Jakarta - human resource is plenty here

I have an Indonesian maid to help with home chores. My wife is a teacher, a real committed primary school teacher who pays more attention to her students than her kids. We let the maid go back to West Java, Indonesia for a short holiday to visit her ailing father late last year. It was a difficult decision. We were warned about strict immigration requirement on part of Indonesian government. But being a caring employer, we let her go.

The reality set in, and it was a nightmare. She could not return as scheduled. She was stranded at the Jakarta airport. With no employer's leave approval endorsed by the Indonesian Embassy in KL, she could not board the Air Asia flight to KL. She didn't carry much cash either.

The turn of the event saw us me and my wife in the city of Jakarta for the first time. Jakarta is a city of people. People are everywhere. On the road. On the microbus. On the bajaj. Under the bridges. On the train. I was thinking it must be easy to do recruitment here to fill up vacancies in my organization.

ex-IT people bring innovations to HR

I bumped into Murad, another ex-IT Manager who is now doing procurement for international operation. He was then a UNIX server specialist - we were using a number of Sun servers for some of the technical applications - and he was the system administrator. He took care of the server maintenance including capacity planning and he enjoyed the work so much, eventhough having to be in the "engine room" (what we called our data center) all the times. With him was a young ex-IT executive who is now Murad's subordinate. She was complaining about how some old-style bosses hate ex-IT people and looked at them suspiciously. She said these old-style bosses - whose authority only exists on memos and circulars circulated to line departments - are very slow. Their workstyle is paper-based. They feared IT things like XP, PowerPoints slides, emails and anything electronic. They feel threatened by the speed of how ex-IT people get things done. They feared some day they will lose their jobs to these innovated Generation X people. I must admit the truth in what she said. They are two ex-IT staff in my HR Department and they were doing very well. They moved faster than others.

"Ms Reed's favorite student is in town"

The other day I flew into KL International Airport having to attend a performance appraisal higher committee meeting. On the train into downtown KL, I sms-ed an old friend during university days in Canada. We were so close then so much so that we shared personal things together. It has been a year or two since we last met. He seemed to forget my number and was asking who was me. I sms-ed in return writing "Ms Reed's favorite student" and he instantly recognized me. We met in the IT area of KL after my meeting. We talked about life of students overseas, about high school in Guelph near Toronto in Ontario, about our English teacher Ms Reed, about Thunder Bay and Lakehead University, about Winnipeg and Brandon, about good bachelor days, about old friends, about families and works.

It was after the meeting another great encounter happened. I was speaking at the lobby of our HQ with friends when a lady asked to confirm my name. She turned out to be my study mate at the University of Manitoba and I have not met her for a long long long time. The last time I heard she was divorced with her husband, my another friend. We could not talk long as she seemed to be rushing to a something may be a lunch meeting. She asked about my wife.

Rationale: Friendship never dies. Old memories make you happier and younger.

"Middle managers did not coach enough"

This time, not over the BBQ at CEO's residence like last time they did, but they met at office, to discuss about the thing they were supposed to do well but did not do it quite well, at least as alleged by executives under them. Yes, organizational improvement people came up with the latest front line survey result. Front line survey is a quarterly survey responded by junior executives and non-executives including operators and technicians. It is a tool used by the management to check the middle and upper management's effectiveness. As expected the result was not as expected, low and not even meeting the Company's target. Middle managers were blamed again for not doing enough coaching to their staff, for not providing effective feedback to their staff. On question no. 12, "In the past month, you have been provided feedback on your performance by your superior. (Yes/No)", the score was the lowest. A couple of upper management members were present at the auditorium and all agreed it was a shared issue and something must be done in order to get good score in the next survey. Laboratory manager thought that respondents did not understand the question and they must be "guided to answer the way we want it", whatever it means. Procurement manager argued that survey result was not a big deal, why make a fuss when the business is good and Company is making tons of money. Bottomline should matter most, and not what the so-called "front line staff " said. Couple of unhappy staff do not break this organization of 500, so he said. Identify them and have a session to with them. The problem was that it was not a couple of them, it could be even more and nobody knew exactly as the survey was done online. Survey result was also reported by department, and some department managers were screaming, some leaving hall early citing he got more important meeting to attend. OI people got solution already and the mini-workshop they conducted confirmed that. In this so-called "mini-workshop" we were divided into group of four or five. Each was given a piece of yellow paper to write one suggestion on how to improve coaching in their department. Only one best solution was selected from each group, and pasted to the wall for challenge by others. Feedbacks were aplenty, among others, intensify coaching program, let the junior executives coach non-executives freeing managers to only coach executives, managers don't have skill to coach - send them to classroom first, coaching already happens at workplace but not documented, staff meeting is equivalent to coaching already - what more do you expect, executives too dependant now - let them find solutions themselves rather than being spoon-fed all the times, and many more. At the end of the workshop, nobody agreed on anything. Time was running out. Then OI people came in. We were all given a new KPI and must be included in our individual performance contract, which is going to be signed off soon in front of our CEO and of course those front line people. The ultimatum is COACHING MUST BE DONE AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH TO THEIR DIRECT REPORTS. On top of that, managers must conduct quarterly staff engagement session in their department.
OI people had already come up with a new coaching form and everytime a coaching happens it must be documented. Instrument manager complained he has eight direct staff and for him too many already. I had two, thanks God.

