# Flexible working arrangement requests under s.60P and s.60Q

> FWA in Malaysia is not a perk policy — it is a procedural duty with a 60-day written-response clock and a requirement to state grounds on refusal.

- Category: employment
- Language: en
- Status: published
- Updated: 2026-07-20
- Canonical: https://negaraku.md/en/employment/flexible-working-arrangement-malaysia

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Most Malaysian coverage of flexible working describes it as a benefit an employer may
choose to offer. That reading misses the point of Part XIIC entirely. The Act does not
create a right to work flexibly. It creates a **duty to answer**, in writing, within a
fixed period — and that duty is enforceable whether or not the answer is yes.

## What section 60P gives the employee

Section 60P(1): *Subject to Part XII or anything contained in the contract of service, an
employee may apply to an employer for a flexible working arrangement to vary the hours of
work, days of work or place of work in relation to his employment.*

Three variables, and only three: **hours**, **days**, **place**. A request to reduce
scope of duties, change reporting line or cut pay is not an FWA application.

The opening words matter. The right is subject to **Part XII** — rest day, hours of work,
holidays and other conditions of service — and to anything in the contract of service.
Section 60P(2) adds that where a collective agreement exists, the application must be
consistent with its terms.

## What section 60Q requires from the employer

This is the operative provision, and it is three subsections long.

**s.60Q(1)** — the application must be **in writing**, and in the form and manner
determined by the Director General.

**s.60Q(2)** — the employer *shall, within **sixty days** from the date such application
is received, approve or refuse the application*. Not acknowledge. Not consider. Decide.

**s.60Q(3)** — the employer *shall inform the employee in writing* of the approval or
refusal, and **in the case of a refusal, shall state the ground of such refusal**.

That is a procedural obligation with a date attached, which is why it belongs on a
compliance calendar rather than in an HR handbook.

## What the Act deliberately does not do

**It does not list valid grounds.** The employer must state a ground; the Act does not
say which grounds are acceptable. Business need, operational disruption, customer-facing
requirements, supervision, security — all are available on the face of the statute.

**It gives no right of appeal.** There is no internal review mechanism and no statutory
tribunal for a refused FWA application.

**It does not create an entitlement to the arrangement.** A refusal on a stated ground,
communicated in writing within 60 days, complies fully.

The failure mode is therefore almost never the decision. It is silence, or a verbal no,
or a decision on day 75.

## The penalty

Neither s.60P nor s.60Q carries its own penalty, so **s.99A** applies: any person who
commits an offence under the Act in respect of which no penalty is provided is liable on
conviction to a fine **not exceeding RM50,000**.

## Running it properly

1. **Date-stamp receipt.** The 60 days run from the date the application is received, so
   the receipt date is the single most important record in the file.
2. **Use the prescribed form.** Section 60Q(1) makes the form and manner a matter for the
   Director General; check the current requirement with JTKSM rather than accepting free
   text.
3. **Diarise day 45.** Leave room to consult the manager and draft the response.
4. **Write the ground, not the conclusion.** "Refused as the role requires attendance at
   the plant during production shifts" is a ground. "Refused" is not.
5. **Keep the correspondence.** The evidence of compliance is the written decision and its
   date.
6. **Check the collective agreement first** where one exists, because s.60P(2) requires
   consistency with it.

## Common mistakes

**Treating a verbal answer as a decision.** Section 60Q(3) requires writing.

**Approving informally and never documenting it.** An unrecorded approval leaves you
without evidence that the 60-day duty was discharged, and without agreed terms for the
arrangement itself.

**Refusing without a ground.** The ground is a statutory element of a valid refusal.

**Running the clock from the manager's review rather than from receipt.** Section 60Q(2)
says from the date the application is received by the employer.

**Assuming senior employees are excluded.** Sections 60P and 60Q are not among the six
provisions disapplied above RM4,000 a month by First Schedule paragraph 1A.

**Confusing FWA with a change to normal hours.** Any arrangement must still sit inside
the s.60A(1) limits — 8 hours a day, 45 a week, a 10-hour spread-over, and the absolute
12-hour ceiling in s.60A(7).

## What's next

Put a single owner on FWA intake, log the receipt date, and set a 45-day reminder against
the 60-day statutory deadline. Then check that whatever arrangement you approve still
fits inside the [statutory hours limits](/en/employment/working-hours-overtime-malaysia).

## Sources

- Employment Act 1955 (Act 265), updated text as at 1 January 2023 — https://jtksm.mohr.gov.my/sites/default/files/2023-11/Akta%20Kerja%201955%20(Akta%20265)_0.pdf (Jabatan Tenaga Kerja Semenanjung Malaysia)

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