Nation in his first press interview since assuming his position as managing director in June, Darling, 47, acknowledged that there has been a focus on promotion activities - some of them unprecedented, such as the buy-one-get-one-free promotion offered in partnership with Citibank credit cards at Starbucks' local network of 131 stores in recent months. The offer ended on August 31.
But for those familiar with Darling's working methods, the stepped-up marketing activities at Starbucks come as no surprise.
The new MD at Starbucks Coffee Thailand has spent most of his career in marketing, including the past four and a half years, during which he served as vice president for marketing and product management at Starbucks' headquarters in Seattle.
Darling said the marketing activities were introduced partly to express Starbucks' appreciation to its Thai customers, who have stuck with the brand through the recent tough economic times.
While business has shrunk by as much as 20 per cent at some stores in tourist destinations such as Koh Samui, Phuket, Pattaya and Krabi, sales in Bangkok have grown this year from 2008.
Darling said not every Starbucks store in Thailand was making a profit at present, and the company was assessing the various impacts of the macroeconomic situation, the political crisis and the slowing tourism sector on its business here.
"When tourism comes back, I think most of our stores will be in pretty healthy places," he said.
Overall, Starbucks' business in Thailand has been flat compared with last year, with decreased sales in the firm's 36 provincial outlets offset by the growing business in Bangkok, where it operates 95 stores.
Starbucks began slowing its outlet expansion in Thailand last year, when it opened fewer than 10 stores, after a period of rapid growth during the previous two years.
This year, Darling said, the company was looking at only a few more sites.
"I don't care about the number, honestly. I care that we get the right sites. We will look on a site-by-site basis, depending on what's come up," he said.
Asked if it was an unusual move for Starbucks to send a vice president who led marketing and product strategies, and programmes for 50 countries, from headquarters to head a country's operations, Darling said it was a rare move for the firm but an easy decision for him personally, and that he enjoyed returning to Thailand.
Prior to joining Starbucks in the US in early 2003, Darling lived in Bangkok for about two years, working as a vice president for Diageo's Johnnie Walker whisky brand.
"Most people [who] go to run [a] country come from operation functions. So actually from marketing in Seattle to come to run a country has been quite rare. So for me it's a nice challenge," he said.
Darling said he and his wife liked living in Thailand because of the Thai people's sunny disposition and the great variety of things to do here, such as good golfing.
He also enjoys eating at local noodle shops.
Perfect job
Working at the international coffee chain looks very much to be the perfect job for Darling, who has been a heavy coffee drinker since he was a university student (he still drinks at least six cups a day) and is an avid traveller, having visited 82 countries and all 50 US states to date.
The latest destination was the Maldives, which he visited with his wife, Angela, early this month. His goal is to expand the list to 100 countries.
The Maldives trip, however, was Darling's first vacation this
year, as he has been busy dropping by local Starbucks stores. Within two months of taking up his post in June, Darling had visited two-thirds of the Starbucks outlets in Thailand.
Darling started filling his passport with visa stamps when he left his home in Scotland to visit Romania when he was only 13. He spent the first 10 years of his career in London, working
with Colgate-Palmolive and Pepsi-Cola.
He then joined Diageo in New York and later moved
to Jamaica, before coming to work in Thailand for the first time in 2001, until leaving to join Starbucks in Seattle two years later.
"I like beverages: all 'black' beverages. I've been drinking Pepsi-Cola, Johnnie Walker and Starbucks for a lot of my life," Darling said with a big laugh.
"It's the best job, to run Starbucks in Thailand. It's a dream for me," he said.
Speaking to The Nation in his first press interview since assuming his position as managing director in June, Darling, 47, acknowledged that there has been a focus on promotion activities - some of them unprecedented, such as the buy-one-get-one-free promotion offered in partnership with Citibank credit cards at Starbucks' local network of 131 stores in recent months. The offer ended on August 31.
But for those familiar with Darling's working methods, the stepped-up marketing activities at Starbucks come as no surprise.
The new MD at Starbucks Coffee Thailand has spent most of his career in marketing, including the past four and a half years, during which he served as vice president for marketing and product management at Starbucks' headquarters in Seattle.
