Kuwait: Evening work shift to kick off early next year
New system set to be manned by 20 to 30% of government employees
Cairo: Kuwait will start evening work at some governmental agencies that offer services to the public early next year, a senior government official has said.
The new system is expected to be manned by 20 to 30% of the government employees whose actual work hours will not exceed 4.5 hours, Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Shereeda Al Mousherji added.
The daily beginning and end of the evening shift will be left for each government agency to set based on public interests, he said.
“The evening work project comes after looking into proposals and visions forwarded by the ministries and government agencies, as well as the scope of their preparedness to implement it and fulfil its goals,” Al Mousherji said.
He explained that the Council of Ministers’ recent approval of the new system, along with the usual morning work, is part of efforts to improve the work environment for government employees to do their job under less pressure that will reflect “positively” on productivity increase.
“The implementation of the proposal will contribute to curtailing traffic congestion in the morning period by reducing the numbers of the employees as they will be switched to work in the evening on the one hand, and citizens and expatriates who prefer to have their transactions seen to in the evening on the other,” Al Mousherji added.
The employee will be free to choose between morning work or transfer to the evening shift based on what suits him/her, personal preference, the interest of the work and the number of employees allocated for the new shift.
Earlier this week, the Kuwaiti government assigned the Civil Service Commission to go ahead with implementing the proposal. The government support followed a presentation from the commission’s chief Essam Al Rubaiaan at a Cabinet meeting.
In August, the head of the Civil Service Commission met senior officials at 13 government agencies to discuss a mechanism for evening work at their institutions.
Kuwait has a population of 4.9 million people including 3.3 million expatriates.