dave/debono, the perceptions many have of Asian workers being lazy and inefficient and tame in the workplace, is about as outdated as the perception of the average Australian being a self sufficient bushman. We know what Japan, Taiwan and Korea have or are achieving, but these perceptions are still held for most of the Asean countries. Sure, there are large numbers of poor people with limited skills, but the ones we have to compete most with are the educated middle class. Indonesia has a growing middle class that numbers greater than Australia's total population. I am most familiar with Indonesia but know that the other Asean countries are generally ahead of Indonesia on the developement ladder and I am familiar with typical skilled employees, both with technical and managerial skills, from most of the Asean countries. In operations that employ these people, they are not labour intensive industries, but ones that utilise the latest technology appropriate for their situation. The employees are as good as you will find anywhere and not the docile worker unaware of their rights as Debono noted. In Indonesia the conditions in the awards are actually better in some ways than those in Australia and the unions will take on the companies that don't comply. However what I see as a big difference is the attitude of the employees who see themselves and their employer more as partners and understand that in most cases what is good for one party is good also for the other. My approach was to give real responsibility and real ownership all the way down the line so that they had a real say in how things were done. Basically I agreed to look after their interests if they looked after mine. I took the precaution of always thinking ahead and making sure I always took the initative. We did things with a mixture of Australian and Indonesian ways. I know of other Australian run companies that tried to do things the Australian way and failed, they may have made some money but they were not able to tap into the full potential of the opportunities that they had presented to them. On the other hand our modest little company won world recognition about 10 years ago as the worlds best in it's category as determined by the London Financial Times, and I was on hand in New York to receive it together with our then GM, an expat, and a senior Indonesian. The next year we were awarded the title of worlds best marketing program, and the year after that, the worlds best community development program. These are typical of the type of people and companies in Asia that increasingly are going to overtake Australia. There are many such employees and top managers there now. I have worked with about three different generations in my time there. The first was the peasant farmer or fisherman, the next generation had some basic technical skills and often an exceptionally skilled trademan could command almost expat wages, and the most recent university educated generation now fills the senior technical and managerial roles. Whilst we still think in terms of the peasant farmer in the paddie field being forced to work by armed soldiers in the pay of corrupt officials, the blokes with the can do attitude, education, skills, and determination to be the best in the world are going to quietly be doing just that. When I look back to the early 70's many well run operations in Indonesia were structured:- Senior Management-Expat Middle management-Expat Supervisory-Singaporean/Expat Technical - Thais,Filopinos/ Expat Operators-Thais, Filopinos Labourers-Indonesian
Now Indonesians fill all roles with some expats sharing in the management areas only, and often they will be other Asian expats.
