Reference no: EM132822727

BILLY BONZAI 

A few weeks after assuming his new assignment in 2015, Hidayat realized that he had a problem with Billy. In fact, when he first moved to the regional office in Surabaya in 2011, he had already begun hearing about Billy. Now, as the manager overseeing the unit to which Billy belonged, he could confirm that what he had heard was true and he was now also the reluctant owner of the problem.

It was quite unusual that a low-level employee could actually achieve the measure of prominence or notoriety that Billy managed to establish in Kandapon SBS (Kantor Daerah Telepon Surabaya Selatan), the branch office of the telephone company servicing Surabaya. In 2015, Kandapon had about 450 workers and 70,000 line units. Billy was only a clerk in the Collection Section, one of the five units that Hidayat supervised as Kandapon's finance manager.

Billy joined Kandapon in 2005 as a twenty-two year old casual hire. Within a year, he had made it to the ranks of permanent employees. But he created nor ripples and largely worked in well-deserved obscurity. He did his work satisfactorily. He was bright and personable and showed some drive in continuing to attend law school as a working student and eventually completing a law degree.

The Collection Section to which Billy was assigned in 2010 consisted of 32 people. The task of the section was to prepare the bills of their subscribers, collect and record payments, and monitor delinquent accounts. Billy's job was to keep track of delinquent clients and to issue the order of disconnection when they had exceeded the grace period permitted by the company. He also issued the order for reconnection after the clients had settled their back accounts. On his seventh year with Collections, Billy had reached the grade of IIA, the fifth of 17 ranks in the company, and was taking home a total package of about R400,000.00 ($200.00) a month.

Although the telephone company was a government corporation, the rates is paid its workers were comparable to those received by employees in private sector firms. Adding up all allowances and bonuses, Kandapon SBS employees would be receiving annually about 16 to 18 months pay. At Billy's level, about 75% of the compensation package was a fixed monthly amount. The remainder represented a variable performance bonus. As a manager moved up the ranks, the proportion of the performance bonus portion tended to increase. At the regional manager level, the ratio was reversed, with performance bonus accounting for almost 75% of the total pay.

Employees also received the standard medical insurance and leave benefits given by other companies. All in all, employment at Kandapon SBS was greatly sought after not just for the security and prestige that came with a government job but also for the more tangible monetary rewards it offered.

Although the company occasionally experience periods of economic downturn when the volume of delinquent accounts tended to increase, the work load was not really all that heavy. Nor was the work that demanding for someone of Billy's qualifications. Billy was, in fact overqualified for the job. Promotion was possible only if Billy was willing to move, with his wife and two children, to another province, something he had refused to do. But the job gave Billy ample time to pursue his hobbies.

Billy came from a well-to-do family originally from Madura famous as the home of bekisar, the brightly-plummage bird adopted as the symbol of East Java. Relatives from Madura sent Billy the bekisar to raise as pets. Billy soon discovered that he could obtain the bekisar from his sources in Madura for as little as R150,000.00 ($75.00) and sell it for as much as R500,000.00 ($250.00). The occasional sale of bekisar, as a side-line, could turn in a tidy profit.

In 2005, Billy also began to pursue the growing of bonzai trees in earnest. In 2014, his efforts gained him an award in the Tokyo Bonsai Contest, an annual event sponsored by the Nippon Bonzai Society International Bonzai Convention.

His skill in the cultivation of bonzai brought Billy into contact with prominent people also engaged in the hobby. Billy's bonzai buddies included political and business leaders of regional and even national influence. The Minister of Justice was a bonzai enthusiast and, during his tenure as president of the bonzai association, had come to know Billy. His successor was a lawyer of national repute. Billy's bonzai club, of course, had linkages with similar associations all over Indonesia.

But parallel to the rise of Billy's reputation as a bonzai expert was the growth of the suspicion among his colleagues that he was a goldbricker, someone adept at evading work. Not that Billy did not perform the work capably when he was in the office. But he took advantage of any lull in the work to leave the office to attend to his hobbies.

