WFH Calculations: Operational Savings or Cost Shifting?

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The government has officially implemented a Work From Home (WFH) policy for Civil Servants (ASN) every Friday starting 1 April 2026. On the other hand, the government is also encouraging the private sector to adopt WFH outside of essential services through Circular Letter M/6/HK.04/III/2026. The difference is that the implementation of WFH in the private sector is a recommendation and non-mandatory. Economist and Professor at the Faculty of Economics, Andalas University, Padang, Syafruddin Karimi, stated that the greatest savings from the WFH policy still come from energy, particularly BBM, followed by office operational costs. According to him, the state views WFH first and foremost as an instrument to reduce daily mobility, as house-to-office commutes consume petrol, diesel, parking, and other transportation costs on a large scale. Syafruddin explained that WFH one day per week is part of optimising energy use in the workplace. He added that reducing emissions remains important, but the benefits are more secondary. “In a situation where oil prices are surging and energy subsidies are under pressure, the fiscal and energy benefits are far more determining than the environmental benefits, whose effects appear more gradually,” he added. Syafruddin elaborated that the savings in BBM from WFH are still more reasonably seen as assistance for the State Revenue and Expenditure Budget (APBN), rather than a new burden through increased household electricity subsidies. In such conditions, the government needs to curb subsidised BBM consumption as quickly as possible. There is indeed additional household electricity usage, particularly for laptops, modems, lights, and fans or AC. “But its value is usually far smaller than the petrol or diesel burned every day in mass commuting,” he explained. Therefore, Syafruddin believes that the direction of this WFH policy remains logical, namely by shifting some energy consumption from BBM-based transport to households, where the increase is smaller. Thus, as long as the number of trips decreases significantly, the savings in BBM subsidies are very likely to remain greater than the additional household electricity subsidies. Syafruddin outlined that the simplest way to calculate savings for a company is to use a practical formula: WFH savings = reduced office costs + eliminated transport costs - remote work support costs. As an illustration, a company has 100 employees, with 60 administrative employees implementing WFH one day per week. When the company usually covers transport and meal allowances of Rp 50,000 per person per day, the direct savings are already Rp 3 million per day.