Darling said the marketing activities were introduced partly to express Starbucks' appreciation to its Thai customers, who have stuck with the brand through the recent tough economic times.
While business has shrunk by as much as 20 per cent at some stores in tourist destinations such as Koh Samui, Phuket, Pattaya and Krabi, sales in Bangkok have grown this year from 2008.
Darling said not every Starbucks store in Thailand was making a profit at present, and the company was assessing the various impacts of the macroeconomic situation, the political crisis and the slowing tourism sector on its business here.
"When tourism comes back, I think most of our stores will be in pretty healthy places," he said.
Overall, Starbucks' business in Thailand has been flat compared with last year, with decreased sales in the firm's 36 provincial outlets offset by the growing business in Bangkok, where it operates 95 stores.
Starbucks began slowing its outlet expansion in Thailand last year, when it opened fewer than 10 stores, after a period of rapid growth during the previous two years.
This year, Darling said, the company was looking at only a few more sites.
"I don't care about the number, honestly. I care that we get the right sites. We will look on a site-by-site basis, depending on what's come up," he said.
Asked if it was an unusual move for Starbucks to send a vice president who led marketing and product strategies, and programmes for 50 countries, from headquarters to head a country's operations, Darling said it was a rare move for the firm but an easy decision for him personally, and that he enjoyed returning to Thailand.
Prior to joining Starbucks in the US in early 2003, Darling lived in Bangkok for about two years, working as a vice president for Diageo's Johnnie Walker whisky brand.
"Most people [who] go to run [a] country come from operation functions. So actually from marketing in Seattle to come to run a country has been quite rare. So for me it's a nice challenge," he said.
Darling said he and his wife liked living in Thailand because of the Thai people's sunny disposition and the great variety of things to do here, such as good golfing.
He also enjoys eating at local noodle shops.
Perfect job
Working at the international coffee chain looks very much to be the perfect job for Darling, who has been a heavy coffee drinker since he was a university student (he still drinks at least six cups a day) and is an avid traveller, having visited 82 countries and all 50 US states to date.
The latest destination was the Maldives, which he visited with his wife, Angela, early this month. His goal is to expand the list to 100 countries.
The Maldives trip, however, was Darling's first vacation this
year, as he has been busy dropping by local Starbucks stores. Within two months of taking up his post in June, Darling had visited two-thirds of the Starbucks outlets in Thailand.
Darling started filling his passport with visa stamps when he left his home in Scotland to visit Romania when he was only 13. He spent the first 10 years of his career in London, working
with Colgate-Palmolive and Pepsi-Cola.
He then joined Diageo in New York and later moved
to Jamaica, before coming to work in Thailand for the first time in 2001, until leaving to join Starbucks in Seattle two years later.
"I like beverages: all 'black' beverages. I've been drinking Pepsi-Cola, Johnnie Walker and Starbucks for a lot of my life," Darling said with a big laugh.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Sweden jobless rate on the rise
Sweden's jobless rate advanced in August as a recovery inr the labour market lagged behind improvements in the rest of the largest Nordic economy.
The non-seasonally adjusted rate, as measured by the number of people claiming benefits, rose to 5.4 per cent from a revised 5.1 per cent in July, the Stockholm-based Public Employment Service said.
Exports account for half of the nation's gross domestic product and slumping global trade is forcing companies to eliminate jobs. Volvo, the world's second-biggest maker of heavy trucks, and Electrolux, the world's No 2 appliance maker, have scrapped jobs to stay competitive.
The economy will contract 5.2 per cent this year, the government estimates, rebounding to growth of 0.6 per cent in 2010 as output benefits from a resurgence of trade demand that should resuscitate export markets.
Unemployment should average 11.4 per cent next year and will rise to 11.6 per cent in 2011, the government estimates.
The non-seasonally adjusted rate, as measured by the number of people claiming benefits, rose to 5.4 per cent from a revised 5.1 per cent in July, the Stockholm-based Public Employment Service said.
