A five-day work week

A five-day work week

The trial period for the five-day work week for civil servants
is over. Through Presidential Decision No. 68/1995, the
government has made the five-day week, for government offices,
official. The decision, which was made public on Friday, will,
according to the Minister of Administrative Reforms T.B.
Silalahi, come into effect on Oct. 1.

A five-day week could indeed make civil servants feel more
prized as humans. However, the results could be far from what is
expected, if the arrangement is used as a means towards reaping
the benefits of having more time to do things that have nothing
to do with official jobs. At the very least, two possibilities
are open: the free time is used to find additional income, or
simply to laze about. Because of this, the negative potentials of
the arrangement must be observed and possibly neutralized.

One could say that more fundamental changes are actually
needed, specifically changes that affect the work culture. Many
changes have swept our nation, but it seems that our work culture
has not caught up with all the other changes that are continuing
to take place. As a result, any orientation towards the optimum
use of resources -- of time, money, the infrastructure, natural
and human resources, the bureaucracy and all the other supporting
elements -- has not materialized in our society. In our
government institutions all these improvements need to be
supported by an improvement in our employees' welfare standards.

-- Republika, Jakarta