The telephone company sent its subscribers the bill for the month of the 5^th of the following month. Subscribers had until the 20^th of the month to settle the bill either at the telephone office or any of the company's cooperating banks. At the close of the office on the 20^th day, the company disconnected telephone lines whose bills had not been paid.

Those who had their lines cut off and wanted service resumed had to pay a reconnection fee of R1,500 ($0.75) if they settled their accounts by the 30^th of the month. Reconnections within the nest month cost R5,000.00 and R7,000.00 after that. Failure to pay after the second month resulted in the cancellation of the delinquent subscriber's line.

About 20% of the company's subscribers typically failed to meet the 20^th deadline. On the 21^st, they would rush to make their payments to have their phone service resumed. By the end of the month, 90% of the subscribers would have paid their bills.

Reconnection was a simple matter of plugging in the lines at the telephone exchange. It was part of Billy's job to send to the exchange the list of those who had settled their past-due obligations.

The interruption of telephone service was, of course, an annoyance to the clients. Business subscribers, in particular, tended to get very upset when the company disconnected their lines, even though they had in fact failed to make their payments on time. They expected and demanded immediate action to restore their lines as soon as they had made their payments.

Mistakes in disconnection lines which were up to date on their payments or delays in the reconnection of lines after payments had been made provoked noisy complaints. The more important the client the public airing of the complaints and the higher the management level they reached. Lately, customers had even begun to resort to the newspapers to voice their complaints against the company in the letters to the editor section.

It happened often enough - too often, Hidayat felt - when angry clients would call him to demand why his phone remained disconnected when he had already settled his bill, and Billy would not be present to clarify the status of the account and to follow-up, or to process, if necessary, the order for reconnection. When confronted with the problem by Hidayat, Billy insisted that he had not done anything wrong because each time he had left the office, he had secured the permission from Bambang, his direct supervisor.

Hidayat was almost sure that Bambang did, in fact, allow Billy to leave the office. Billy was personally quite charming and sociable. He appeared to have a knack for getting into the good graces of his supervisors.

Part of the problem was that Surabaya tended to be a way station for the section supervisors. They would stay only two or three years before moving one. Billy quickly got to each new supervisor with a ticket to a bonzai exhibit or even the gift of a bonzai plant he had himself nurtured. The supervisor would not be inclined to act immediately on complaints against Billy's lodged by his own colleagues. And, once convinced of the need for action, the supervisor would be overtaken by the need to prepare for his next posting.

Hidayat had plans for improving the performance of his department and he was irked that he had to be bothered with customer complaints that his section supervisor should be able to handle. Bambang had been Billy's boss for three years already. The two, Hidayat knew, were personally close. Bambang had been heard to speak critically of Billy. But he had never imposed any discipline on him.

Hidayat himself wanted to concentrate on improving the company's relations with the banks which were accredited to receive payments to the phone company. Already, the company's clients could settle their bills through any of 20 banks. Customers found the arrangement with the banks a great convenience. But the company's liaison with the banks needed improvement. It was sometimes taking too long for the company to get the information form the banks about payments made to settle phone accounts. This delay could lead to the discontinuance of phone service to the people who had actually settled their phone obligations already. Some banks still had to complete their computerization programs.

He did not need any more complaints coming from customers whose records Billy had not updated because he was busy with bonzai or bekisar.

INSTRUCTION:

• Identify the key problems and issues in the case study.
• Formulate and include a statement, summarizing the outcome of the analysis
• Write the relevant facts, and the most important issues.
• Outline the various pieces of the case study that needs focus
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• Support this solution with solid evidence, such as: concepts from class (text readings, discussions, lectures) outside research, or personal experience (anecdotes)
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• If applicable, recommend further action to resolve some of the issues.
• What should be done and who should do it?