When Working from Home on Fridays, Civil Servants Must Separate Work and Home Boundaries...

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The policy for Civil Servants (ASN) to work from home every Friday is making the boundary between household matters and work increasingly thin. Although it is only one day a week, the home, which is usually a place of rest, now also has to be used to complete office tasks. A sociologist from Jakarta State University (UNJ), Rakhmat Hidayat, views WFH as a symbolic change in the way work is perceived. Rakhmat describes this situation as role overlap, where an individual must simultaneously fulfil the role of worker and family member at the same time. “The impact can be twofold and positive in that ASN can be closer to their families, have more interaction time, and reduce stress from travel or commuting, which is called ‘penglaju’,” said Rakhmat when contacted on Tuesday (5/5/2026). On one side, there is the benefit of more family time. However, on the other side, the boundary between work and home life becomes increasingly blurred. WFH is often seen as providing freedom, but in practice, it is not always so. Rakhmat assesses that this flexibility often only feels superficial. He explains that work control now no longer comes from the office but has shifted to the individual themselves. “In sociological terms, this is called the concept of the self-disciplining worker, where work control shifts from the institution to the individual themselves. So they must manage their work time, discipline, and self-control,” he said. Another change is evident in communication methods, which now increasingly rely on digital platforms. As a result, psychological pressure increases, and rest time does not truly detach from work. “Increased psychological pressure, difficulty truly detaching from work, and the potential for digital fatigue or digital exhaustion,” he said. Although it is only one day a week, the impact of WFH is still felt in daily life. Rakhmat assesses that this change is not about duration but about the habits that also change. A social observer from the University of Indonesia, Rissalwan Habdy Lubis, sees the Friday WFH policy as already part of the ASN work pattern. According to him, Fridays have long not been fully effective workdays for ASN. “ASN on Fridays are actually not effective at working. Because half the day they are usually exercising,” said Rissalwan when contacted on Tuesday.