Ho Chi Minh City authorities are working on a plan to allow civil servants whose daily work does not involve meeting with people to work from home, VNS reported.

The municipal People's Committee has ordered the HCM City Institute for Development Studies (HIDS) to develop a plan this year.

This is part of a project to optimize the city's civil service in the period of 2024-30 to better serve more than 10 million local residents and 300,000 enterprises.

Working at home. Source: Internet

The city will boost the application of advanced technologies and have certain civil servants work remotely on a pilot basis. They will be staff in charge of processing paperwork and not those who directly meet with people or businesses.

Previously, many State agencies in the city had already applied the work-from-home mode under COVID-19 restrictions.

By the end of last year, the city had a total of 19,059 State workers on its payroll. There are currently no figures on how many of them hold positions applicable for remote work.

To build a team of professional staff, the city offers many solutions to improve the quality of recruitment, training, and development of officials while continuing to build mechanisms and policies to attract high-quality human resources to work in State agencies.

The city also rotates staff, leaders, and managers at all grades by sending leaders and managers to the grassroots to train and create conditions for staff to develop their management skills comprehensively.

From 2024 to 2025, it targets to overcome the limitations and shortcomings of the civil service and its staff, with the aim for civil services to meet the new requirements of the city’s development during the 2025-30 period.

With the development of technology and Internet connectivity, remote work has become popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. Employees can work anywhere, at any time instead of being at the office for eight hours.

Belgium became the first country in Europe to legislate for a four-day week. In February 2022, Belgian employees won the right to perform a full workweek in four days instead of the usual five without loss of salary, according to Euro News.

The new law came into force on November 21 last year, allowing employees to decide whether to work four or five days a week.

Germany is home to one of the shortest average working weeks in Europe. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the average working week is 34.2 hours.

Yet, the country has become the latest testing ground for a four-day week. A new pilot project has been announced, echoing calls from trade unions for a change.

According to a survey by cloud-software vendor Qualtrics, a whopping 92 percent of US workers are in favor of the shortened workweek, even if it means working longer hours.

The employees surveyed cited improved mental health and increased productivity as the perceived benefits.

In Canada, research from global employment agency Indeed found that 41 percent of Canadian employers are considering alternative hybrid schedules and new work styles, following the Covid-19 pandemic.

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