Exports account for half of the nation's gross domestic product and slumping global trade is forcing companies to eliminate jobs. Volvo, the world's second-biggest maker of heavy trucks, and Electrolux, the world's No 2 appliance maker, have scrapped jobs to stay competitive.
The economy will contract 5.2 per cent this year, the government estimates, rebounding to growth of 0.6 per cent in 2010 as output benefits from a resurgence of trade demand that should resuscitate export markets.
Unemployment should average 11.4 per cent next year and will rise to 11.6 per cent in 2011, the government estimates.
Friday, September 11, 2009
CHINA CONDERMNS AMERICAN TARIFFS ON STEEL PIPES
China yesterday condemned a US decision to slap tariffs on steel pipes from the mainland, as US President Barack Obama mulled whether to also curb tyre imports from the Asian giant.
The disputes are a litmus test for Obama's trade policy with Beijing, and are coming to the frefront ahead of his highly anticipated first presidential visit to China set for November.
In July, Obama laid out his vision of "cooperation, not confrontation" between Washington and Beijing, saying the relationship would "shape the 21st century", but the thorny trade issues could throw a spanner in the works.
The US Commerce Department said on Wednesday it had made a preliminary decision to impose duties to as much as 31 per cent on Chinese carbon or alloy tubular steel products used in oil and gas wells, following claims they were backed by unfair subsidies.
That announcement drew a quick and angry response from Beijing.
"China is highly concerned over this matter. We strongly oppose such trade protectionist moves," a commerce ministry spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman declined to comment on what action China would take, if any, in response to the US move, saying the ministry could make an additional statement later in the day.
From 2006 to 2008, US imports of such pipes, officially known as oil country tubular goods (OCTG), from China increased 203 per cent by volume, the statement said. They were valued at US$2.6 billion (Bt88.8 billion) last year.
The Commerce Department launched a probe into the case after complaints from various US industry groups and unions, including US Steel, and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union.
"As a result of this preliminary determination, Commerce will instruct US Customs and Border Protection to collect a cash deposit or bond based on these preliminary rates," the department said in a statement.
It will issue a "final determination" on the issue in November, it said.
"This is the largest countervailing duty and dumping case filed against China, based on the value of trade," a lawyer representing a Chinese company involved in the case, said.
The decision came as Obama has pressure to slap punitive duties on Chinese tyre imports, and save jobs at home as the world's largest economy tries to recover from a recession.
Obama is required to make his decision by September 17, ahead of hosting Chinese President Hu Jintao at the G-20 summit in the US city of Pittsburgh on September 24-25.
The disputes are a litmus test for Obama's trade policy with Beijing, and are coming to the frefront ahead of his highly anticipated first presidential visit to China set for November.
In July, Obama laid out his vision of "cooperation, not confrontation" between Washington and Beijing, saying the relationship would "shape the 21st century", but the thorny trade issues could throw a spanner in the works.
The US Commerce Department said on Wednesday it had made a preliminary decision to impose duties to as much as 31 per cent on Chinese carbon or alloy tubular steel products used in oil and gas wells, following claims they were backed by unfair subsidies.
That announcement drew a quick and angry response from Beijing.
"China is highly concerned over this matter. We strongly oppose such trade protectionist moves," a commerce ministry spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman declined to comment on what action China would take, if any, in response to the US move, saying the ministry could make an additional statement later in the day.
From 2006 to 2008, US imports of such pipes, officially known as oil country tubular goods (OCTG), from China increased 203 per cent by volume, the statement said. They were valued at US$2.6 billion (Bt88.8 billion) last year.
The Commerce Department launched a probe into the case after complaints from various US industry groups and unions, including US Steel, and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union.
"As a result of this preliminary determination, Commerce will instruct US Customs and Border Protection to collect a cash deposit or bond based on these preliminary rates," the department said in a statement.
It will issue a "final determination" on the issue in November, it said.
"This is the largest countervailing duty and dumping case filed against China, based on the value of trade," a lawyer representing a Chinese company involved in the case, said.
