In the contexts of changes and severe competitions, the public sector has to revise its direction
in response to current situation. Public administration must be more flexible, adaptive and
responsive to the needs of citizens. Thai government has encouraged public sectors to improve
their quality management to respond this situation. In order to improve quality and
productivity, the Public Sector Management Quality Award (PMQA) was launched by the
Office of the Public Sector Development Commission in 2005. The PMQA comprises a
quality standard of seven categories which is a framework of quality management. The PMQA
criteria can be used as a guideline for the self-assessment of an organization, and as a standard
of its own performance monitoring and evaluation processes. The organization has to answer
the questions in these seven categories so as to find its strengths and the opportunities for
improvement. In order to strengthen the organization performance, an appropriate
management tool is then selected for the organizational improvement plan so that organization
development is systematically and continuously enhanced, leading to a learning organization
and a high performance organization at the same time. Supplementing empirical evidence
from applications of the PMQA criteria in the public sector, the paper reviews the experience
of the Office of the Permanent Secretary for Labour with its quality management on overall
dimensions.