staggered work hours?!

Staggered Work Hours - I have been meaning to write about this and today is just about good as any other day. Last week (December 15), the MMDA kicked-off its latest experiment. It ordered government employees to report to work at 7am and go home at 4pm, instead of the regular 8am-5pm working hours. Private offices are encouraged to start at 9am and end at 6pm.The program would run until January 6, 2005.

Why may you ask? According to MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando, the staggered working time would reduce traffic during the Christmas season. Hmmm... did chairman Bayani think this through?

Lets see... government employees reporting to work at 7am. hmm sounds good, but when you think of it, an hour or two would be wasted. How can that be? Well, since some businesses are not in operations until 8 or 9 am, there are little things to do. The hours between 7 and 9am, will therefore be spent by a government employee to eat breakfast and do other things no necessarily related to work. Since the common time that private and government offices are open are between 9am and 4pm, that gives us only 6 hours (excluding lunch break) of services or interaction. Is it worth it?

Let us tackle traffic next. Since most of the traffic are concentrated around mall areas, this scheme does not really help uncongest traffic where we need it the most - roads going to and passing through malls such as SM and Robinsons. Since government employees are done by 4pm, most of them go to malls to do their last minute Christmas shopping. Employees getting off at 6pm will also troop to the malls, not only to shop and dine but also to wait for the traffic to lighten. Hmmm, did Bayani really do this to help decongest traffic or to lure shoppers to malls?

Another thing, starting this week, most of the employees (be it private or government) will be taking their 2 weeks off. That alone would reduce traffic. And since the xmas break has started, early morning traffic is better than before.

So, what really was achieved or is being achieved by the lastest MMDA program? Is it really improving the traffic situation this holiday season? For more information and opinion about this program, you could read it here, here and here

Staggered work hours - the intention was good, but was it really thought through?