KUALA LUMPUR - There has been much public debate over how much will actually be saved through the upcoming federal government’s Work From Home (WFH) initiative, set to begin on April 15.
Some parties have claimed that any benefits would be negligible and there have been social media posts going as far as stating that whatever savings on fuel would be less than the added electricity costs incurred by civil servants at home.
Two average Malaysian workers - a private sector employee and a civil servant - shared their views on WFH and Flexible Work Arrangements on this topic.
Sheryl Teoh, who has been working for the past decade, recently joined a Penang-based business-to-business data-driven marketing and sales services company as an editor, and the flexible working arrangement (FWA) was a major consideration in accepting the company’s job offer.
"I joined the company mostly because of the FWA. It’s now a non-negotiable, not only for me, but for a significant percentage of workers today.
"My FWA is a hybrid work schedule of two days working from home and three days working at the office, but even on the days we go into the office, we don’t have to spend all nine hours there - meaning we could work from home first from 9.30am and come in at noon," she said.
She said that the company had switched to a hybrid working model several years ago, and FWA is the norm for most, if not all, company employees.
For Sheryl, the benefits she reaps from WFA, on top of saving on petrol, parking and spending on eating out, have no downsides.
"I get to avoid traffic jams during peak hours, which reduces my stress levels. I save time that would otherwise be spent on commuting and wasted on finding parking spaces.
"There’s a better work-life balance now. Less time spent commuting means I spend more of my non-work hours actually doing things that benefit me," she added.
Meanwhile, civil servant Michael Tan said that the government’s upcoming WFH initiative would provide his colleagues and him the opportunity to save on some daily expenses.
"We work in Kuala Lumpur, but quite a number of us endure a daily commute of 20 kilometres to 40 kilometres as we stay in various districts of Selangor. One colleague actually stays in Nilai, Negeri Sembilan and has to travel about 100 km to and from work," he said, adding that when the initiative starts on April 15, they would save on commuting time and fuel money.
And while the government initiative is about saving fuel, what was equally important to them was that they would save on toll charges as well.
"I would save RM5 daily on toll for a two-way trip, while some of my colleagues would save anywhere up to RM10 or RM15 at least," he said, calculating their penny-pinching would add up to significant savings of between RM120 to RM240 a month.
He noted that the amount saved on toll payments should be enough to offset the cost of additional electricity used by air-conditioning and equipment at home.
"And that doesn’t include what we would save from the petrol we don’t use," he added. - BERNAMA