Self-Reform Forces

Today, it has become obvious that corporations will be at risk if they simply stay with their past business successes, practices or levels of excellence. They are being forced to change themselves in response to the surrounding dynamic business environment in order to have a space to stand in the market. As we have seen, troubled companies that take strong actions at the very time when the situation has became serious are too late to alleviate the pain and damages. A number of employees are now living under employment uncertainty. They can be laid off anytime, whenever the company’s performance requires such action or the management needs to do it for the sake of survival.

Manufacturing companies are taking advantage of temporary workers or so-called hourly or daily employees by hiring them under short-term contracts. This group of people is not eligible for certain employment benefits or compensation when the company decides to cancel their employment agreement. It should be the government who must find a better solution to this inequality problem. Otherwise, company and employee confrontation may be unavoidable.

At the corporate level, the management has to manage the business through performance measurement that determines success based on financial factors, such as the profit, share price, sales growth, etc. But not a single company that I’ve ever heard of will appraise the management’s performance through the happiness of employees, the people in nearby community, or through their efforts to preserve the natural environment. 

Why Do We Need to Self-reform?

The long successful history of an organization no longer provides any assurance that it will not fall down in the long run. Thus, it is unwise to assume life-time employment in any organization. Once the financial crisis occurs, the management needs to take whatever actions are needed to keep the company alive as long as possible.

In Thailand, people used to believe that the civil servant was the most stable and secure job, and it was one that parents would like their children to get. Moreover, there were several benefits (such as medical fees and education being reimbursed by the government). But this attractive package is now become uncertain. Early retirement schemes have been offered from time to time by the government agencies struggling to survive the economic tension. Headcount reduction is inevitable in all types of organizations. It is dangerous to take for granted that we will stay in an organization until we retire from it. Future employees are going to see more switches of jobs from a failing company to a stronger one.  

 In the typical structure of a corporation, the work is arranged by function – such as purchasing, production, sales, engineering, finance, marketing, and so on. This format starts by separating people into different groups of which the heads and subordinates are closely related. However, inter-department interaction can become problematic when each functional unit tries to achieve its own target without caring about its impact on others. We can see conflicts among departments intensify and cause damages to the organization. In fact, each employee under the same entity should share the same ownership of the business mission and targets. One should have a chance to learn from another to better understand the business cycle and the effects caused by the actions of individuals.

The KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) have been used as a management tool to keep people delivering the results expected. But without proper design and implementation, this tool can adversely affect team performance as a whole. There will be situations where each functional team tries to achieve its own KPIs without caring about the total picture of the corporate performance. For example, if the KPI said you have to produce 2,000 units a day, you want to manage to achieve that minimum target. Once you achieve it, you don’t want to produce more. If you cannot avoid producing the exceeding quantity, you may try to hide it at the final line for the next day’s accumulation. Or, if you are a warehouse worker set to deliver products to customers within 24 hours, you may not care about the accuracy as much as you do the time spent. Any errors that require correcting the wrong item as a result can cause unnecessary cost t