The decision came as Obama has pressure to slap punitive duties on Chinese tyre imports, and save jobs at home as the world's largest economy tries to recover from a recession.
Obama is required to make his decision by September 17, ahead of hosting Chinese President Hu Jintao at the G-20 summit in the US city of Pittsburgh on September 24-25.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Thailand bids to lead world in outsourcing
Thailand has set an ambitious target to become one of the world's top three countries for outsourcing by 2013, building a 4-billion-baht industry and forming an outsourcing association.
The kingdom's potential to capture opportunities as an attractive international IT outsourcing destination has led the driving industries to form the Thai IT Outsourcing Association, or TITO, said association chairman Steven Kalayanamit. The association is comprised of 10 pioneering international outsourcing companies.
According to a recent study,"Global Services Location Index 2009" by AT Kearney, Thailand ranks number four worldwide for locating outsourcing activities, including IT services and support, contact centers and back-office support, following India, China and Malaysia, which have retained the top three spots since 2004. However, Steven believes that unifying IT outsourcing companies into "One Nation, One Com-pany" and offering unique, specialised skills will help Thailand surpass Malaysia at in number three by 2013.
Currently, there is no formal figure to show the scale of IT outsourcing in Thailand but rough estimates suggest a range of 800 million to 1.5 billon baht,with an average project value of 300 million baht. Within the next two years,the market should reach 4-5 billion baht.
"Thailand's attributes lie in its high talent level and good resources within a friendly business environment ,but there is still a need to boost confidence and awareness among the target market."
He added that "Within the next three months, the association will launch a web portal to facilitate searches and business matching by using short video clips to introduce each members including business matching."
There is a great demand for outsourcing in the world market, with the industry expected to be worth $1.4 trillion (47 trillion baht) by the end of this year.
Therefore there is no need to focus on generating new business, so the association is seeking to promote Thailand's capabilities and high valuefor-money to the existing market.
In the short term, Thailand can start with animation and digital content outsourcing, which fits in with Thailand's creativity profile, and others fields such as database management outsourcing services, accounting business process outsourcing and COBOL programming and development outsourcing.
In the long term, intelligent business outsourcing is an interesting area because there is a growing demand for customisation in this field, but it takes time to train new skill resources.
Hintendra Patil, Chief Operating Officer of Saraff Infotech, an accounting and taxing business outsourcing service located in Bangkok, said joining this association will help the company find more new customers and local subcontracting partners for its services to the US market.
"Thailand may not be the cheapest cost location but the accuracy and quality of services here help us to be competitive. However, high speed bandwidth and reasonable costs are important issues to address to strengthen Thailand's outsourcing capabilities because it is critical to the infrastructure of outsourcing services," he said.
Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) director Rungreung Limshoopati-pha added that Thailand has flexibility and creativity as outstanding points in its outsourcing portfolio , along with the Government's policy to build a creative economy through its "Creative Thailand" strategy.
The government can play a role in facilitating business matching with international customers to increase confidence in outsourcing providers and setting standards or a methodology for outsourcing contracts.
This year has seen a lot of success for Thailand in the outsourcing field, with contracts ranging from accounting business processes,TV animation series and biometric-related services to medicalrelated services generating business worth more than 1 billion baht
An emerging service is COBOL programming outsourcing for the banking in Europe market, which, while still in need of maintenance, can boast a skills resource in Thailand of some 1,000 professionals.
"Over the next three to six months,Sipa will support the retraining of 200 COBOL developers.
"This should help to convince foreign investors to consider basing their outsourcing operations in Thailand," Rungreung concluded.
The kingdom's potential to capture opportunities as an attractive international IT outsourcing destination has led the driving industries to form the Thai IT Outsourcing Association, or TITO, said association chairman Steven Kalayanamit. The association is comprised of 10 pioneering international outsourcing companies.
According to a recent study,"Global Services Location Index 2009" by AT Kearney, Thailand ranks number four worldwide for locating outsourcing activities, including IT services and support, contact centers and back-office support, following India, China and Malaysia, which have retained the top three spots since 2004. However, Steven believes that unifying IT outsourcing companies into "One Nation, One Com-pany" and offering unique, specialised skills will help Thailand surpass Malaysia at in number three by 2013.
