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

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.