Bill for Human Resource Management Professionals

Human resource management (HRM) plays a strategic and important role in both the public and private sectors in order to maximise the employee’s performance by efficiently managing people within a company or organisation. This may include, among others, the recruitment, selection, training, development, control and supervision of personnel in the company or organisation, as well as the creation and coordination of good relationships between the employer and employees, as well as management of the employees’ rights and benefits.

Consequently, a bill for Human Resource Management Professionals (“Draft Legislation”) has recently been presented to the Ministry of Labour in order to raise the standard of human resource management, so that the human resource management profession can gain international recognition on a similar level to other professions such as the medical, legal, architect and engineering professions. In such regard, the Secretariat of the House of Representatives has made the Draft Legislation openly available for the general public to submit their opinions.

By virtue of this Draft Legislation, a human resource management professionals may act on behalf of the employer/business operator to recommend or give suggestions to the employer/business operator, and to carry out the following activities: 

• Perform any action related to human resource management which affects the employee’s rights, labour union members or labour union committee;
• Perform any action related to human resource management which is required by relevant laws to be a duty or action of the employer or business operator (e.g. the law concerning labour protection, labour relations, occupational safety, health and environment, employment arrangement and jobseeker protection, working of aliens, immigration, skills development promotion, social security, workmen compensation fund or civil and commercial law in relation to the aforementioned laws); and
• Enter into an employment contract; serve a termination notice or letter pertaining to salary increase, promotion, punishment or transfer of employees; or provide certification of work, wages, salary and the employee’s status.

Notwithstanding the above, it is important to note that not all employees who are human resource management professionals have the right to conduct the abovementioned tasks. For example, if the human resource management professionals have not been verified (i.e. not registered, nor obtained a licence), he or she will not be authorised to proceed with the operations listed under Items (1) and (2) above.

At the time of writing, please be reminded that the Draft Legislation is still pending and may be subject to further change(s). The employer/business operator and particularly the employee who is qualified as a human resource management professional are thus recommended to pay attention to this subject matter until the Draft Legislation is finalised or officially published in the Government Gazette. 

This is intended merely to provide a regulatory overview and not to be comprehensive; it is NOT a provision of legal advice. Should you have any questions on this or on other areas of law, please do not hesitate to contact the following: 

Chanakarn Boonyasith
Partner
Pattaranun Hanwongpaiboon
Associate

Authors