It has entered the 3rd anniversary of the largest amalgamation in the telecom history in Southeast Asia by combined enterprise value – the merger between two giants True and dtac to become True – with gross synergies amounting to 250 billion baht. Its peak share price nearly doubled from 8.5 to 13 baht per share while its financial performance had grown positively for 8 consecutive quarters of EBITDA.
What lies behind these incredible successes: People.
Women’s Tabloid sat down with Sarinra Wongsuppaluk, Chief Human Resources Officer at True Corporation, chatting with her over the opportunities and challenges along the integration journey from people management aspects, the way to building a strong organizational culture from the differences, her professional growth and leadership style.
Telco-Tech Ambition
The horizontal merger between the 2nd and 3rd largest telecom operators -True and dtac – was completed in March 2023, which later became the No. 1 telcos operator by subscriptions – 55 million out of 93 million nationwide. Whereas the company’s size doubled with 18,400 staff members.
Thanks to the consolidation, the merged firm is in a stronger position with full support from shareholders – CP Group and Telenor – allowing them to leverage significant improvements in asset productivity as well as global expertise.
Beyond business interests, the move plays a part in Thailand’s ‘new milestone’ on the impressive digital journey with the ambitious goal of creating the region’s leading ‘telco-tech company’, empowering people and businesses with connected solutions that advance society sustainably.
After the deal was sealed, the focus shifted to operations, integrating cultures and systems into one. Post-merger integration is often viewed as the most difficult aspect of an M&A transaction. If it fails, several significant benefits for the participating companies on synergies, diversification and growth will fundamentally collapse. In addition, combining two organizations with different corporate cultures, management styles and systems could also lead to disruptions, conflicts, employee dissatisfaction, which can jeopardize the success of the integration process.
One Team, One Future
Building a unified organizational culture, at the same time, became first and foremost priority for the integration journey due to a big gap in cultural alignment between former True and dtac employees. True was a leading player with a portfolio of connectivity services, covering mobile and fixed broadband and pay TV services called triple play. Its working style could be described through the ambitious mindset, which was all about No. 1 position. While dtac was a leading mobile operator with a mix of working culture between Thai and Nordic, prioritizing efficiency and productivity was at the heart of operations.
“Success is not just about structure; it’s about synergy. When every individual sees their role in the bigger picture, performance transforms from an obligation to an inspiration. Together, we move forward as One Team, One Future,” Sarinra shared her thinking principle about the integration.
In the initial phase of post-merger, cultural difference was noticed as a huge challenge for the entire company, including Sarinra from day 1. Employee involvement via the continued operations must be ensured, while improved efficiency was prioritized. As CHRO at True Corporation, Sarinra acts as a ‘key figure’, responsible for shaping a workforce that makes ‘Work’.
“With such huge differences, it’s probably impossible to make a smooth merger. However, I strongly believe that we can make it if we start the right path – building trust. The trust that we will bring strength from each other to make a stronger True,” Sarinra reiterated
4C: Northstar at True
At True Corporation, we set out 4C as the organizational culture, which includes Compassion, Credibility, Co-creation and Courage. It is the firm’s Northstar to achieve its ‘Telco-Tech Company’ ambition.
“Culture is about tone at the top. In other words, culture could be formed, fed and nurtured properly to reach a certain goal that must be begun with organization’s leaders, from board of directors, C-level and senior executives”, she added.
However, we also believe in a bottom-up approach, encouraging employees at all levels to have a participation in setting up corporate culture via a series of company-wide workshops, aimed at co-creating a ‘culture playbook’. This is to ensure that everyone at True has a “mutual agreement” on guiding values, principles and way of working.
Under 4C cultures, True led by the Culture team outlined a working framework of 3 pillars, which underscores the organization’s guiding values and ethical climate established by the senior leaders.
1. One team with trust and respect
Unity, trust and respect are interconnected and crucial for fostering positive relationships and achieving shared goals. To cultivate them, communication is key. Quarterly Town hall meetings were scheduled as a means for leaders to convey their message to the employees directly – whether through offline or online channels.
Beside formal events, employee engagement activities were frequently organized through ‘soft-side’ activities, such as Happy Pay Day, Culture Play Day and Halloween Night. Those strategic yet humanized activities reaffirmed the leader’s deep understanding with great empathy, shifting the paradigm of employee engagement in the present days.
