Analyst Doubts Effectiveness of WFH Policy for Energy Savings
Public policy analyst Trubus Rahardiansyah assesses that the work-from-home (WFH) policy of one day per week will not yet be effective for saving energy or fuel oil (BBM). Besides issues of employee compliance, Trubus believes there will be a shift in energy consumption from transportation to households.
“The government’s target is (BBM savings) of Rp6.2 trillion. It seems that target has not been met. The complication is that when they don’t go out due to WFH, there is automatically a shift (in energy use) from the transportation sector to the household sector,” said Trubus when contacted on Wednesday (1/4).
“So initially, energy is used for transportation. But now that they are at home, the energy is used at home for household purposes. What used to be cooking with a stove (consuming) how much, now cooking with electricity how much, so electricity usage also increases,” he added.
The success of the WFH policy every Friday for civil servants (ASN), said Trubus, is highly determined by the extent of supervision by unit heads or leaders.
“Because if not, there is a concern that it will turn into a long weekend or they still engage in activities outside the home. The aim is to save BBM, but if they go out, it still has the potential to use BBM,” he explained.
On the other hand, Trubus views that similar past policies have no clear outcomes. Therefore, the public, including analysts, lack reference data.
“For example, previously there was WFA (work from anywhere) during last Eid. Then before that, there was work from mall (WFM). There has never been an evaluation of what that was like. So, for instance, with WFM, WFA, what are the outputs, what is the transparency like, what is the accountability like, there should be an evaluation. The public doesn’t know,” he revealed.
Another issue that could affect it is the disparity in living conditions. “For high-ranking ASN echelons, it might be sufficient at home, possible, because their houses are adequate. But for lower-level employees in groups 1, 2, many are still renting. If at home with children, family, all sorts of disturbances, they end up going out. They can’t focus on work at home because the house might be a cramped rented flat or something inadequate,” he explained.
Moreover, at the regional government level consisting of regional apparatus organisations (OPD). “Now, how is the supervision of those agencies, we still don’t have data on what they are really like so far,” said Trubus.
“If logically the policy or on paper it is efficient, it will reduce, blah blah blah. But policy is not just that, there is implementation. The practice in the field in the regions is what it’s really like. The government uses the excuse of adapting to digitalisation. The problem is that in the regions, digitalisation in infrastructure is not yet maximal,” he stated.