VARIOUS sectors of the public service are still trying to work out the kinks in the new working hours that were agreed under the bailout terms with international lenders.
State services are serving the public for longer following extended working hours, which came into effect on Wednesday, the public administration and personnel department has said.
Civil servants – but not shift workers – can start work at any point between 7.30am and 8.30am and leave between 3pm and 4pm as a transition. From September 1, employees will come in between 8am and 9am, leaving between 3.30pm and 4.30pm.
They will no longer work Wednesday afternoons to serve the public, spreading out that time over the week instead.
The measure is part of changes aimed at reducing overtime by introducing non-stop working time and extending flexitime, said senior official with the public administration and personnel department at the finance ministry, Sophia Vassiliou.
It has proved to be good news for some workers in the broader public service.
“I prefer having a lie-in and a relaxed morning, not getting stuck in traffic with parents driving kids to school,” said 34-year-old Margarita Georgiou, who works in a semi-state organisation. Georgiou may be among staff enabling the public to be served for longer.
Vassiliou said most departments reported that they had complied and extended their hours. The public administration department wants to extend services to the public to 2.30pm instead of 1pm under the old system. This would mean members of the public who need to visit a government department could do so on their lunch break instead of rushing to get there by 1pm.
The citizen’s advice bureau will continue working as normal, between 8am and 5pm, Vassiliou said. Smaller semi-state organisations implanting government hours as part of their regulations are also enforcing the new schedule, she added.
This includes the central agency for the equal distribution of burdens and the Cyprus youth board.
Bigger semi-governmental bodies, including the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), are unaffected.
EAC spokesman Costas Gavrielides said they were still mulling the changes.
“We employ shift workers and [overhauling the schedule] is not so simple. We have to see how we can tend to the authority’s needs,” Gavrielides said.
Police and the health ministry that also use the shift system have asked all staff to come in at 7.30am, until they can see what changes they can introduce.
State facilities that don’t have an electronic clocking in and out system cannot monitor the flexitime arrangement, and so are also having all staff come in at 7.30am, the public administration department said.
Adding a voice of dissent, Glafcos Hadjipetrou the head of public service union PASIDY said it was not clear yet whether or not it served the public to abolish Wednesday afternoon opening. “The issue is about serving Cyprus society,” Hadjipetrou said, even though the new hours would see public services open longer on a daily basis and not just on Wednesdays.
It is, at any rate, to soon to gauge the broader impact of the changes.
Traffic conditions should improve as public servants will no longer leave en masse at 2:30pm to return home along with bank employees at the same time, and workers will not have to share the streets with parents dropping their kids to school in the mornings. But the head of the traffic police, Demetris Demetriou, said they would have to wait for next week when schools open to see what happens.