Moreover, a positive work environment is a catalyst for boosting employee wellbeing. True Clubs, a variety of leisure clubs within the company, were initiated based on their interests beyond work, such as sports, wellness and music. It is aimed at encouraging social interaction and camaraderie, which in turn potentially lead to stronger team dynamics and Collaboration.
Active listening was also adopted to make sure that the employee’s voice will be heard with transparency. Ask Us Anything, an internal activity was introduced to allow a group of volunteer employees who wish to meet up and ‘ask anything’ with frank questions to the high-ranking executives directly. This encouraged ‘courage’ culture through speak-up without fear, through proper communications channels.
When it comes to cultural transformation, Culture Ignitor– a network of 23 representatives across the company – was formed, acting as an ‘internal change agent’. They play a crucial role in driving engagement, supporting transformation efforts, and gathering valuable employee feedback on key initiatives, such as the recognition program and best practices sharing.
2. Performance-driven organization
Performance-oriented organizations have high-performing teams, who are motivated to contribute towards the shared goals. The high performers are generally reliable and efficient, proactive and initiative-taking, possessing a growth mindset at heart. With the firm belief in our people’s potential, Learnathon, a 45-hour mandatory upskilling program, was provided to all employees, promoting life-long learning culture.
Fueled by telco-tech ambition, Hackathon – an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over 24 hours – was organized. As a result, over 170 innovative ideas were generated in 2024 alone. This reflects its people’s strong passion for continuous self-improvement via the co-creation platform provided.
3. Being customer-centric
When asked what areas Sarinra wants to improve the most, she pointed out to ‘customer centricity’. Business success will be hindered if corporate culture is not solidified and made tangible through products and services. Previously, True staffled by the CEO walked the ground to have a close-up look at the market through an activity called ‘customer delight day’. It is a great opportunity for frontline staff to give feedback to the decision maker directly, promoting courage culture at the same time.
“During the first few years of the integration journey, we put focus on building cultures that unite our people as one. Today, we strive for something more lasting, passing on the 4C culture to our customers in every way possible.” Sarinra emphasized.
Within just six months of kicking off One Team, One Future mission, changes – cultural, mindset and behaviour – had shown evidently via overall performances. True Corp today became more agile with increased adaptability and resilience. Our people possess a strong passion and a fighting spirit to empower customers via innovation and digital solutions. Looking back at the past adventurous journey, trust is a cornerstone of success. Trust is a currency of relationships. The problem is: How to assess the level of trust that is built? When does it happen? And how to maintain a lasting trust?
Under the trust equation framework by Charles Green, an individual’s trustworthiness is equal to their credibility, reliability and intimacy, all divided by their level of self-orientation. Individuals can develop their trustworthiness by addressing these underlying trust factors. Trust is also an important component of organizational cultures. Where trust is higher, people tend to have more unity, walking onto the same path of success
Data-Driven Organization
To achieve the company’s telco-tech ambitions, ‘data’ lies at the heart of transformation. And that is how people policies were initiated, and its decisions were made, while data analytics were used as a tool, turning data into insights. To understand employee’s needs in the time of organizational and technological transitions, employee segmentation framework – demographics, psychographics and behavior – is deployed to design people benefits, looking for hidden strength, blind spot and their personal values. These datasets help evaluate current situations, uncover patterns, analyze trends and leverage insights for forecasting future trends.
Employee demographics is one of the core compositions to be considered, ranging from gender mix, age group, years of service group, generations, location, etc. This allowed these people practitioners to analyze, understand and foresee employees’ needs – both professional and personal lives. Following the amalgamation, overall age range of our employees is significantly younger than before, and majority of our employees shift from Gen X to more Gen Y in the 30s. The change in age structure has a deep implication on employee’s values, lifestyle and demands. To better design people programs that match the expectations and needs, demographic change data was turned into a wide variety of initiatives – from employee benefits and wellbeing programs – such as a dedicated space of full functional fitness center where employee and also employee’s family members can enjoy, and Thai massage room. Beyond office facilities, consultation services are also provided in the hands of expertise – office infirmary/first aid services through full-time registered nurses, so employees can seek a consultation via physical therapy. Here are some clear examples of the way True turned data into actions.
To prevent fundamental underlying issues in the organization, ‘iceberg data’ via psychological aspects is crucial. From day 1 becoming an employee at True, every single one is required to take the psychometric test, a personal insight report on the extensive range of occupational assessments, that enables HR professionals to keep informed about one-self capabilities, such as cognitive profile, personality assessment, work style themes, strength, potential derailers, and personal values. These sorts of data are truly valuable for the current workforce planning as well as to become a future-ready organization.
