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One of the first tasks he tack¬led after taking the helm of the country's sixthlargest bank was to restructure the most impor¬tant component of any organisa¬tion - human resources.

On Monday, the TMB board approved a Bt400million spe¬cialpayment programme, which it hopes will help improve staff efficiency and solve inconsisten¬cies in the salary structure that were a major headache for for¬mer CEO Subhak Siwaraksa.

"This was a smart move indeed. Starting with the staff first," a market watcher said.

Boontuck said yesterday that employees were considered as a core fundamental of an organisa¬tion. "So, I focused on their prob¬lems first. And the union is quite happy about the outcome", he said.

In 2004, the bank completed a merger with DBS Thai Danu Bank and the Industrial Finance Corporation of Thailand. However, since then, TMB has been busy integrating all the dif¬ferent divisions.

One of the major problems TMB inherited from the merger was different pay bands for staff. Staff from different organisations - but doing the same jobs - were on different pay levels. On top of this, some divisions had too many staff after the integra¬tion of the two banks' branches.

The new payment programme includes a fixed bonus of 1.5 months' salary for each year of service for staff with positions lower than assistant vice presi¬dent. The bonus, which will have a minimum guarantee, will be paid twice a year.