Currently, there is no formal figure to show the scale of IT outsourcing in Thailand but rough estimates suggest a range of 800 million to 1.5 billon baht,with an average project value of 300 million baht. Within the next two years,the market should reach 4-5 billion baht.
"Thailand's attributes lie in its high talent level and good resources within a friendly business environment ,but there is still a need to boost confidence and awareness among the target market."
He added that "Within the next three months, the association will launch a web portal to facilitate searches and business matching by using short video clips to introduce each members including business matching."
There is a great demand for outsourcing in the world market, with the industry expected to be worth $1.4 trillion (47 trillion baht) by the end of this year.
Therefore there is no need to focus on generating new business, so the association is seeking to promote Thailand's capabilities and high valuefor-money to the existing market.
In the short term, Thailand can start with animation and digital content outsourcing, which fits in with Thailand's creativity profile, and others fields such as database management outsourcing services, accounting business process outsourcing and COBOL programming and development outsourcing.
In the long term, intelligent business outsourcing is an interesting area because there is a growing demand for customisation in this field, but it takes time to train new skill resources.
Hintendra Patil, Chief Operating Officer of Saraff Infotech, an accounting and taxing business outsourcing service located in Bangkok, said joining this association will help the company find more new customers and local subcontracting partners for its services to the US market.
"Thailand may not be the cheapest cost location but the accuracy and quality of services here help us to be competitive. However, high speed bandwidth and reasonable costs are important issues to address to strengthen Thailand's outsourcing capabilities because it is critical to the infrastructure of outsourcing services," he said.
Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) director Rungreung Limshoopati-pha added that Thailand has flexibility and creativity as outstanding points in its outsourcing portfolio , along with the Government's policy to build a creative economy through its "Creative Thailand" strategy.
The government can play a role in facilitating business matching with international customers to increase confidence in outsourcing providers and setting standards or a methodology for outsourcing contracts.
This year has seen a lot of success for Thailand in the outsourcing field, with contracts ranging from accounting business processes,TV animation series and biometric-related services to medicalrelated services generating business worth more than 1 billion baht
An emerging service is COBOL programming outsourcing for the banking in Europe market, which, while still in need of maintenance, can boast a skills resource in Thailand of some 1,000 professionals.
"Over the next three to six months,Sipa will support the retraining of 200 COBOL developers.
"This should help to convince foreign investors to consider basing their outsourcing operations in Thailand," Rungreung concluded.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
MALAYSIA'S LABOUR SHORTAGE
It is lunchtime at the Wangsa Ukay restaurant in suburban Kuala Lumpur,and regulars are coming in for local favourites like roti canai , chicken curry and teh tarik , the sweet, milky drink that is ubiquitous across Malaysia.The owner, Muneandy Nalepan, has time to stop and talk for now, but when peak times hit at weekends, he and his wife must pitch in to help clear tables.
He used to have a staff of 120- almost all foreigners - working in his five restaurants across the city. But after the government made it more difficult for businesses to hire workers from abroad, he is down to 80 because he has been unable to replace the 40 employees who had to return home after the maximum work period of five years.
Unable to find Malaysians willing to work as cooks, waiters or dishwashers, he is awaiting approval to employ more foreigners.
But if he cannot get more workers soon,he says, he might have to close one of his restaurants. Mr Muneandy, an 18-year veteran of the industry, is even considering other business ventures.
"To run a restaurant, it's becoming impossible," he said.
It is not just restaurant owners who are complaining. Many business owners, like furniture-makers and rubber glove manufacturers, say a labour shortage is harming productivity.
In January, Malaysia sharply curtailed the hiring of new foreign workers in the manufacturing and service sectors after a government report predicted that 45,000 people could be laid-off during the Lunar New Year at the end of that month,The New Straits Times reported."There is no valid reason to bring in foreign workers at this time," Syed Hamid Albar, the home minister, told the paper. The action was backed by labour groups. The Malaysian Trade Union Congress proposed a freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers last October.
