HR Irony (1): A tale of “small” people…

I just got back from my visit to my client site at Tanjungenim, Palembang. On the way back to airport, I had a conversation with the driver. This driver, just said his name is Pak Harry, talked to me passionately about his concerns on working condition in the company. He has been working with the company since 1998, around the same time with the beginning of this company. He heard some information about my consulting assignment in the company, and thought that the current organization restructuring has been suggested by consultant. He said that most of the drivers in the transportation section are happy with the management decision to change the manager and section head.

Pak Harry’s main reason on his happiness with the change in the structure is that they do not have to be under the bad manager now. He said that previously this manager did not put enough concerns to “small people” like driver, especially long service driver like him. Manager only care to subordinates that do “lick ass” to him or to people that are his close friends or even relatives. This manager was playing favorites during his leadership in the department. Even worst, according to Pak Harry, this kind of “lick ass” people or close friends receive higher salary and monthly production bonus than people like him, where he knew that they do not even have higher qualification or performance compared to him. As an example, he said that some employees in the housekeeping section (cleaning service clerk or housekeeper), which is under the same department but different section to transportation, receive higher salary than driver, where according to his own analysis, job as driver required higher skill and posed bigger risk than cleaning service clerk.

He then told me other ironies of his working life in the transportation department under this lousy manager. Lesson that I can take from this story is that there are many managers like this lousy manager that do not even care to build communication and empathy to small people like Pak Harry, because they tend to think that these small folks are not strategic and dispensable. They tend to be more focus on the “managing up” things, rather than “managing down”. Mostly this kind of manager is also lousy in “managing side”, where they do not have good relationship with their peers.

This “small” story also told me a lesson that there are still many companies like this company that do not have a better system to manage their remuneration system, where they can minimize or even eradicate disparity or unfairness in the employee’s salary. Companies need to be aware that this kind of talks in lower people can go around so fast and can easily influence people’s motivation to work and perform. Will you let this kind of irony be in your company?

Evaluasi Kinerja: Apakah kita memiliki patokan yang sama untuk mengukur?

Sabtu lalu (20 Okt), genap 3 tahun SBY-JK memerintah negeri ini. Seperti biasa pada tahun-tahun sebelumnya dalam menyambut tahun berlalu dalam masa kepemimpinan duet ini, para politisi dengan rajin memberikan evaluasi mereka terhadap kinerja pemerintahan. Di salah satu media dituliskan bahwa sebuah partai pendukung pemerintah menyimpulkan bahwa nilai rapor pemerintah adalah 8. Lalu seakan ingin menyanggah, partai lain yang memposisikan diri sebagai oposisi menyatakan nilai rapor pemerintah hanya 5, seperti bak anak sekolah yang bakal tidak naik kelas sehingga tidak layak melanjutkan ke jenjang 2009.

Namun tulisan ini bukan mau mengulas aspek politik dari peristiwa ini. Apa yang menarik yang ingin saya refleksikan dari peristiwa ini adalah bagaimana penilaian-penilaian ini tidak dapat sebenarnya dibandingkan satu sama lain karena tidak memiliki patokan penilaian yang sama. Dalam berita di media tersebut memang secara selintas diberikan alasan mengapa nilai tertenti diberikan, dimana ada beberapa aspek yang dijadikan sebagai parameter penilaian, misalnya kondisi politik, penegakan hukum, kondisi ekonomi, dan lainnya. Akan tetapi saya tidak yakin apa indikator ukuran yang digunakan, baik ukuran kualitatif maupun kuantitatif, oleh berbagai partai politik tersebut sama. Oleh karena itu klaim kinerja pemerintah oleh partai-partai tersebut, apakah baik atau tidak, menjadi kurang bermakna karena kita tidak memiliki kesepakatan akan apa yang mau digunakan sebagai parameter pengukuran kinerja pemerintah. Kalaupun ada, maka rakyat tidak dididik untuk memahami dengan baik apa parameter-parameter yang disepakati itu, sehingga rakyat menjadi lebih mampu menilai apakah pemerintah berhasil atau tidak.

Sebenarnya hal yang sama sering terjadi di organisasi komersial, dimana banyak sekali perusahaan-perusahaan juga tidak menyepakati secara internal apa ukuran-ukuran kinerja yang akan mereka gunakan sebagai patokan untuk menilai kinerja perusahaan secara keseluruhan, kinerja tiap bagian, maupun kinerja individu/karyawan. Kalau sudah begini, maka seringkali akan ada perbedaan pendapat dan persepsi terhadap kondisi kinerja di perusahaan tersebut. Bisa saja karyawan merasa dia telah bekerja dengan baik, sementara atasannya merasa sebaliknya. Perbedaan persepsi seperti ini seringnya dapat berbuntut pada konflik yang dapat menurunkan motivasi, karena penilaian kinerja ini berimplikasi pada perkembangan karir dan remunerasi karyawan.

Oleh karenanya, pelajaran yang dapat dipetik dari sini adalah agar perusahaan dapat menyepakati secara internal indikator dan target kinerja yang akan digunakan sebagai parameter untuk menilai kinerja, baik pada level korporat, bagian/unit kerja, maupun individu, sehingga ada basis dan persepsi yang sama dalam mengevaluasi kinerja.

I-SYS Consulting: Delivering Implementable Solution

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