Performance Appraisal

In this organization, performance management is a serious matter. Employee is given a set of work objectives at the beginning of the financial year, agreed between him and his superior. Each objective is measured by a performance indicator with set target. Targets are further broken down to base and stretch. If you achieve the base target, you meet the work requirement. If you achieve the stretch target, you exceed the work requirement. Targets change every year to become more and more challenging year after year so that you will improve your performance. The pursuit to achieve stretch target is very rigorous as it ties with better monetary reward, even much better compared to meeting the requirement only. Performance management exercise begins with setting the KPIs at all level.

Sajak “SARAPAN KUASA”

Ratusan juadah berbaris.
Pulau bulat di tengah-tengah.
Seluruh dunia berkumpul di sini.
Lelaki barat dan timur.
Perempuan barat dan timur.
Kanak-kanak bermata biru dan coklat.
Wanita Arab berjilbab membawa setimbun roti dan croissants
Sup meiso dan dim sum dan roti canai.
Sosej, hash potato, tomato yang dibakar.
Salad dan buah buahan dalam dan luar.Lima jenis jus.
Kepingan daging nipis bernama seakan-akan tidak halal.
Perempuan Melayu bertudung membawa nasi lemak sambal udang.
Dan orang seperti aku yang campur semua.

Kolam renang yang tiada perenang.
KLCC yang malu-malu di celahan hutan batu.

Kutanya penuang kopi bernama Patrick berbaju maroon
RM40 satu kepala.
Aku teringat kanak-kanak bermata hitam dari Sik.
Mampukah ke sini?



Abu Adam
Planter’s Inn, Crowne Plaza Mutiara, KL
4/4/2007

Middle Managers caugh in the middle.

In this organization, there are 30 to 40 middle managers, defined as those sitting in between junior executives and senior management teams. They are normally heading a section or a small department less than 20 people or so. The internal survey done has indicated middle managers are a trouble lot. Their subordinates labeled them as selfish, work-centered and spend less or no time in providing direction and guidance to juniors. CEO was upset and wanted the root cause be identified. He invited them to his Company-provided sprawling house for a barbeque. Being one of the troubled lot, I was there too.
Foods were lavish from eastern fried noodle to western tender juicy steak. After that, everybody was seated around the big rectangular-shaped table. A small presentation from organization development department manager followed, on definitions from wikipedia and survey results. We debated quite intensely on who middle managers really were. Then CEO asked what did we think about the issues facing us. Every was made to speak their mind out. Ideas flowed like water. Most believed middle managers are trapped between delivering results and developing young executives. Their experienced staff are taken away due to downsizing. They are overworked. They have to guide and coach new entrants. It is their KPI now, part of their performance contract. They have datelines to meet. Their superiors keep saying they are slow in delivering results., Opportunities at the top are limited. A manager from project engineering department said his 2 experienced project engineers were moved to HQ for promotion, and he was doing everything from writing status report to chairing progress meetings with contractors. And even worst, he blamed HR people, which is me, for not acting fast enough to find replacements. I got the heat. I listened without a word. Yes I am a good listener now.

I talked about an arsenal of tool HR has got. We had the best consultants hired by the HQ working for us. The problem with us is the implementation. Even though the intention is good, how we deliver the initiative can make or break the organization. Take one example – performance appraisal. We’ll talk about this monster later.

You’re closer to God up there in the cloud!

