"" Welcome to my thoughts: Why do we need to change working hours?

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Why do we need to change working hours?

Ever since Anni administration has changed the working hours and Pay of civil servants, public started to debate about it, starting from political figures, and party level to individual citizen. Some heavily criticize, however other strongly supports to the decision.

Even though I support to it, I personally feel that they have not given enough of information and justification about the move. Human being will have tendency to resist change, unless or otherwise the change is justified to them, especially when it comes to work life. The critics believe that changing working hours will have bad impact to those who earn low income, and believe that they’ll not have enough time do part-time work to fulfill their living needs.
As former government has very much influenced public servants’ mind-set during his 30 years, so we should keep in mind that it is not easy task to change them. That is the main reason why they declining to implement plan of current government.
There are many possible reasons why there seems to be a change recently in working hours. School system has change to one session. This make working parents’ life easy; they don’t need to take their kids to school morning, afternoon and evening, like they did before, and decentralization of the government is another move towards the work life balance. Once this system is fully implemented across the country, people will see the real benefit of this move.
I believe that the productivity and service efficiency of our government servants will also be benefited by this change. Some criticize that one hour is not enough for them to have a lunch; in fact a very less number of people will go home and take lunch, and others claim that as the country is 100% muslim country they need time off to have their prayer done. In some extend I am agree with them, but government not necessarily needed to release them all at once to pray, instead government could provide avenue, where they can perform their prayers in the office or nearby mosque.
Recent study shows that 78% of Maldivian workers go to bed between 11pm to 2 am. Research suggest that at least 08 hrs of sleep is a must to refresh the human system. Although there is a little or no impact of moving from 7:30 am to 8:00.
I suggest reviewing business hours as well. I think Maldives is the only country where all the shops keep open from 8am till 11pm. I presume it is good to practice new business hours from 8 am till 9 pm including time-off for prayer and meal. Study shows that reducing or shutting down of public transport and closedown of shops (except authorized party with high tax) will help to reduce crimes and increase safety in the densely populated towns.

Share/Bookmark

No comments: