Time for Indonesians to wake up and work seriously

JAKARTA (JP): Enroll in a prestigious business school and within two years, you'll become a "professional" executive.

As Indonesia now has numerous postgraduate management and business schools, private and state-run, the country can expect an ample supply of professional workers.

"This is a misconception of the term 'professional' by many people," said Djisman Simanjuntak, executive director of Prasetya Mulya business school.

Every person, from blue-collar to white-collar worker, has to be professional in his/her own field and the term is not limited to just top-level people, he maintained.

Business and management schools will only provide a stronger theoretical background and practical skills to enable students to solve various problems in the workplace.

To be professional, he said, one should meet certain basic requirements -- competency, skills and discipline.

Djisman also added that it was not fair to demand that people be professional as it was closely related to the work culture as well as the socioeconomic and political environment.

"Indonesia has long been recognized as a country which tolerates incompetency, laziness and unpunctuality because of our existing social and economic system, a legacy of the New Order period," Djisman said.

There are also some factors which may shape one's sense of professionalism, including educational and cultural background, skills, moral values and attitudes.

In term of skills, Indonesians lag behind people from other countries, even in the Southeast Asian region. "We don't have a sense of perseverance in every field. We are not used to saying 'Yes, I can make it!,'" Djisman said.

"If you are a tempeh maker, you have to produce a high-quality and saleable product. If you are a sportsman, you have to achieve your dream to at least win a gold medal."

What we are lacking now is communication skills and the art of negotiation. "Our lives are full of negotiation. If we don't have skills to transfer our messages, nobody will understand our intentions," Djisman said.

One of the handicaps in communication skills is that only a few of us have mastered the global language of English.

There is a tendency for Indonesians to be satisfied if they master only one subject like economics, medicine or politics, and ignore other subjects.

"But most of all, we have a serious attitude problem. It is a very big question mark," Djisman said.

Since childhood, attitudes have been shaped by internal and external factors, including the home, school and working environments.

At business schools, it is difficult to change one's attitude because the students have already matured and have adopted certain moral and ethical values from various sources.

"What we can do now is encourage them to 'rediscover' good ethical values and remind them about good and bad things in business and daily lives," Djisman said.

"Our business sector collapsed partly because of moral and ethical problems. We need good role models."

Sukono Soebekti, executive director of the Institute of Management Education and Development (IPPM), shared a similar opinion. He said it was leaders or bosses that should set good examples to their subordinates about how to be effective and professional.

Lets say, a boss of a consumer service company should be consistent. He or she, for instance, cannot put a sign "parking for director." The best parking space must be available for the guests. All employees -- from the front office staff to security guards should act the same.

Respect

Employees, Sukono said, should feel they are respected by their boss. They are regarded as the backbone of the company, therefore their sense of ownership will increase accordingly.

There are several problems in our working organization which hamper professionalism. Meager incomes, little chance of promotion, unclear career paths and lack of job satisfaction.

The question of the right environment within the organization and the opportunities offered to an individual for job satisfaction constitute incentives resulting in loyalty and even motivation for better performance, he said.

"This usually occurs in multinational companies which have a well-organized work structure," he said.

Despite the shortcomings, however, Sukono feels optimistic about seeing a rapid change in the country's social, political and economical condition.

"Yes, we are now facing a very difficult time. But, it is only part of the 'growing pains' period which will end somehow," Sukono said.

The openness and democratization processes have enabled people to freely express their aspirations, something that never happened in the past (the New Order era).

"People are now starting to feel 'guilty' if they are involved in corruption, collusion and nepotism because of strong and tight social control. It is good if we want to create a healthier social and working environment," he said.

In previous years, there were a lot of people who received certain privileges because of their close relations to powerful figures.

"You could be a lazy security guard or an incompetent supervisor in the past. That era will be gone soon because now we are competing with other, skilled workers who are ready to replace us," he said.

Government officials can no longer sit and do nothing. In the past, being a government worker meant shorter working hours, a job for life, a pension and security. "At present, many government institutions were dismissed, leaving their workers unemployed," Sukono pointed out.

Indonesians will have to work extremely hard to prepare themselves for the so-called New Economy era in which we are part of the global community and succumb to the international market rules.

"We have to totally change our mindset, to reform our education, social and economical systems to face the global challenges -- something which has been almost impossible for Indonesians to achieve up to now," Djisman said.

Indonesia can't wait or else it will drift away from the global community. "Something must be done right now," he said. (raw)