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