"Because of the global economic downturn,we were worried about the impact on jobs for Malaysians as well as foreigners," said Rajasekaran Govindasamy, the group's secretary-general."We don't want workers to be brought in and abandoned, because that then causes hardship."
In 2008, there were an estimated 2.2 million foreigners -mostly from Indonesia,Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Burma and Vietnam - working legally in Malaysia, a nation of 28 million. Some reports suggested the country was home to another one million illegal workers. By March this year, the number of foreigners with work permits had fallen to 1.9 million, according to Shamsuddin Bardan,executive director of the Malaysian Federation of Employers.
"About 300,000 permits were not renewed,and people were sent back," he said.
Malaysia recorded 31,392 lay-offs between January and July, and the country's unemployment rate rose to 4% in the first quarter of this year, the latest period for which figures are available. That was up from 3.1% in the fourth quarter of last year.
The average monthly wage in the manu-facturing industry has risen to 650 to 700 ringgit (6,270 to 6,760 baht) in the last three months, up from 450 ringgit, the national news agency Bernama reported in August.
Mr Rajasekaran said foreign workers often accepted lower wages than Malaysians. The country has no minimum wage. Typically,foreigners are brought in by a business offering a job, he said, or by an outsourcing company that promises them work.
Mr Shamsuddin said that companies could still apply to recruit foreigners but that the process had become more difficult. For example, he said that since April 1, employers have had to advertise vacancies locally for two months, up from one month, before they could apply to recruit foreigners. And employers must now pay an annual levy as much as 1,800 ringgit - for any new foreigners they employ, he said. The fee used to be paid by workers. Mr Shamsuddin said the government abandoned plans to double the levy after the federation complained.
Dominant Semiconductor, a light bulb manufacturer with factories in Malaysia and China, is struggling to fill about 1,000 vacancies. Its chairman, Goh Nan Kioh, said the company was allowed to employ one foreigner for every local worker, but could not find enough Malaysians to help increase its total work force. If the labour shortage continued, he said, the company might consider moving more of its labour-intensive operations to China.
Mohamed Ariff, executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research,said the country's dependence on foreign labor was a result of a decision to "open the floodgates" to migrant workers in the late 1980s, first in the plantation sector, then in manufacturing. Mr Mohamed said that in the early 1990s, when wages in the manufacturing sector were rising, factories had considered introducing labour-saving technology but that many had shelved those plans when the government let them employ more foreign workers.
"The technology transfer suffered enormously," he said."Malaysia was trapped in an unskilled, labour-intensive economy."
Figures released by the government last week showed that the economy had emerged from recession in the second quarter. Mr Raja, the labour leader, said that although job losses were easing, the unions thought the freeze on foreign workers should continue.If there is a need for more workers in the coming months, he said, companies should be able to extend the visas of foreign workers already in the country.
He used to have a staff of 120- almost all foreigners - working in his five restaurants across the city. But after the government made it more difficult for businesses to hire workers from abroad, he is down to 80 because he has been unable to replace the 40 employees who had to return home after the maximum work period of five years.
Unable to find Malaysians willing to work as cooks, waiters or dishwashers, he is awaiting approval to employ more foreigners.
But if he cannot get more workers soon,he says, he might have to close one of his restaurants. Mr Muneandy, an 18-year veteran of the industry, is even considering other business ventures.
"To run a restaurant, it's becoming impossible," he said.
It is not just restaurant owners who are complaining. Many business owners, like furniture-makers and rubber glove manufacturers, say a labour shortage is harming productivity.
In January, Malaysia sharply curtailed the hiring of new foreign workers in the manufacturing and service sectors after a government report predicted that 45,000 people could be laid-off during the Lunar New Year at the end of that month,The New Straits Times reported."There is no valid reason to bring in foreign workers at this time," Syed Hamid Albar, the home minister, told the paper. The action was backed by labour groups. The Malaysian Trade Union Congress proposed a freeze on the recruitment of foreign workers last October.
