…contractors
My close friend (the one working for that American company) has been complaining about her low income, she always compared herself to a certain European contractor who is paid at least 8 times more than what she earns.
Yes, she admits the contractor is good (well they ought to be), the guy knows almost everything and his contribution is so vital that his contract has been renewing for over a decade and it does not seems to be terminated anytime soon.
It is not that the guy wants to keep all the knowledge to himself nor his apprentices are not able to learn anything from him (by saying apprentices I meant the company employees whom were assigned to learn from him).
The problem is that, the skillful employees always quit the company because the pays were horrible.
The question is, why organisation doesn’t try to keep their own (cheaper) employees and their knowledges, rather than being dependent on the super expensive contractor?
Is this an efficient way to manage the company's crucial knowledge (and also asset, people)?
Some certain thing is just so hard to understand.
Ungsutorn Thavornlertrat
14 Jun 2012 19:08
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Tags: Kbam
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Pinthida Thanatipanont
yep thats true. it’s happening in almost every top organizations in Thailand – as far as I am concerned. I guess one of the main reasons companies dare to pay their full time employees so little is because they KNOW that there are more and more young talented people trying to find a job. The new people are more than willing to work harder, and possibly for even cheaper pay.
If you have an army of willing people, how would the existing employees fight the battle? The existing employees are only aware that they are being exploited through the very low wage (relatively), after they HAVE been through it. They realize how much work they are being forced to do and how much time they have to spend inside their cubicles. However, the new kids who have just graduated (in Thailand, mostly they’re not really kids, since most jobs require a master degree – even if its at data entry level!), face fierce competition and a high supply of labour spontaneously with relatively low demand for labour amidst the gloomy global economy. Hence, they are in a way being forced to accept whatever wage they may get in the hope that working with such ‘successful’ company will equip them with necessary experiences so that they’ll be more ready to tackle and drive their family businesses to success later on.
So I guess the wage thing has a lot to do with demand, supply of labour, individual circumstances, etc… I would guess that companies do realize they would prefer to keep the talented employees and thereby retain their knowledge within the company. And unfortunately, this is mostly done through a pay raise, as opposed to growing career prospects, exciting tasks, or interesting job design.
Since things are all align with the pay or extrinsic incentives, quality employees end up leaving the companies anyways – just when some other company offer them a slightly higher pay!
I propose that if employees are paid better, fairer, more proportionately to the amount of work they have to do. And also, they are being given plenty of opportunities to improve and develop, and well as a mindset shift from “work for me 24/7 and I may reward you” to “work hard, play hard, and enjoy your work and life” – this way, people will probably be a lot happier and stay in organizations much much longer, and thereby contribute so much more!
15 Jun 2012, 15:20
Pinthida Thanatipanont
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/wmg/ftmsc/modules/modulelist/kbam/seminars/outcomes/seminar_6/
a seminar from past years on KM and subcontractors that may be of your interest :)
16 Jun 2012, 00:16
Ungsutorn Thavornlertrat
in this case, it is the weakness in Thai labour law, even if it is there to protect employees, the government never enforce it.
The purpose is to create competitive advantage of cheap Thai skilled labour to attract more foreign investment.
Thais have been operating this way for a long time that most people think it is a norm, a working standard.
Working overtime with no extra pay is acceptable in general….duhh!
People worship money and status, thus, they swallow poison as if it was food.
16 Jun 2012, 23:14
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