WFH on Fridays for Civil Servants: UI Sociologist Warns Against Merely Shifting Work to Home

The proposal for work-from-home (WFH) on Fridays for civil servants (ASN) is deemed unlikely to establish a new work culture if it is merely interpreted as shifting the location of work from the office to home. Dr. Ida Ruwaida, M.Si., a sociologist from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Indonesia (FISIP UI), stated that experiences during the pandemic showed that WFH and distance learning (PJJ) were more often understood as emergency conditions. As a result, when the situation returned to normal, societal work patterns tended to revert to old habits. “The fact that a new reality would emerge during the Covid-19 era has now reverted to the old era because WFH and PJJ policies were interpreted as emergency conditions, not for building a new culture,” said Ida when contacted by Kompas.com on Wednesday (6/5/2026). According to Ida, this becomes an important note when WFH on Fridays is discussed again as part of work policies. Without a change in perspective, WFH on Fridays risks becoming just a weekly technical arrangement, not a step towards building a more adaptive work pattern. That policy needs to be read alongside institutional readiness, how workers interpret work hours, and the work environment’s communication culture. If the work pattern still follows old habits, WFH does not automatically make work more effective. On the contrary, workers can still feel bound by old patterns even if they are not physically in the office. In the context of ASN, Friday also has a different character compared to other workdays. Ida explained that before the WFH policy was established, Friday for some ASN was already known as a krida day or a relatively more relaxed day. “For ASN, before the WFH policy was established, Friday was krida day, a relatively more relaxed day,” said Ida. Some agencies, she added, fill Fridays with sports, religious study sessions, or other activities.