My duty as a HR Manager takes me almost weekly to our world headquarters some 45 minutes by air from the plant. A day’s meeting at the HQ warrants for a day trip which I go early in the morning and returns late in the afternoon, on a relatively small fixedwing aircraft. It is a Beechcraft 1900D, 10 times smaller compared to familiar Boeing 737 or 747 or Airbus. The chartered aircraft seats 19 persons in two rows of 8 seats each row. The backseat seats 3 persons horizontally, just like seats in a bus, I mean land bus. There is only only entrance which is in the front.
The cockpit is visible from the passengers at the back in the cabin. No curtain or door. You could see clearly activities in the cockpit. I used to wish how someday I would be in there, but my time has passed I guess.

For those who have never flown in the small aircraft, the feeling is just being in the confined space such as manhole or elevator. You are cramped with a little window with dull view. At the check-in counter, after they check your identity, they take your weight plus your stuff. Earmuff is provided. No refreshment onboard. No welcoming onboard greeting. Only a brief safety briefing on the location of the emergency exit and how to wear the oxygen mask, should it falls from above you.

When it hits the cloud, the aircraft swayed to the left and right and left. You remember God and read all verses from Koran you know so that you will be safe. You remember death and your wife and your kids. You forgot God once it is back on the ground, safely. Well, that’s human.

You have the job but not the money!

In any organization, higher responsiblity equates with with higher compensation. There is no other way to make people do more work except to give him more money. It is true, in fact all the times.
People talk and talk and talk. They talk back too. Not like my Compaq Proliant servers. Nor Nortel PABX systems. Nor fiber optics backbone. Yes, money could silence them and make them work. Just like camels carrying things across the desert obediently.
In this organization, you can be appointed to a higher job and actually doing the higher job functions, yet you are paid at the rate that of lower (previous) job.
You will only be paid at the rate of higher job ONCE you attend and pass the assessment.
If you do not pass the assessment, they will give you another try after one year. If you fail again, you’ll be transfered back to the previous position, but in most cases, to any available lower position within the same skill group, since the previous position has been filled up by others.
So assuming higher position in this organization is pretty risky. You may not be permanent there if you make blunder in the assessment.
It seems cruel, but the management argues that we need the driver and not the passenger to take this organization to a greater height.

Safety is everything here!

Being in an oil & gas business and running a highly hazardous operation, safety is uncompromising value in this organization. Our approach is behavior-based safety which rests on the principle that what we are seen doing reflects the value we hold. In our plant, safety shoes and safety helmet are minimum Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) requirement. You must wear them to go into non-bonded area of the plant else you are violating the Health Safety and Environment (HSE) regulations and can be severely fined. Safety is our business, in fact everyone's business, from the company's driver who holds the lowest job grade in the organization all the way up to Plant General Manager and CEO, HR people like me not excluded. Safety slogans are everywhere - at main entrance, at parking lots, at Surau, at walkways, at Cafeteria, even in meeting rooms. "Safety, Safety, Safety", " HSE is my responsibility", "We are not in manufacturing business. We are in Safety business", "No job is so urgent that we cannot take time to do it safely", "All accidents are preventable", "Drive safely. Your family is waiting at home", I wanted to think positive all the times but sometimes I cannot help the feeling that HSE is overdone in this organization. Take one example, or two. Climbing up & down the stairs requires you to establish 3 point-contact - 2 feet must firmly be planted on the ground and one hand must touch the stairs' handrail all the times during the flight of going up and down the stairs. Another example - you must always reverse park your car in the company premises. If you are spotted not adhering to the company HSE rules, a report may be lodged against you. You may be punished in some way and the reporter will get rewarded in some way.
Being an HR Manager now with a focus on safe operation I fully support the HSE programs in this organization. You never knew when a disaster will strike. Therefore you must be ready all the times. Just like you never know when you'll be hit by the other driver on the road, therefore you must wear the seat belt all times. Makes sense to me.
When I was an IT Manager, we had a technical change committee who convened regularly to deliberate proposed changes to the computer systems. Hardware upgrades or software installation on the server must go thru this committee of whom I was the Chairman. We looked at all aspects from manpower requirement, the schedule and timing and also the safety aspects. Safety, I must say, was the least important then.

Determining staff potential

In this organization, staff's ultimate potential is one of the important promotion criteria. We call it a current estimated potential or CEP in short which is represented by the the highest job grade the staff could possibly achieve by the the time he retires. Everyone in the executive position has the CEP rating.

CEP rating is determined by the qualities demonstrated by an employee in the areas such as adaptability, learning agility, drive, realistic imagination, judgement, interpersonal influence and empathy. Evidence must be cited to substantiate the rating for each quality. You must convince the panel members that your staff had done this and that and when and whats the final result were before the rating is agreed. In general three elements make up the good evidence: situation or task assigned (ST), action taken (A) and the result (R), or we call it STAR evidence.

But CEP has proponents and opponents. Will talk later about that.

By the way, CEP rating is revised every two years in this organization. For individual staff, the rating could go up or down normally by a single job grade. If the difference is higher, the management has to study why.

I think it is a good HR tool, else everybody will be fighting for the a limited places at the top of the pyramid.

Breaking bad news is part of HR people's job

In this organization, assessment is "a way of life" to get ahead, to differentiate your position and salary and other things men (and women too) are after from others. If you pass the assessment, whatever it is, you feel as if at the top of the world. With it comes all good things such as appointment to the higher positions and promotions.
Today is a busy day for me. The task is to communicate assessment results for four of our direct hire contract staff. They have attended three stages of assessment before they can qualify for permanent employment. The first one is a written test to check their profile. The second is software literacy (SL) test to check their IT skill. The last one is the competency-based interview (CBI). Since this organization is technology-enabled business, SL is very important. It carries higher weightage, almost one half from the total three. I was informed SL is not easy. You are required to draw various types of charts based on the given data on the spreadsheet software.
The candidates were 2 young ladies in the early 30’s and 2 old men nearing 50’s. The first 2 made it, but not the latter 2, one of them was an ex-company driver now doing general admin. He flunked badly, very badly rather, in SL test and screwed up with the CBI. What do you expect from a hard-core driver in term of IT knowledge - writing 1-2-3 macros and creating databases? He was engaged to sit behind the wheel and not to sit in the front of the PC. He was fit for the original work he was assigned. Things changed. The organization outsourced drivers function and he found himself doing things other than ‘driving’.
Just like me, he has to acquire a new skillset to survive in the corporate jungle. I felt pity to him. He was a bread winner in the family of 5. The wife was doing odd works - washing, sewing and taking care of neighbor’s small kids. Sometimes I wish this is my company or my parent’s company where I can offer him work despite his failure in the assessment.
I had no problem breaking good news to the ladies.
I had a big problems with these breadwinners. They looked hopeful and innocent.
I had no choice but to immediately gave him 2 months notice of termination plus some monetary compensation. I knew he had small kids, but I had job to do. He cried in front of me, begging. Yes, a 50 years old man was in tears, sobbing. I never saw that. Had I been an IT Manager, I would not have been in this scenario!

Back to the old passion tonight.

Tonight the kids and wife went to bed early. Had sometimes for myself.
Found myself staring at HTML codes of this blog. I wanted to add a link to my other website, www.bumisepi.com. The website was about traveling rather, my favorite's pastimes in the past but unfortunately could not do much these days. Life as a Human Resource person was rather too taxing. Too many initiatives. 500 people to manage! I was planning to convert this website into blogging style with simple template. Current Word-based site seems too laborous to manage. Adding an entry takes so many steps. See what I can do to improve the site. Also managed to surf www.lelong.com.my and placed a bid for an MP4 player as a birthday gift for Nabilah.
I must admit I am an IT person at heart. Codes and debugging are part of me, despite my title now is HR Planning Manager. Yes! I was an IT Manager, am IT Manager and will be an IT Manager.

"60% of sponsored scholars are female. Don’t be choosy."

Group HR Planners met on the last day of July and the first day of August for 2 days at the ‘horseful’ hotel - Palace of the Golden Horses - near our HQ in KL. For 2 nights I slept with two green horses guarding me at both sides. There were even more horses at the lawn, lobby, cafe and washroom. I took water taxi one evening to the nearby shopping mall to dine at Nandoz.
It was just like being in Mecca or Damascus or somewhere middleastern when you were at this hotel. In fact my secondary goal to befriend Arab women or men -- plenty of them in the hotel -- somehow was not achieved.
This was my second time here at this Berjaya Group signature hotel.
Lets talk HR because I am n HR guy now.
The General Manager of Group HR delivered an opening speech on the outset of Day 1. His message was clear - HR planners must change the way they do manpower planning. We have got a nice HR Plan but not followed thru. Our plan was not connected to the business. Nobody refered to HR Plan. Few understood it. And many other negative things which only to me indicated that HR planners are not effective. We listened and nodded.
I remembered when I was IT Manager in my previous organization when the management accused us as doing things in isolation, not supporting business objectives and goals. We were good at spending only, investing into technology which could be obselete the next day it was installed. We were cost center rather than profit center.
Well, almost a similar and familiar message for services managers. I had to swallow it again.
He also talked about staff leaving the organization. Mainly for a greener pastures in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Attrition rate in the Group was expected higher possibly reaching 7% to 9%. Majority of our sponsored scholars were mainly females. History of female engineers working in the plant environment was not that encouraging in this organization. They left the plant for administrative jobs once they got married and had babies. They cited OSHA Act 1994 which forbids pregnant female employees from hazardous plant environment. They had Laws and Acts on their side. The management could not do a thing. Line managers wanted capable male staff. HQ people forced HR Planners to consider abundant females. HR peoples like me were trapped in the middle.
The reality set in. HR Planners got big task ahead.

