Workers wearing masks (Image via Detik Finance)

Jakarta Governor Allows WFO with Only 25% of Employees

Jakarta’s Governor Anies Baswedan has decided to reimpose social restrictions – known as PSBB (Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar, Eng.: Large Scale Social Restriction). This decision was taken based on the limitations of beds and hospital capacities for covid-19 patients. The governor predicted that hospitals would have no bed left for covid-19 patients by September 17^th if the number cases kept spiking in the city. He added that there had been a rise in covid-19 cases in Jakarta since the beginning of September.

Reimplementing social restrictions is referred to by Baswedan as “emergency break policy”, which means the government could stop the transitional social restriction policy and return to the tighter and stricter social restriction policy that was put in effect from April to mid-June as their initial response to covid-19.

However, there are differences from this time’s social restriction policy and the one before. This time, office workers could still work from their offices. There is a condition for this; business operators must ensure that the percentage of the workers must be limited to 25% of the total number of workers.

Essential sectors can operate on-site with 50% of their employees working from office. This regulation also applies to government offices. If there is evidence of covid-19 contagion in the offices, then the government requires temporary closure of the concerned office(s) for at least three days. This entails a pause of business activities as well.

Exceptions can be made for law enforcement and disaster management agencies. If the operations of these agencies need more than just 25% of overall employees, then adjustments can be made.

Governor Baswedan originally wanted to implement the same kind of large-scale social restriction as the one Jakarta had in April. However, this idea was not so well-received considering that it could cripple the economy.

Source: https://bit.ly/35KiVsn