The new plans of Human Resources Section are to sharpen staff with current working skills and capacity to accommodate future work as well as to build social responsibility awareness
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rachapon Santiwarakorn, Vice President for Human Resources of Khon Kaen University said during the interview that KKU policies under the University Council cover the notion of “PES”. “P” means People or the staff members. The staff will be developed to become smart and good. The section’s approach from the start is to recruit smart people into LLU. Then there will be procedures that develop the personnel even more by sharpening their capabilities. Meanwhile, suitable job assignment is also important so that the staff can fully demonstrate their potential. The university also has to adopt processes to motivate and keep these smart people with the university. They should be engaged and happy to work. “E” means Ecological – this means improvement of regulations so that the environment is pleasant to stay. There should be fringe benefits and welfare. Everyone should have security and the university is the place where others also want to come to work. “S” comes from Spiritual – we will build the spirit of KKU in social dedication. This should be instilled among people in KKU in order to benefit the society as set in the university’s goals.
For the criteria in recruiting smart people into the university, Vice President for Human Resources said that there are criteria for KKU to follow, For example, there should be at least 70% of lecturers holding PhD degrees or more should continue their studies. The supporting staff should be encouraged to attend training. “Smart” means ability according to the field. Lecturers must also be able to teach their students to be smart. This is the changing point during the next 4 years. The instructional methods will be changed from teacher-based to teacher as a coach or trainer of students so that they acquire the skills required. We have to look at the overall picture of the required graduates and train the students to be in that direction. Lecturers have to change their teaching approaches and should work together as a team.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rachapon Santiwarakorn also explained the steps of implementation that as we are entering the age of changes of technology, our people must be able to adjust themselves. Step 1 of the policy is to let our people know what technologies are changed, especially the use of digital system in the work and for instruction. We have to train from basics so that everyone will acquire necessary skills for the digital world at 100%. Then the tools for system changes will be used to reduce steps and costs and at the same time provide convenience. In Step 2, our hiring system will be more flexible. We will draw smart people from outside. This cannot be done quickly. We may have to adjust by adjusting rates of remuneration. For example, in some fields, there may be a lack of experts and we may need people from outside. Improving regulations will open more channels in this regard. Another thing is to evaluate work outcomes that truly reflect what happened so that we can be confident and use suitable remuneration.
“In the near future, we will have to allocate a high amount of budget to support entering on personnel into higher positions.”
As for changing from KPI (Key Performance Indicator) to OKR (objective key result), the vice president said that KPI means if there are 10 processes we have 10 indicators. The 10 indicators are directed towards the same goal. In preparing graduates we use KPI such as the number of students graduating within the time frame, satisfaction of their employers, percentage of employment. For OKR, we will look at the goal of graduate production such as readiness to work, skills for the future. We have to evaluate if we produce graduates according to the qualifications set or not. We will start using OKR by reducing indicators in KPI. This system will start in some part in this fiscal year, and will extend to other issues in the next fiscal year.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rachapon Santiwarakorn said that for KKU Transformation for progress and sustainable development are the major directions presented by the President for university administration. This is translated into the work of human resources. We have to change the processes that are inefficient, making them more streamlined. Those that are slow will be quicker. Manual systems will be changed to digital systems which are more efficient. We will use ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system or holistic planning of organizational resources in order to make the fullest utilization. This covers accounts of people, their positions, salaries, self-development and all information of a personnel member ever since he or she starts work until the end. This will be in the database that is linked systematically. The administrators therefore have the basis for decision making and this also connects to remuneration that can be increased. Transformation also means improvement of rules and regulations of welfare and funds which are now disperse and will be clustered together for better management.
Human Resource Section will take its roles to train and develop staff members more. Each staff member will have his own profile that stipulates his minimum capacity according to the position and is linked to evaluation. If a person fails to achieve the capacity set, this will demonstrate the gap in development. It also leads to individual development plan to be organized by the university to reach the position standard. Besides, in OKR there will be assessment of “Product” in order to calculate the income that a staff member raise through his work for 1 year for the university. At first the average of the whole university will be 500,000 baht per person, which is derived from the income the university earns from all sections. This is an indicator of the university to. In principle, if we invest on a person by developing him and making him happy, he will be engaged and love the organization. He will dedicate himself more to his work and this reflects the university’s operation and more income.
“If we do not change ourselves, we will be changed by others. Then we will not be as happy as changing ourselves. We have to accept that the world is changed in technologies as well as people’s behaviors. We may face future problems that we underestimate. Therefore, we have to be prepared. We will walk together towards our goals and we will not leave anyone behind,” Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rachapon Santiwarakorn ended.