"Because of the global economic downturn,we were worried about the impact on jobs for Malaysians as well as foreigners," said Rajasekaran Govindasamy, the group's secretary-general."We don't want workers to be brought in and abandoned, because that then causes hardship."
In 2008, there were an estimated 2.2 million foreigners -mostly from Indonesia,Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Burma and Vietnam - working legally in Malaysia, a nation of 28 million. Some reports suggested the country was home to another one million illegal workers. By March this year, the number of foreigners with work permits had fallen to 1.9 million, according to Shamsuddin Bardan,executive director of the Malaysian Federation of Employers.
"About 300,000 permits were not renewed,and people were sent back," he said.
Malaysia recorded 31,392 lay-offs between January and July, and the country's unemployment rate rose to 4% in the first quarter of this year, the latest period for which figures are available. That was up from 3.1% in the fourth quarter of last year.
The average monthly wage in the manu-facturing industry has risen to 650 to 700 ringgit (6,270 to 6,760 baht) in the last three months, up from 450 ringgit, the national news agency Bernama reported in August.
Mr Rajasekaran said foreign workers often accepted lower wages than Malaysians. The country has no minimum wage. Typically,foreigners are brought in by a business offering a job, he said, or by an outsourcing company that promises them work.
Mr Shamsuddin said that companies could still apply to recruit foreigners but that the process had become more difficult. For example, he said that since April 1, employers have had to advertise vacancies locally for two months, up from one month, before they could apply to recruit foreigners. And employers must now pay an annual levy as much as 1,800 ringgit - for any new foreigners they employ, he said. The fee used to be paid by workers. Mr Shamsuddin said the government abandoned plans to double the levy after the federation complained.
Dominant Semiconductor, a light bulb manufacturer with factories in Malaysia and China, is struggling to fill about 1,000 vacancies. Its chairman, Goh Nan Kioh, said the company was allowed to employ one foreigner for every local worker, but could not find enough Malaysians to help increase its total work force. If the labour shortage continued, he said, the company might consider moving more of its labour-intensive operations to China.
Mohamed Ariff, executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research,said the country's dependence on foreign labor was a result of a decision to "open the floodgates" to migrant workers in the late 1980s, first in the plantation sector, then in manufacturing. Mr Mohamed said that in the early 1990s, when wages in the manufacturing sector were rising, factories had considered introducing labour-saving technology but that many had shelved those plans when the government let them employ more foreign workers.
"The technology transfer suffered enormously," he said."Malaysia was trapped in an unskilled, labour-intensive economy."
Figures released by the government last week showed that the economy had emerged from recession in the second quarter. Mr Raja, the labour leader, said that although job losses were easing, the unions thought the freeze on foreign workers should continue.If there is a need for more workers in the coming months, he said, companies should be able to extend the visas of foreign workers already in the country.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Tamil ex-child soldiers get jobs in Malaysia
A group of former child soldiers from Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have won jobs on construction sites in Malaysia after undergoing retraining, the government said yesterday.
The seven men were among hundreds of former child soldiers who surrendered in the months before government troops finally defeated the Tigers in May at the end of decades of ethnic warfare. Now aged between 19 and 21, the seven joined the Tigers' ranks as children and fought with the rebels in their unsuccessful and bloody campaign for an independent Tamil state. Some former fighters are not charged over their involvement with the rebels and instead undergo oneyear vocational training in plumbing,masonry, carpentry and electrical work at state-run welfare centres.
The government says it helps the child soldiers secure jobs overseas or return to their villages in the north and east of the island.
The seven men were among hundreds of former child soldiers who surrendered in the months before government troops finally defeated the Tigers in May at the end of decades of ethnic warfare. Now aged between 19 and 21, the seven joined the Tigers' ranks as children and fought with the rebels in their unsuccessful and bloody campaign for an independent Tamil state. Some former fighters are not charged over their involvement with the rebels and instead undergo oneyear vocational training in plumbing,masonry, carpentry and electrical work at state-run welfare centres.
The government says it helps the child soldiers secure jobs overseas or return to their villages in the north and east of the island.
