Loss-making state firms to boost bonuses
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Despite massive losses and huge debt loads, some state-owned transportation enterprises will be handing out bonus cheques of up to one month's salary to motivate employees to work more efficiently and to keep high-quality human resources from leaving.
The enterprises are the State Railway of Thailand (SRT); Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA), the operator of the city bus system; and the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA), the manager of the subway system.
Teerat Ratanasevi, the government spokesman, said the Cabinet agreed in principle to improve the motivation package, which is in line with the performance evaluation of those state enterprises, as submitted by the screening committee for economic proposals chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong.
The Cabinet also approved a monthly allowance for directors as an incentive to attend state enterprises’ board meetings. The move reflected the facts and current situation.
The revised motivation packages are aimed especially at the new group of loss-making public-service enterprises, such as the SRT, BMTA and MRTA.
The bonus decreases according to the score that permanent staff are given on their performance evaluations. A perfect 5 points earns the full month, those with 4.5 will get 0.75 per cent of their monthly salary as a bonus and those scoring between 3.5 and 4 will get 0.5 per cent. Anyone under 3.5 will get no bonus that year.
Profit calculation
The National Economic and Social Development Board suggested that the profit calculation of those state enterprises for bonus allocations should exclude some income items such as interest earned from bank deposits, loan interest, gains or losses from currency exchange and subsidies from the government, except public service obligation funds.
The attendance allowance for directors of state enterprises was improved from Bt6,000-Bt10,000 per meeting to Bt10,000 per month for large state enterprises, Bt8,000 for medium-sized state enterprises and Bt6,000 for small state enterprises.
Directors of specialised financial institutions will receive a Bt10,000 monthly allowance.
The increase is in line with the government’s policy for value creation at all state enterprises, under which directors will be given increased responsibility to manage the firms along with the policy and development strategy set by the government.
