9 minute read
Meeting the challenge of upskilling human resources
Arinya Talerngsri, Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director of SEAC
In the Covid-19 era, HR professionals have been embracing changes brought by the new normal and hybrid workplace and they must rethink of their new role and skills. UPDATE magazine interviewed Khun Arinya Talerngsri, Chief Capability Officer and Managing Director of SEAC (formerly APMGroup) on the key challenges, “burnout” phenomenon and new skills of HR professionals. Khun Arinya has been working for about 30 years with leading Thai organisations to win global recognition for people development. She has established the first assessment centre in Thailand. Marked as the first domestic private sector leader to conduct original research into Thai and ASEAN leadership, thereby providing ASEAN with the world’s first dual learning platform, she is also a speaker on leadership around the region and the world. As a strong believer in lifelong learning, she says “I'm in this industry because I practice what I believe, not only for myself, but also to motivate and inspire others to be lifelong learners.”
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What are the biggest challenges facing human resources (HR) departments of Thai organisations, and are they different from the pre-Covid-19 period?
I have learnt three common things from talking to all types of companies and organisations, whether family-owned businesses, international firms, SMEs or even non-profit organisations like those in the government sector and state enterprises.
First, the hybrid workplace has become a challenge since Covid-19 emerged, as nothing will be the same as before in terms of the way we operate our workplaces. Basically, it’s no longer going to be a five-day working week or ‘come to the office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.’ The concept of hybrid workplaces is really of concern for organisations because if they don’t redesign their system, they are going to be faced with other issues, such as a high turnover rate. Organisations have to rethink how to organise the hybrid workforce, engage staff in the hybrid workforce model, and use the performance management process that existed before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The second challenge is about upskilling and reskilling. Everyone that I have talked to feels strongly that Covid-19 has accelerated the speed of upskilling and reskilling. During the past two years of Covid-19, every organisation has come to believe that the same skillsets or even 50%- 60% of existing experience is inapplicable. Once Covid-19 occurred, people could no longer use the same innovation. It proved that following the old processes took too long because with Covid-19 many organisations were able to iterate the innovation processes into a much faster approach. For example, they found that they could do things in 14-15 days rather than 30 days.
If Thai organisations don’t upskill or reskill in many areas or even innovate, it won’t be possible to compete with China, Germany or the United States, where the speed of business and innovation is now much faster than before. Reskilling and upskilling will be critical for many Thai organisations because in the past it could take 5-6 years to upskill or reskill; however, now it has had to be reduced to 5-6 months. Upskilling or reskilling is not new in Thailand, but the process needs to be reframed. Thai organisations are almost at the stage of panicking about what to do, so they choose quick solutions instead of solutions that help to solve the challenges. People in my network have faced the difficulty about finding the right approach to upskilling and reskilling their workforce.
Third, the challenge is about how to design a workplace comprising many generations within the workplace. Most of experienced leaders are early Gen-X and baby-boomers as they are still the brains of the organisations in Thailand. Many organisations have tried to promote late Gen-X or early Gen-Y to lead, but only a few have been successful. Early Gen-X and baby-boomers are still critical for the Thai workforce because of their knowledge, skills and experiences. Surprisingly, many of them are able to upskill and reskill much faster than late Gen-X or early Gen-Y. Therefore, there are many generations within organizations. Gen-Z is also crucial given their new way of thinking and approaches, while Gen-Y is important for a workhorse as they are good workers but maybe not yet the best leaders. You still need to take care of experienced Gen-X and babyboomers. The challenge is how to redesign your workforce in Thailand.
What do you think the future of work looks like, based on your experience and trends that you see?
At this moment, there is no clear trend yet. It is truly scary if organisations think that there is a trend they need to follow. During the past two years, I have found many articles, research results and insights that are all going in different directions, so identifying what will be the workforce trend is not possible. Thus, there is no trend because people are still unsure how this year is going to end.
How has working from home changed hiring, onboarding, rewarding and employee experience?
Working from home is a plus because each day you can interview people more, anytime, in different locations through an online platform such as Zoom. During the Covid-19 outbreak, recruiting has become much more effective and efficient compared to other HR areas, as there is no boundary.
With onboarding, some parts can be conducted online such as building knowledge, e-learning or sharing information about an organisation, which is much more efficient. In the past people joined an organisation and then start onboarding. Currently, many organisations in Thailand, including SEAC, do much pre-onboarding so that candidates can learn much information before joining a company. In SEAC, they can start e-learning, study about the organisational culture, and virtually meet with some of the leaders even before they join an organisation. A platform can be set up for candidates to learn about products, skills and organisational aspects.
In terms of development, it is both a plus and minus. It is much easier for organisations to conduct the development without having to organise supplies and other logistics for employees, unlike before. The only thing that is missing is the workshop and skill development, which still needs a face-to-face interaction. Anyway, people start working more on that. The number of hours that people had for development intervention in the past two years in Thailand were much higher. There is a growing number of online developments for virtual classes. What is missing the most in the HR part is engagement. I used to talk with one organisation that scored the highest in employee engagement. The CEO gave talks at many events about engagement intervention within his organisation. However, In the past two years, the organisation’s score dropped from about 90% to 42% with many turnovers. What has happened during the Covid-19 pandemic? Many aspects in HR intervention have been improved, but the engagement is the key.
Are we seeing burn-out and a “Great Resignation” in Thailand?
I think that this is true, not only in Thailand, but also in many other countries. In the past two years, things have not been clear and this year, it is not possible to have a clear plan and strategy. Yet change and adjustment are needed. This situation is going to continue. Staff need to do more than what they used to do, because you got to try this, if this doesn’t work you iterate, pivot or try a different thing. Thus, people feel that it’s never-ending. We think plan A is good, but two weeks later things change and you have to chance to plan B. As result, burnout occurs in many organisations. Staff wonder why the boss keeps changing plans? Finally, it comes to the point where the staff do not want to work with the company anymore and they look for some other work. However, the great burnout is going to continue because the future path of the organisation is unpredictable. But you have to keep moving on by changing things. It’s a big challenge.
What new HR skills are needed?
The top three skills that HR needs in Thailand are as follows. The first skill is the mindset to learn all the new skills within the HR context. Without the learning mindset, people cannot continue their work. Even you introduce them with a lot of the new skills they won’t learn. The second skill concerns digital surveys and the way to use survey data for the organisation. We are living in a digital world right now, so digital surveys and the ability to use the data in planning and making decisions will elevate a leading organisation to the next level. The third skill, which is very important, is the ability of HR to really understand the new landscape of the business that they are in. So the top three skills that HR must focus on are the need to have a learning mindset, the use of data from digital surveys and having a full understanding of the business landscape in which they are operating.
What are the new key metrics for HR success?
First, each organisation needs to be able to focus on different metrics, depending on the stage reached by the organisation. HR metrics should no longer focus on just HR work; instead, HR work should be linked to the business metric. For example, if HR is going to develop the organisation’s marketing team it is necessary to look at whether the team has all the right skills for marketing. That would be the lead indicator. Second, when developing the marketing team, it is important to have a complete understanding of what work the team must do.
Contact details: James Lee. Powell Consultant SEAC (Southeast Asia Center) +66 2 028 9759 Ext. 415 james_p@seasiacenter.com https://www.seasiacenter.com/
Interviewed by Chanikan Kengluecha and Janina Stoll, GTCC Membership, Events and Communication trainee
