Analyst Deems WFH Every Friday Not Significantly Energy-Saving, Still a Short-Term Solution

Jakarta - Public policy expert Trubus Rahardiansyah believes that the work-from-home (WFH) policy for civil servants (ASN) and private sector employees every Friday, aimed at saving energy, has not yet shown significant results and is merely a short-term solution.

“If we look at its progress over the past 1.5 months, it indeed has not shown significant changes, although there has been some reduction,” said Trubus when contacted by Kompas.com on Monday (11/5/2026).

According to him, WFH actually causes a shift in energy consumption burden. Previously, workers used petroleum fuel (BBM) to commute to the office; now, that consumption has shifted to increased electricity use at home.

This, according to Trubus, should have been considered by the government from the outset before the policy was implemented.

Trubus assesses that the government has not been firm in enforcing the WFH policy, as many agencies are still not implementing it.

“So, this WFH programme is only in the nature of providing a sort of short-term solution while the government is searching for the best solution. Because in the end, the public still sees that the current WFH, which only applies to ASN and some private sectors, does not greatly influence behaviour or have a direct impact,” he added.

He also believes the government is still half-hearted in implementing this policy because it faces a dilemma between energy savings and maintaining economic growth.

According to him, if WFH is strictly applied across all sectors, economic activities could be disrupted. On the other hand, data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) shows that Indonesia’s economic growth is around 5.6 per cent amid unstable global conditions.

If WFH is applied to all sectors, this could potentially slow down Indonesia’s economic growth even further and lead to a continuous decline.

Therefore, he believes the central government is still in a dilemma regarding this policy.

However, the government needs to conduct an evaluation first regarding the amount of energy successfully saved from the policy.

He also emphasised the importance of digitalising public services so that WFH does not disrupt public services.

“Actually, in ministries and regions, SPBE (Electronic-Based Government System) has started to be implemented gradually. However, the problem is that this has not run optimally yet. The existing digital applications also still have many weaknesses,” added Trubus.