DOLE suggests: Get a move on FWAs

Many jobs can be performed just as well outside of the workplace with the aid of technology, such as in the employee’s home, that employers and employees can explore together and agree on to address traffic and work-life balance issues, said a labor department executive.

Mary Grace Riguer, officer-in-charge of the Institute for Labor Studies, an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment ( DOLE), said that some employers in the Philippines have begun adopting flexible work arrangements (FWAs), now enabled by technological breakthroughs.

“We noted that some of the industries can engage workers in telecommuting,” said Riguer, who recently gave a talk on FWAs in a forum organized by the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines.

Some of these include Metro Pacific Investments, which implements flexi-time and workfrom-home arrangements, and Aboitiz Equity Ventures, which has adopted flexi-time and earlier-shift schedules, she said.

Among jobs that may adapt well to FWAs are online teaching, customer support, web and software development, administration, sales and marketing, engineering, design and multimedia, mobile development, writing, accounting and bookkeeping, networking, and business services.

A study by the Japan International Coordination Agency foresees the traffic costs in Metro Manila increasing to P6 billion a day by 2030 from P2.4 billion per day in 2015.

Last year, Sen. Jose Villanueva filed Senate Bill No. 1033, or the Telecommuting Act of 2016.

The bill encourages employers to allow “telecommuting” or the “partial or total substitution of computers or telecommunication technologies, or both, for the commute to work by employees.”