Civil Service System in Thailand 127
gap climbs to about 40% for master degree graduates, and could be higher than 90% in the field of applied science such as engineering (BLCI 2008). This external equity gap (i.e., the difference between private and public sector pay) therefore reduces the ability to retain high potential officials. Koonmee (2008) also found that pay satisfaction of civil servants decreases as their level of education increases. The OCSC hopes that changing from a single to four salary schedules under the current act will make the salary adjustment process more flexible (i.e., salary adjustment need not be applied equally across all position groups—the approach used in the past). In addition, section 50 of the Civil Service Act allows the CSC to set different salary ranges for different job series within the same position group (e.g., a job series on social science may have a different salary from that of science although they are in the group of knowledge worker). However, given the history of the civil service’s salary adjustment whereby everyone got the same adjustment, effective communication by both the OCSC and the cabinet is required to ensure that unequal pay adjustment gains acceptance from more than 300,000 officials.
Next, the new salary structure requires a new mindset and skill in performance management of which the civil service has little experience. This includes (1) developing concrete performance goals that require both strategic and communication skills of managers, and (2) salary budget management skills of departments as the OCSC relaxes the quotas on officials who can have maximum salary increases. Furthermore, promotion under the new act is tied to salary, as it is required that an official has to reach the midpoint of his/her salary band in order to be eligible for promotion. This condition, therefore, means performance appraisal and salary increase will play important and sensitive roles for departments as well as officials. Finally, the NCC itself needs a revision. This is because the composition of the NCC includes representatives from many central personnel agencies in the public service. This can easily create a “vote exchange effect” among committee members, hoping that their compensation proposal will also be supported in return. The NCC, hence, needs to be redesigned so as to increase the effectiveness in compensation management of the whole public sector. In terms of compensation policy, the NCC should also set a clear guideline for adjusting the compensation mix in order to help all central agencies of the public sector manage their human resource system more effectively.
6.5 Training and Development
6.5.1 Main Feature
The Civil Service Training Institute was established in 1980 to enhance the formulation of training and development policy as well as to provide and coordinate training for ministries and their departments. The first Civil Service Development Policy was adopted by the cabinet in 1989 to guide and support ministries in planning and developing their officials. Later, in 2004 the cabinet approved the 5-year Civil Service Development Strategy proposed by the OCSC. The second 5-year Civil Service Development Strategy was launched in July 2009. Such a strategy is composed of four areas, each with its focused components:
Area 1: To develop officials based on job-related competencies
Area 2: To develop officials to be honest, integrity based, disciplined, and people oriented Area 3: To develop change leadership
Area 4: To promote quality of work-life
© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
128 Public Administration in Southeast Asia
Table 6.4 Selected Development Programs Provided by the OCSC
Course |
Reasons Conducted by the OCSC |
|
|
|
|
Executive Development Program |
A required training program for those who |
|
|
will be a candidate for executive positions. |
|
|
|
|
Middle Management Training Program |
The OCSC may conduct the program if it is |
|
Primary Management Training Program |
considered that it will be more cost effective |
|
than conducted by departments. |
||
|
||
|
|
|
New Wave Leadership Development |
To promote a network of high-potential |
|
Program (a training program for high caliber |
officials in various departments. |
|
officials) |
|
|
|
|
As the role of the OCSC is mainly on policy development, the majority of training activities are decentralized to ministries and departments to conduct. Only when a development standard is needed or for cost effectiveness, will the OCSC implement training and development. Examples of development activities conducted by the OCSC are shown in Table 6.4.
6.5.2 Challenges of Training and Development in the Civil Service
The first challenge in training and development is to ensure the implementation of the 5-year development strategy. Although about half of all departments had developed their development strategies by 2008, only 38% of all departments actually implement such strategies (OCSC 2009c). Thus, the OCSC needs to find its own strategy to both support and increase awareness of departments in developing and training their officials.
Regardless of the implementation of the strategic development plan, it seems that civil service officials are not provided with adequate development. The implementation of career management is found in only about 10% of departments, and about 50% of departments do not have a rotation system for important positions. Factors that may contribute to this low rate of career or rotation system and practice are the focus on specialization and the nature of inter-departments transfer. That is, as there are too many job series in the civil service (under previous acts), it automatically creates narrow job descriptions for these job series that, in turn, prevent officials paying attention outside their job series for self-development, thereby reducing the opportunity for an official to move outside his/her job. Moreover, before the current act, the CSC rule on inter-department transfer required consent from both the existing and the new department before an official could be transferred. This discouraged officials from moving to new organizations because they had to convince their current supervisors to let them go. Under the new act, the CSC requires only the consent of the destination department, hoping that this will facilitate official transfer.
Another factor that obstructs on-the-job development may come from the fact that departments do not have enough qualified HR personnel to analyze, plan, and manage their HR development strategy (OCSC 2009b). Another problem may be the lack of effective evaluation for training and development programs. According to the well-recognized Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation on the effectiveness of training courses,13 most of the Thai civil service training programs are evaluated
13The four levels are composed of the evaluation on (1) reaction (what the trainees think about the training program); (2) learning (what have they learned; (3) behavior (behavior that they may change after the program); and (4) results (what outcomes the training program actually create).
©2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC