Jejak Online

Newsletter LEAD Cohort 9

Dear Friends,

From the Editor

Can the warmth of Ied and merry chimes of Christmas bells bring us to a better Indonesia in 2002? Optimism still runs a big risk as we picture the troubles ahead. In the working world, Indonesia's unemployment rate reaches forty million by the end of 2001 and already some major companies announce their plan to downsize its employees.

PT. Pupuk Sriwijaya, one of the big fertilizer manufacturer will terminate about eight hundred employees in 2002 as part of their scheme to increase the company's efficiency rate and reach better growth (Kompas, 26/12/01). Those eight hundred employees go under the Early Pension program and in addition, another one thousand casual employees will be terminated as well. Wages is also a problem for many companies in Indonesia with the increase of the minimum wages starting January 2002 between forty to fifty percent from 2001. A lot of companies will either have to increase payroll budget in order to comply or request delay which might trigger protest from employees and turn into a demonstration. Not to mention other contributing factors such as low level of peace and security, lower buying power, banking scandals, and Otonomi Daerah.

Where do we as individuals and Indonesian citizen stand in this case ? Tough question when all the clever people in the government and experts cannot arrive with the correct solution yet. What have we learned so far ? That a nation with a large scale problem will eventually crumble to pieces or the fact that Indonesian people survive after five years of crisis. Indeed, although it is an irony, Indonesian people are well known to endure suffering as in the case of Antoro, a blue collar worker in Tangerang. "I cannot say I earn enough but the fact is I can provide for myself and my family", he comments (Kompas, 11/12/01). Imagine this couple with one child living on six hundred thousand a month and how many more share the same fate. From a macro point of view, the problems are huge and seems endless but from a micro point of view for example in a company level, there should be something we can do. That someting is Good Corporate Governance which implies to a management process by top executives to organize the roles, rights and responsiblity of stakeholders in a company. The purpose is to manage corporate funds in doing business and position corporate accountability in doing the business in the rigth manner which in the end increases company's value especially if it is a public listed company, while on the other hand meeting the interest of the stakeholders. Stakeholder can range from the owners or shareholders, employees, customer, suppliers or other business relations and the social and environmental factors surrounding a company.

Unfortunately a lot of companies have not established good corporate governance not to mention understanding how important it is. The media tells us the story of companies who abandon their employees, companies dissapointing their customers, companies poluting the river and so on. One simple example is KKN, do we see this happen in our company or are there strict regulations forbidding an employee to receive money or favors for the work we do. What can we do as senior executives or as professionals in our own field to support the growth of good corporate governance ? Putting aside other theories or intention and simply trying to come up with practical ideas we can refer to the roles of a manager studied and proposed by Henry Mintzberg from MIT University, as written in his book The Nature of Managerial Work.