A question of policy

Like all of you, I have regularly had employees say to me, "this is the policy of the company", when justifying a policy or procedure implemented by their management. And that's it; you have to accept the decision even if the policy or procedure is obviously nonsense, counterproductive or not at all customer- friendly (in our opinion, of course!).

From this week only, I can give three such examples from Bandung: 1. Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI)'s newly installed ATM system: The system has many shortcomings. The way they are justified by BRI employees is going to scare away all the people who moved from private banks in 1998 to state BRI. The ATM system does not work during the weekend and outside office hours, and very often there are connection problems or breakdowns during the day. So the system is not reliable at all. As with the BRI security guards and system of lining up to see the cashiers, this is the worst I have experienced in eight years in Indonesia. No employee can give an explanation and just regrets the poor ATM service. The security guards in BRI are just speechless when we give suggestions as to how to fix the problems. 2. I went to Santo Borromeus Hospital recently to see a doctor. I did not have enough money on me and could not buy all my medicine right there. The doctor's prescription was unreadable (as is often true, even in Belgium), so I asked the clerk to give me the names of the medicines (she had already checked them to calculate my bill), but she said that it was hospital policy not to write down the names of medicine on a piece of paper and that I should call from the pharmacy if there was a problem. Can you imagine? She simply refused to write down the names of the medicines I needed to buy just because of "company policy".

She even checked the policy with her manager and it was confirmed. I wonder what kind of manager is coming up with such a policy and if she/he had a good reason for doing so. 3. Indonesian passport procedures: Indonesian Immigration officials request identification, family card, birth certificate, marriage certificate and sponsor letter. Well, in Belgium, ID is enough. And don't tell me that an Indonesian ID cannot be trusted, because then you would need to clean up the whole civil registration service ....

My question is why do Indonesian policy and procedure makers (both in the private and public sectors) make things much more complicated than they already are, and why are employees unable to explain why such policies or procedures are being implemented by them?

YVAN MAGAIN

Bandung