Civil servants with children with disabilities allowed to work from home under 3 circumstances

Civil Service Regulations have been revised to permit civil servants who are parents or guardians of persons with disabilities to work from home under three circumstances.

According to the amendment, work from home will be allowed based on document issued by a medical professional stating the level to which the person with disability in question requires help in their day-to-day life.

With the new amendment, civil servants who are parents or guardians of persons with disabilities will be categorized into three groups.

• Category 1: Parents of persons with disabilities who are completely dependent on others in their daily life.
• Category 2: Parents of persons with disabilities who require a moderate level of assistance from others in their daily life.
• Category 3: Parents of persons with disabilities who do not require assistance from others in their daily life.

Civil servants who belong to Category 1 will be allowed to work entirely from home.

However, those who belong to Category 2 and 3 will only be allowed to work from home when it becomes absolutely necessary that they stay with their child or children with disabilities. And it becomes necessary that they need to spend over half of their official working hours with their child or children, they must be allowed to work from home the entire day.

State institutions are required to consider certain factors when allowing work from home. They are:

• Ensuring that the assigned work is something they can properly carry out from home.
• Ensuring that the civil servant has the resources and conditions at home to carry out their assigned work or tasks.
• Assigning work and monitoring that the work is carried out, while ensuring there’s no disruption to the services provided by the institution.
• Civil servants must attend office when instructed by their employer under circumstances where it becomes necessary.
• The permit for work from home will be cancelled if the civil servant fails to complete work as required.

Civil servants will be allowed to work from home after signing an agreement which includes a confidentiality clause.

Meanwhile, teachers, nurses and senior employees whose physical presence if required are ineligible for work from home under the new policy, but must be offered flexible options.