Through the cognitive reasoning abilities, the assessment results will identify whether verbal, numerical or abstract skill of its employees required the improvement in the alignment with global benchmarks
As personal development is a learning and growing process, it goes to beyond one-self. The 360-degree review and feedback on Behaviors are valuable components, which identify the areas for improvement. It was adopted to uncover the hidden strengths and improvement areas of an employee by gathering performance feedback from peers, direct reports and subordinates. The feedback results show a good direction for employees’ career development plan by maintaining their strengths, while their weaknesses are ensured to be closed. As a result, shared values will be created between employees and the company, leading to a mutual benefit and sustainable organization. This highlights the deep understanding of Sarinra in people management that not only focuses on WHAT to do but also includes HOW along the process with Data.
“In the diversity world, what we need is those with the ‘right mindset’. A strong desire that wants to change, adapt, and improve, while people fulfillment and career development are on us. Everyone can be talented in their own area. And we just have to provide opportunities for them to develop and grow.” Sarinra emphasizes.
In shorts, by cutting across all this insightful data through HR analytics, we are able to gain a deeper comprehension of people at True – whether they are high performers who need to be recognized and promoted, potential gems who seek advice via coaching or those passion explorers who strive for challenges in agile ways, etc. With great efforts in pioneering in data-driven organization, customized career development is put in place for those real talents in parallel with the prevention of regretted turnover and talent retention scheme as part of people strategy. As a result, True can create a workplace that enables everyone to work and grow together with the company.
Career Path in Generative AI Era
Apart from frameworks and tools, line managers play a crucial role as an ‘enabler’ to empower every single employee through constructive discussion and feedback giving. Human interaction with empathy is vital to the learning process under people development programmes.
To address young generation employees in particular, self-worth creation must be prioritized. They want to be seen as valuable. They wish their voices to be heard. And they possess a strong desire to reach the top of the corporate ladder in a quick response. However, their ‘professional growth’ has a broader definition beyond responsibilities, but also includes knowledge, experience and skills, which they highly expect from employers.
Thus, True provided a career growth platform for those with high ambitions under True Next Gen programme, a fast-track program provided through action learnings together with real world experience. The 18-month Future Leader Program offers first jobbers an opportunity to gain invaluable business insights through 3 job rotations across different roles and functions. Last year, True Next Gen 2024 received a total number of over 3,000 applications, while the program was capped at 50, reflecting an attractive career development program among new generations.
Reverse mentoring is another example related to junior employees, giving them opportunities to suggest senior leaders.
“As a mentee under a reverse mentoring program, it helped broaden my horizons into the world of young gens, getting to know them more on personality, traits, thoughts and values.” Sarinra stated, adding that these youngsters resonate the state of being tech savvy. They can be a tech talent without the needs of holding tech certificates. Their ability to learn is exponential. They know what to do, what to learn and how to shortcut the conventions. Their ability cultivated from digital nativity is in dire need for the telco-tech firm, fulfilling the transformative path led by experienced leaders presently.”
Amidst the focus on corporate’s priorities on efficiency and productivity, generative AI had come at the right timing, creating both a welcoming and fearful atmosphere. However, Sarinra expressed her view on the reshaped labour market landscape, saying that ‘job reinvention’ consequences are likely to be seen in the near future. In 2025, True aims to develop 5,000 employees in AI skills through upskilling and reskilling programs, building on the digital skill development initiative successfully rolled out across the organization in 2024. Likewise, HR practitioners must be able to understand AI principles and additional skills for the workforce.
She insisted that humans will remain a key role in mostly overseeing and analysing tasks. Holistically, critical thinking is vital to people in the AI era, resulting in better decision making. AI still lacks some sort of abilities, such as gut-based decision making and human-touch services, which tremendously require human emotional intelligence rather than AI.
Grow Digital Talents Inclusively
Women’s Tabloid asked about the future challenges in Thailand’s labour market, which possibly face a brain drain emigration?
“At True, we won’t take only the cream of the crop and leave the rest behind. Instead, we help them grow their hidden strength to become what they want. Our key principle in organizational management is all about ‘opportunities’, Sarinra gave her answers with firm belief.