Agencies told to cut costs of health-care programmes
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva yesterday summoned government agencies responsible for the central health programmes to find ways to make the programmes more efficient to rein in the government's health-related costs.
Labour Minister Phaitoon Kaeothong said Abhisit was concerned with the increasing social expenses, which could reduce the government's investment capability. The ministries of Public Health and Labour as well as other agencies were instructed to draw up measures to cut or maintain health expenses, without jeopardising the quality of the service.
Finance Ministry permanent secretary Sathit Limpongpan said that within a month, a study to restructure the overlapping three health and welfare systems, the Social Security Fund, the system for civil servants and the universal health programme, for higher efficiency will be completed. Civil servants' health costs have risen from Bt30 billion ten years ago to nearly Bt80 billion, he said.
Phaitoon said foreign workers in Thailand may be required to buy health and life insurance policies. The compulsory policy should cost no more than Bt500 per year, and this will entitle the workers out-of-office sickness, disability and loss of life.
Labour Minister Phaitoon Kaeothong said Abhisit was concerned with the increasing social expenses, which could reduce the government's investment capability. The ministries of Public Health and Labour as well as other agencies were instructed to draw up measures to cut or maintain health expenses, without jeopardising the quality of the service.
Finance Ministry permanent secretary Sathit Limpongpan said that within a month, a study to restructure the overlapping three health and welfare systems, the Social Security Fund, the system for civil servants and the universal health programme, for higher efficiency will be completed. Civil servants' health costs have risen from Bt30 billion ten years ago to nearly Bt80 billion, he said.
Phaitoon said foreign workers in Thailand may be required to buy health and life insurance policies. The compulsory policy should cost no more than Bt500 per year, and this will entitle the workers out-of-office sickness, disability and loss of life.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
WORKERS OF 7 STATE ENTERPRISES TO GET BT2,000 ALLOWANCE FOR 6 MONTHS
The State-Enterprise Relations Committee yesterday agreed to provide a monthly allowance of Bt2,000 for six months to workers of seven state enterprises who earned less than Bt15,000 a month, and also made way for the remaining 57 state enterprises to request for such allowances.
After a committee meeting yesterday, Labour Minister Phaithoon Kaeothong said those working at the Government Housing Bank, Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Government Pharmaceutical Organisation, Provincial Electricity Authority, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) and Port Authority of Thailand would be eligible for the allowance.
The allowance, which would cost Bt782 million in total and be taken from the enterprises' own budget, was approved by the Cabinet on August 25. Egat is said to have the highest number of recipients.
Though the committee had initially agreed to pay out Bt2,000, the Cabinet's Secretariat would have a final say on what the payment formula should be Bt15,000 plus Bt500 as per the Cabinet resolution or Bt15,000 plus Bt2,000, Phaithoon said.
The committee also agreed that the remaining 57 state enterprises, covered nearly 60,000 workers and therefore needed a total of Bt13-billion, should consider requesting for such an allowance, and once the board of their enterprise approves their proposal, the committee would consider it, he added.
Workers at the Metropolitan Electricity Authority and Metropolitan Waterworks Authority have already been granted such allowances.
After a committee meeting yesterday, Labour Minister Phaithoon Kaeothong said those working at the Government Housing Bank, Expressway and Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Government Pharmaceutical Organisation, Provincial Electricity Authority, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) and Port Authority of Thailand would be eligible for the allowance.
The allowance, which would cost Bt782 million in total and be taken from the enterprises' own budget, was approved by the Cabinet on August 25. Egat is said to have the highest number of recipients.
Though the committee had initially agreed to pay out Bt2,000, the Cabinet's Secretariat would have a final say on what the payment formula should be Bt15,000 plus Bt500 as per the Cabinet resolution or Bt15,000 plus Bt2,000, Phaithoon said.
The committee also agreed that the remaining 57 state enterprises, covered nearly 60,000 workers and therefore needed a total of Bt13-billion, should consider requesting for such an allowance, and once the board of their enterprise approves their proposal, the committee would consider it, he added.
Workers at the Metropolitan Electricity Authority and Metropolitan Waterworks Authority have already been granted such allowances.
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