Research has found that a shorter working day can increase productivity and make employees happy.
If you agree with the aforementioned study, then we may have some great news for you. The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) has urged the government to consider reducing the current civil servant’s daily working hours from 8 hours to 6 hours.
“We will see, and study it first. Actually some of the civil servants working in the Urban Transformation Centre (UTC) and some of the selected agencies are already on 14 hour shifts or if divided by 2, 7 hours for each officer. So this has already been practised. However we will look at why there is a need for the 6 hour work days and so on,” Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa was quoted as saying.
The minister for the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim, is also supporting the notion of a 6-hour work day to provide work-life balance to government employees.
“I welcome the call from the MTUC and I would also like to thank the Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa, who will look into and scrutinise the proposal. Over the past 2 years, we (the ministry) have been implementing flexible working hours, with 3 options, for our staff,” she said.
The proposal, according to MTUC secretary-general N. Gopal Krishnan, is not only to increase productivity but to prevent Malaysian employees from burning out, which in turn will negatively impact the work force in the long run.
What do y’all think? Will this implementation produce a positive outcome? Do sound off in the comments section below.
Sources: Malaysia Gazette, Astro Awani.