HR people slower than turtle!

Old close friend Ahmad called from HQ in KL. Talked about so many things including family, new workplace, The Tan Sri President’s wife and even HR matters. He sought clarification on why he was not chosen to receive long service award. One things led to another, all about HR services not living up to his expectations, not only about his unit’s HR but the HR people everywhere in the Group. Being close friend, for so many years, he knew his feedbacks or criticisms rather were safe with me. I was like him before, criticizing HR peoples as slower than turtle and ignorant about operation and business. "My boss never appreciate my work. We work hard for the Company but the performance rating is always average. HR bosses are good at managing CEOs but not their staff who are running here and there". There are some truths. The first statement was quite right. He was a manager in materials department and the boss is a senior manager in Finance. One thing the SM did like about him is his outspokenness. He bulldozed into things to get results sometimes hurting people feelings.
One thing I liked about him - he’s a professional with vision. He substantiated all claims with evidence. He is also a fundamentalist who held Islam dear to heart.
I did not promise anything. I am a good listener now, though, having been an HR guy for about a year and a half now.

You must assess people!

Being an HR guy, you must assess and pass judgement whether you like it or not. You must provide feedbacks be it positive or negative. In other words, you must take side, cannot sit on the fence and become a Mr Nice Guy all the way. In this organization, assessments are part of people development process. In April 2005 I was assigned to assess a group of so-called potential scholars who will be sponsored by this organization. These were best students from best schools in the countries who scored well in their SPM trial exam. One of the group is in the photo. My assignment was to keep them in a very controlled environment for 3 days and saw how they interacted, mingled, discussed and solved problems among themselves. I must note their leadership, teamwork and communication skills. At the end of the confinement, there was one-to-one interview which wrapped up the whole thing and eventually sealed their fate whether they could be part on this organization. 

"Turkmenistan is somewhere near Sudan"

In this organization, employee recruitment is a serious business. A series of assessments in form of suitability, eligibility and finally interview will turn off the impatient. Today I interviewed direct hires on contract term for possible absorption in permanent scheme. It was a behavior-based interview where past experiences were used to gauge future potential. Some were really matured answering questions confidently on their working experience, some were not. The beautiful ones normally fell in the latter category. One of them was a secretary to a senior manager in charge of overseas operation. She was doing secreatrial things, managing boss's appointments and meetings, processing invoices and staff traveling overseas. " Your boss traveled frequently to Turkmenistan, right? Tell us how do you plan his trip. By the way, where this Turkmenistan is?", so the question went. She said, "Near Sudan I guess". She was young and beautiful and just married to an engineer in her department. "Tell us why we should hire? We met more than 20 people today. Why you are so special from thre rest". Blank response.

Lesson Learnt: Male employees with family responsibilities are more committed. They are more matured. Take them in.

Managing those nearing the end

I attended Group HR Managers meeting today at the Headquarters. The main agenda was to discuss staff movement. In this organization, those who have spent more than 6 years must should be transfered to other subsidiaries or sister companies for exposures and development purposes.
The list was projected to the big screen and the Company HR Manager would table plan for his staff. The session was as busy as the fish market where the whole transaction started with a short presentation followed by a negotiation and then closing of deals. Some of the 'fishes' are nearing retirement age of 55. Unfortunately for them there are no takers due to old age which is rightly associated with high medical cost. Even worst is the fact that there is no specific development for them. Comments like " to retire in the Company", "to conduct training and learning to young ones" , "send to the Virtual Room" are heard. No positive words heard.

LESSSON LEARNT: Do not differentiate your staff based on age. The older worked harder. The younger may not be loyal. But they are all you have to run your plant and process invoices. Be close to them.