COVID Service

Arlene T. David

Desperate for stability, various societies around the world keep talking about “the new normal” — how personal and professional lives are being permanently altered by the COVID-19 pandemic — and understandably, work-from-home policies are a cornerstone of several personal and official conversations. Remote work was a critical enabler of business and economic continuity during the original shelter-inplace regulations, and may continue to be for future emergencies, especially now that it is been proven to be possible. With this, various companies, agencies and businesses started to accept and embrace this new alternative work scheme.

In the Philippines, the Civil Service Commission (CSC) released official guidelines on alternative work schemes for government workers amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Work-from-home, skeleton workforce, 4-day work week, standard working hours, and other alternative work arrangements are now being recognized and guided. And these are just among the arrangements included in the interim guidelines of the CSC which are now imposed in most, if not all, of the government agencies in the country. Various work arrangements were among the adjustments seen necessary given that work-from-home arrangements may not be applicable to certain functions.

Based on several recent reports, it was seen that many workers will continue to have the option to work from home permanently. Even amidst a global crisis, employees are reporting greater productivity and higher job satisfaction, which is translating into enormous profitability for their employers. By permitting offsite work, the businesses then get to access even more overhead savings, like lower real estate, equipment, and supply expenses. But the downside of this, another sector started to get paralyzed. Real estate businesses, on-site visit-based continue being crippled in their operations like the big restaurants, hotel and leisure parks.

For the meantime, the work-from-home, skeleton workforce, and 4-day work week in the Philippines are among the quick solutions seen not only by the Civil Service Commission but as also by several companies to lessen, if not stop, the growing challenge of unproductive working time of employees and work-based engagements. Moreover, some rules like restriction on mass gatherings remain, but slight changes were made to regulations on business and other sectors as well as government work that could resume functions.

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The author is Administrative Aide VI at DepEd City Schools Division Office

City of San Fernando