Is the Philippine Bureaucracy Ready for a Work from Home Scheme?

Ms. Ishna Amoren, Mr. Billy Cubilan, Ms. Mirjam Tesalona, Mr. Patrick Dahipon (University of the Philippines)

The frustrating transportation system has severely impacted the productivity and work-life balance of the Philippine workforce in general. There also exists an added pressure for the public sector to provide more efficient and effective services. Such factors resulted to the rise of output-based performance evaluation in the public sector and major rethink of the traditional work set up through the adoption of telecommuting or a work-from-home set-up. Telecommuting has recently gained favour from both legislators and citizens as evidenced by the enactment of the Telecommuting Act in the Philippines which is, however, only applicable to the private sector. The objective of this paper is to determine the Philippine bureaucracy’s readiness in adopting a work set-up as radical as telecommuting or work-from-home by answering the following questions: (1) Is the WFH set-up plausible in the Philippine bureaucracy; (2) What type of job functions are applicable for the WFH set-up; and (3) Is the WFH set-up favoured by government employees? The researchers conducted a survey to get government employees’ perspectives that were used to answer these questions. Results analysis revealed that such set-up is favoured by government employees and it is considered applicable to the Philippine bureaucracy but subject to several limitations.

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