Paper Edition | Page: 8
Responding to a letter written by Medelina K. Hendytio titled “Bureaucratic reform and policy inconsistency” (The Jakarta Post, Sept. 10), there are several points we want to debate.
First, I would respond to the statement: “Job analysis is performed, but it is conducted infrequently, half-heartedly and, generally, as a formality.”
In the bureaucratic reform process, all the ministries have conducted job analysis as there are so many useful indicators we can obtain, such as business-process organization, job descriptions, job competencies, key performance indicators for each employee, and work-load analysis.
So, if you said job analysis was performed, but was conducted infrequently, half-heartedly and, generally, as a formality, that wouldn’t be right. Civil servants who have undergone job analysis have done so via capacity building programs on education and job training analysis held by the National Civil Service Agency (BKN) and the Administrative Reforms Ministry.
Second, in relation to the author’s statement: “The moratorium was said to maintain the number and distribution of civil servants, manage the state budget [especially civil servants’ pay] and improve the personnel administration system. It should have been effective from Sept. 1, 2011 to Dec. 31, 2012.
Nevertheless, it will certainly be difficult to sustain the moratorium as the government has opened applications for civil service recruitment as of July this year.”
The moratorium was imposed to capture the real condition of civil servants. Unfortunately, based on Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the joint ministerial decree by the administrative reforms, finance and home ministries, there were some exceptions for several current positions that needed to be filled.
Third, in relation to: “On top of the inconsistency issues, the recruitment and selection process also encounters the classic problem of the wide gap between the competencies demanded by particular occupations and the qualifications possessed by employees.”
Commonly, the applicants’ major requirements must be appropriate with their competence. The selection process is also based on competency; this can be proven from the nature of the interview, which is known as a competency-based interview. Competency-based recruitment and selection focuses on identifying the candidates that exhibit those behaviorally defined characteristics that underpin successful/superior performance in the roles the Trade Ministry is seeking to fill.
“A solution would be to entrust the testing materials to a consortium of various universities to effectively filter the best candidates.”
Response: Nowadays, all the selection and recruitment processes held by the all the ministries in Indonesia use consortiums developed by the Administrative Reforms Ministry to provide testing materials. Whereas, the process is held by each ministry and the ministry acts as a supervisor with the Applied Technology and Research Agency (BPPT) acting as a technology facilitator.
Arief Adang
Jakarta