Like digital transformation, opportunities are provided through a structured learning path. Around 6,000 employees have completed the digital foundation program. The mandatory upskilling program is aimed to make sure everyone at True has a solid foundation in digital and AI literacy. This goes beyond just internal career growth but also a future-proof workforce that is adaptable, innovative, and well-equipped for the evolving job market. The year 2025 will be intensified with advanced knowledge under the digital talent program and digital expert subsequently.
With this approach, no one will be left behind on this transformative journey as long as opportunities and time are provided. The move is also a part of social development to the nation as a whole. In parallel, intensive training programs like action learnings and hackathon will be deployed in order to address go-to-market speed challenges, resulting in a better ability to stay ahead of competitors and take a leading position in the market.
Trust and Well-being
The recent occurrence of the Bangkok quake is an unprecedented crisis. To proactively tackle all forms of emergencies, True has a set of rules and protocols to tame the incidents and minimize the consequences under ‘zero loss time accident’ policy, reflecting the company’s concerns over employee rights with empathy. Everyone must stay true to Safety.
“During the crisis, situation control is key to crisis management. Right after we felt the shaking, leaving us standing unstably. A single command method documented on health, safety and people security (HSS) handbook was deployed promptly after noticing it was an earthquake as to ensure our people’s safety,” said Sarinra.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, employee support is critically important as they may experience emotional stress, physical exhaustion and ongoing recovery challenges. In response, True has announced a number of relief packages to those affected ones and their family members too. This ranges from accommodation allowance, emergency leaves, livelihood support, repairs and maintenance subsidy of damaged premises and vehicles as well as mental health consultation free of charge.
“Our people’s safety – physically and mentally – is our top priority. Providing support in this difficult time fundamentally is what we should do, not just organization-employee relationship, but human beings,” she stressed.
Employee wellbeing was actually put in place from the very 1st day, from facility design to policymaking. A significant proportion of headquarters’ spaces are dedicated to employee’s facilities, such as a whole floor of fully-equipped gym, rooms for physical therapy and massage, nap room, prayer room and reverse osmosis purified water dispenser. Because True deeply cares about their health and well-being, every detail must not be taken for granted. It can be said that True is an ergonomic office design whether chair or desk, making the workspace more convenient, comfortable and inclusive for a diverse workforce.
When it comes to policies, diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) are its guiding values. Recognizing that diversity fuels innovation, True has implemented a set of inclusive
policies, including marriage leave, that apply to all employees regardless of gender or sexual orientation In 2024, True Corp was granted HR Asia’s most caring company awards.
Transformative Leader
Conventionally, HR was once viewed as a back-office operation, limited to providing support to the organization by dealing with contracts, benefits, leaves and recruitment. By contrast, the visionary business mogul Mr. Suphachai Chearavanont, currently Chief Executive Officer of Charoen Pokphand Group (C.P. Group) and Chairman of True Corporation, viewed that HR is at the forefront of change management. Paving the way toward digital transformation, CHRO must be the right candidate. Finally, Sarinra was named as the newly-appointed CHRO at True since 2012.
To achieve a high-performance organization goal, the leader in people management must first possess the trait. Without background in HR, Sarinra brought a fresh prospect of ‘out-side-in’ method – taking a diverse experience in sales and marketing in a multinational company, Unilever, to apply with workforce related issues. Her background differences highlighted her unique strength, leading the merged company with trust.
“HR must move from a back-office function to a strategic partner of employees.” she explained Sarinra likes to make a breakthrough, always challenging the status quo. Whether it’s right or wrong, failed or happy, the lesson learned must be taken into account and revisited to avoid mistake duplication.
“I view that any work I was assigned is the trust people put on me. Therefore, I’ve a strong commitment to do my best, putting all the effort I have into it with full understanding on a certain matter. Thus, a greater impact will be created,” she added.
Over several decades of devotion in self growth, her existence today was no longer for herself, but to help others to succeed and grow through a personal or professional life. In her spare time, Sarinra devotes her precious time, giving mentorship, rich experience in mindfulness science and advice to young generations and the underprivileged too.
“To become one of the successful female leaders along with male executives today, opportunities I received – education, career and growth – play a major part of my success although I was raised by a single mother since I was a toddler. She (her mom) was a source of inspiration that pushed me to become me today. Likewise my current role in people management on a large scale, it happened thanks to the opportunities given to me by Mr. Suphachai Chearavanont, Chief Executive Officer of Charoen Pokphand Group (C.P. Group) and Chairman of True Corporation, and the trust he put in me.” she highlighted.
