FINANCE Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez announced he has ordered the Department of Finance (DOF), its attached agencies and government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) to craft back-to-office transition plans after more than a year of implementing the work-from-home scheme.
Dominguez said the DOF and its agencies and other attached organizations should gradually shift to working normally in their respective offices as more government employees get fully vaccinated. DOF agencies include the Insurance Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the bureaus of customs, of internal revenue, of local government finance and of the treasury.
As of October 8, 76.6 percent of DOF employees have been fully vaccinated.
“I think that we should already have a plan for transitioning back into working normally. In other words, back-to-office work,” Dominguez was to have said during a recent executive committee meeting for other attached agencies and state-run corporations under the DOF.
“I’d like everybody to start working on this plan already assuming that we’re going to have to live with this virus,” he was quoted in a statement issued by the DOF as saying.
Dominguez said these transition plans should include testing protocols for employees and their immediate families. Moreover, seminars should also be included in the plans to educate employees on how they can return safely to full-time office work.
The Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases has yet to allow the full transition to back-to-office arrangements in the National Capital Region, currently under Alert Level 3 until end-October.
The Department of Health reported last Tuesday there were 4,496 new Covid-19 cases and 63,637 active cases.
Meanwhile, new recorded deaths reached 211. There were also 9,609 new recoveries.