Dr Muzaffar Syah Mallow
KUALA LUMPUR: Employers in the country should offer flexible working arrangements for employees to protect their health and safety, suggested Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia syariah and law senior lecturer Dr Muzaffar Syah Mallow.
He pointed out that under the government’s Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), employers are encouraged to allow employees to work from home and implement flexible working arrangements to protect them from Covid-19.
“Such encouragement must be interpreted as an order and be observed seriously by all employers in the involved working sectors. Employers cannot simply ignore such an encouragement or call made by the government,” he opined on Wednesday.
“The war against the Covid-19 virus is still not finished and until a vaccine is found, employers must take proactive steps to protect their own employees from being infected with such a deadly and highly contagious virus. In dealing with this health threat, employers in all sectors in the country can consider implementing flexible
working arrangements for their workers.”
He said this would reduce the number of workers required to leave their houses, travel to work, and face the high risk of being infected with Covid-19.
“Flexible working arrangements or generally known as flextime or flexi time are variable and changeable in terms of schedule or the nature of the working environment, in contrast to traditional work arrangements, which normally required employees to work at a standard time period from
8am until 5pm per day from Monday until Friday in one standard or usual place. There are various kinds of flexible working hour arrangements that can be offered to the workers,” he said.
He said these included Flexi Hours that allow employees to vary their work hours; Flexi Weeks that allow employees to vary their weekly work pattern; Flexi Year that allows employees to vary their yearly work patterns; Flexi Location that allow employees to work from locations other than their designated workplace; Flexi Worksite that allow employees to work from different locations within the workplace; and Flexi Career that allows employees to move in and out of the workforce and structure their career around other interests or responsibilities.
Muzaffar said these more common forms of flexible work are being adopted globally due to the rapid advancement of new and modern technologies.