Don’t rush to full capacity once WFH mandate ends, warns Cuepacs

 

The Congress of Union of Employees in the Public and Civil Services Malaysia (Cuepacs) has urged private sector employers not to rush towards having their full workforce present on-premises, despite having given the green light to do so from tomorrow onwards.

The union said work-from-home (WFH) initiatives remain an important measure in curtailing the Covid-19 pandemic until the nation either recovers or achieves herd immunity against the disease since Malaysia is still registering four-figure case numbers each day and its Covid-19 vaccination campaign is still in its early stages.

“What is important now is work-from-home should be implemented to curb the spread of Covid-19 and the formation of new clusters in work environments.

“Work-from-home practices can also optimise productivity as best possible compared to the risk of workplace clusters that could force the entire operation to be closed.

“Cuepacs urges private sector employers not to rush to operate at 100 percent capacity even though permission has been given by the government,” the union’s president Adnan Mat said in a statement today.

He said employers should give due consideration to their ability to adhere to pandemic standard operating procedures since past failures to do so have led to the proliferation of Covid-19 clusters at their workplaces.

Separately, Pekan MP Najib Abdul Razak said the government should at least encourage work-from-home arrangements even if it wants to do away with making it mandatory, as long as productivity remains high.

“Before the pandemic, the work-from-home or telecommuting trend was gaining acceptance throughout the world.

“There are also studies showing that telecommuting could increase the productivity of certain jobs while reducing stress and cost of transportation,” he said in a Facebook post late last night.

The work-from-home mandate has been in place since October last year and applies to industries under Miti’s purview as well as the civil service and was estimated to affect one million workers.

This restricted the number of management and supervisory staff allowed to be in their offices for places under a conditional movement control order.

Beginning tomorrow, however, Defence Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the restrictions of factories will be lifted due to difficulty in implementing it.

Other private-sector employees are also allowed to work at full capacity, while civil servants should refer to whatever government circulars that are in effect, he added.

Cuepacs said that, to date, the Public Service Department has not issued any order to abolish work-from-home practices and instead improved it through a circular issued in December last year.

This does not affect the civil service’s delivery system as long as the work-from-home arrangements are done properly, Adnan said.

“Work-from-home is becoming a norm in the civil service and it still allows the public service delivery system to serve the rakyat as usual.

“The first implementation of work-from-home since the movement control order was enforced beginning March 18, 2020, has given the civil service enough time to make a few adjustments towards working out-of-office,” he said. - Mkini