GOVERNMENT agencies now have greater flexibility in adopting a four-day compressed workweek after the Civil Service Commission (CSC) amended its Flexible Work Arrangement (FWA) policy to clarify rules on work schedules, leave credits, holidays, and service continuity.
CSC Chairperson Marilyn B. Yap said the revisions are meant to support the government’s push to modernize work arrangements in the public sector while ensuring uninterrupted delivery of services.
‘The amendments provide government agencies with greater flexibility in organizing work schedules that benefit civil servants while ensuring that public services remain accessible to citizens,’ Yap said.
Under the revised policy, agencies may allow employees to
complete the mandatory 40-hour workweek in four days instead of the usual five, with agency heads given the discretion to determine daily work hours and designate the additional day off.
Government offices, however, must continue delivering services from Monday to Friday despite the compressed work schedule.
Frontline and on-site personnel may also be placed under the arrangement, provided agencies can ensure that face-to-face services remain available.
CSC also clarified that employees under the compressed workweek will continue to earn the standard monthly accrual of 1.25 vacation leave credits and 1.25 sick leave credits without any reduction in benefits.
Employees who take a leave day while on the four-day schedule, however, will have 1.25 leave credits deducted for every day of absence, while the deduction will revert to one leave credit once an agency returns to the regular eight-hour workday, although Wellness Leave and Special Privilege Leave may still be used on a per-day basis.
The revised guidelines likewise provide that employees scheduled to work 10 hours on a holiday or during a work suspension will be considered to have completed their required hours without the need to make them up, except those assigned to 24/7 essential frontline skeleton forces.
If a holiday or work suspension falls on an employee’s designated day off, the remaining workdays for that week will temporarily revert to the standard eight-hour schedule.
CSC Resolution 2600414 took effect retroactively on March 6, in line with Office of the President Memorandum Circular 114, while agencies and employees that implemented the arrangement in good faith under previous interpretations of the policy will not face administrative penalties.