Indonesia, You Have a Massive HR Department Problem
HR departments in Indonesia are more bottleneck than support. Here’s why your emails go unanswered and your business suffers.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of interacting with an Indonesian HR department, you know the drill: send an email and then sit back, relax, and contemplate the mysteries of the universe while waiting for a response. Will it arrive before the next lunar eclipse? Only the stars know.
Now, before you assume this is just another consultant whining about being ghosted, let’s set the record straight. This issue isn’t personal; it’s structural. HR in Indonesia has achieved a level of inefficiency so profound that it must be intentional. They’ve carved out a niche as a protected species, like bureaucratic pandas, immune to the calls for “efficiency” from those foreign professionals who just don’t understand the beauty of slow-motion progress.
You see, HR here is a sacred institution; the family member who gets away with everything while the rest of us struggle to survive.
Empower the locals, they said.
Create a thriving workforce, they said.
But no one warned us that this empowerment would turn HR into corporate royalty, too lofty to be bothered with trivial matters like, oh, I don’t know, answering an email.
The Art of Being “Booked Solid” for Two Weeks
While the rest of us mere mortals struggle to manage our schedules, HR has ascended to a higher plane of existence, where time bends to their will. I mean, I can call a CEO and they’ll squeeze in a conversation between meetings, no problem. But HR? HR is always busy. So busy that I’m starting to believe they’re involved in something more significant than human resources. Perhaps they’re secretly steering the fate of the nation or engaging in experimental time travel. How else could their calendars be perpetually full?
What’s even more impressive is that their booked schedules never seem to involve anything particularly groundbreaking. No secret strategy sessions, no high-stakes mergers. No, it’s the corporate equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic: important in their world, perhaps, but mystifyingly mundane to the rest of us. Yet, when they do eventually emerge from their cocoon of busyness, it’s with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for writing parking tickets. “Thanks for your message. We will get back to you.” That’s it. After seven days of radio silence, that’s the best they can do.
It’s as if HR has mastered the art of just barely doing their job. They operate in that sweet spot of inefficiency, slow enough to make you pull your hair out, but not so slow that you can actually call them out for negligence. It’s a balancing act worthy of a tightrope walker. If only they could channel that same precision into, you know, getting things done.
HR: We Didn’t Want You Involved in Everything, But You Insisted
Remember the good old days, when HR was content with processing payroll, hiring a few people, and occasionally mediating that one awkward argument about who stole someone’s yogurt from the office fridge Simpler times. But now? Now HR has transformed into that overzealous party planner who insists on taking control of the entire wedding. Suddenly, HR is everywhere. They’ve woven themselves into every nook and cranny of organizational life. “Hey, hey, don’t forget us! We need to be part of this decision too!” they say, with the enthusiasm of someone who clearly didn’t read the room.
The thing is, no one asked for this. HR didn’t need to be involved in everything, but they insisted, and here we are. It’s like they barged into the party with a megaphone, declared themselves the hosts, and then acted shocked when everyone actually expected them to do the job they’d commandeered. Sure, you want to be the guardians of employee engagement and performance management? Go ahead. But don’t look so surprised when people expect you to actually engage with the employees or manage their performance.
Instead, HR seems to have collectively adopted a strategy of benign neglect. They fought tooth and nail for more involvement in every process, but once they got it, they realized it involved actual work. So now, they’ve taken a step back and said, “Eh, let’s just see how long we can get away with not doing any of this.” And the best part? It’s working brilliantly. At least for them. They’ve found the sweet spot of maximum control with minimal effort, and who wouldn’t want that? It’s almost impressive, in a frustratingly brilliant way.
The Fine Line Between Incompetence and… Something More Sinister?
Now, I’m not one to jump to conclusions, but when HR departments start dragging their feet like they’re auditioning for a role in a zombie movie, you have to wonder. Could it be that they’re just monumentally bad at their jobs? Sure, that’s entirely possible. But what if there’s a darker undercurrent? I’m not talking international espionage here, but something a bit more… local. Perhaps a little “brown envelope” encouragement to, let’s say, prioritize certain candidates over others.
It’s not paranoia if it’s true. You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. A straightforward hire is going smoothly until HR steps in. Suddenly, the process slows down to the pace of molasses in winter. The perfect candidate, once seemingly a sure thing, gets bogged down in endless “procedures,” drowned in a sea of HR-mandated delays and silences. Meanwhile, their “recommended” candidate (who just so happens to be a friend of a friend) seems to miraculously rise through the ranks with ease. Coincidence? Maybe. But funny how those coincidences keep happening.
And what’s even funnier is that these HR slowdowns always seem to align with the interests of certain external providers. You know, the ones who just happen to have a cozy relationship with HR. It’s almost like HR is more interested in keeping their circle tight than in making the best possible hire for the company. It’s not a conspiracy if you’ve got evidence, right?
So, is it incompetence? Is it something darker? Perhaps it’s both.
How HR Is Slowly Killing Your Organization (But You Can’t Do Anything About It)
HR has now morphed into the organization’s greatest obstacle. The real tragedy here isn’t just the exasperation of external consultants like myself who keep getting ghosted; no, this problem is systemic. It’s the:
CEOs who are losing sleep over critical hires stuck in HR purgatory,
Managers drowning in paperwork because HR insists on owning every process,
Employees left in a haze, wondering why their requests disappear into the abyss.
Meanwhile, HR remains comfortably seated on their throne of inefficiency, untouched and untouchable. Protected by their special status, they’ve achieved the rare feat of making themselves both indispensable and utterly useless at the same time. They are immune to change. And the worst thing? You can’t do a thing about it. You can’t fire them for inefficiency because, technically, they’re still doing their jobs… just slowly enough to drive everyone insane, but not slowly enough to get caught.
HR has become the bottleneck that nobody wanted, but now everyone is stuck with. It’s like watching a bad corporate soap opera unfold, where the villain always gets away with their ridiculous schemes. And just like in those soap operas, everyone knows exactly who the problem is, yet somehow, no one can do anything about it. HR has inserted itself into every vital process, and trying to circumvent them is nigh impossible.
And therein lies the brilliance of the whole debacle. HR has mastered the art of bureaucratic entrenchment, ensuring that no matter how ineffective they are, they remain a fixture in the organization. It’s maddening, it’s tragic, and most of all, it’s a situation that feels impossible to fix.
So here we are, stuck in a HR system that’s both essential and utterly useless. Perhaps it’s time for a collective wake-up call, to ask why we’ve allowed this black hole of corporate inefficiency to persist. But then again, why bother? Trying to reform HR is like trying to teach a cat to swim.
So, what’s the solution? Maybe we should all just accept our fate, sit back, and marvel at the incredible balancing act HR has pulled off. They’ve managed to be involved in everything while being accountable for nothing. And if you’re an HR professional reading this, I’m sure you’ll give it some serious thought… and get back to me in two weeks. Or whenever works for you. No rush. After all, what’s a little more delay in the grand scheme of things?
At StratEx - Indonesia Business Advisory we help foreign and local businesses re-engineer HR to suit Indonesia’s realities and your goals. Contact us to build leaner, faster, and more accountable HR structures that actually move your business forward.